The vast majority of talented SpAds have already left Sunak’s sinking ship and shifted to the private sector. SW1 staple the British Venture Capital Association generously invited twenty SpAds and other advisers to a boozy four-hour final schmooze-session last night at All Bar One on Villiers Street. In attendance were Downing Street’s Callum Tucker, David Goss, and Mary Burns, along with Sunak’s favourite private equity giant Blackstone. They’re not taking Labour advisers to budget All Bar One, that’s for sure…
Teams from media monitoring and policy in CCHQ also showed up along with dark arts Conservative Research Department staff. Corporate attendees were told: “Members may want to consider whether there are businesses in their portfolio that would be suitable for a ministerial visit, in case you have the opportunity to discuss that with the relevant adviser.” Better squeeze in those visits pretty quickly…
A senior Westminster source tells Guido: “Sunak can stop telling everyone else to concentrate on fighting Labour when he’s given half his team post-election jobs in the private sector and the other half are off down the job-fair. They’ve given up.” The pre-election Tory SpAd job round wrapped up about a year ago…
Reform are on the offensive over in Blackpool. Party sources are taking issue with Blackpool South Tory candidate David Jones’ defence over the Menzies affair. Jones, who is also chairman of the Tory association in Menzies’ Fylde, categorically denied having had any knowledge of the matter prior to The Times story at a hustings last night – that’s despite CCHQ investigating Menzies’ misuse of donors’ money from January. A Reform spokesman in Blackpool tells Guido:
“It is inconceivable that he was unaware given that elderly members of the association were called at 3.15 a.m. by Menzies, but if he was, he clearly isn’t trusted by association members.“
Jones isn’t a stranger to days out with Menzies campaigning. And still not worthy of that 3 a.m. call…
Guido understands that the Labour Party have suspended Khuram Majid, Labour’s council candidate for the Elland Ward in Calderdale from the local elections following Guido’s story on his social media posts suggesting that Israel should not have been “surprised” about the “inevitable” Hamas bombings. Another one bites the dust…
He’s now pending an investigation, with no party support for his campaign. With the local elections less than two weeks away, as with Azhar Ali in the Rochdale by-election, Majid has to remain on the ballot. Apparently Labour central HQ were made aware of Majid’s questionable views early doors, though are being very slow in releasing an official statement. History does repeat itself…
When there’s a new sleaze scandal every week you can forgive the BBC for getting its whipless Tories mixed up. A segment on the BBC News 1 p.m. bulletin detailing Labour’s calls for a police investigation into Mark Menzies featured a smooth montage of photos…of Will Wragg. Easy sleazy to get them confused…
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Anneliese Dodds wrote to the Tories yesterday asking a number of questions, including whether Menzies’ behaviour was “common practice for Conservative party MPs”. The Tories’ overall majority dropping from 80 to 43 goes some way to answering that question…
An anecdote Guido heard yesterday might explain some of those “personal expenses”. Some years ago Menzies brought an attractive young man onto the Parliamentary estate. One gay Tory MP was so outraged to see the two swanning around in the Strangers’ Bar that he stormed up to the whips’ office to demand they take action and come straight down and reprimand Menzies for his behaviour .“It’s outrageous he’s parading around parliament with a rent boy”, he told Anne Milton, a whip who was a former nurse was not easily outraged. Drily she responded “How do YOU know he’s a rent boy?“
