Saturday, July 22, 2006

Labour Minister Trousers £24 Million

The Mail on Sunday has finally printed its story on Shaun Woodward. Apparently he has sold his Oxfordshire mansion for a whopping £24 million. The Mail on Sunday says there are rumours of a marruage breakdown but they pretty categorically denied by his wife. Read the full story HERE.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting inference by the Mail....as it doesn't involve payment for odd practices do we care?

Anonymous said...

'Five years ago, he developed a close personal bond with freelance cameraman Luke Redgrave, 39, the son of actor Corin Redgrave and former model Deidre Hamilton Hill, with the pair seen visiting each other's London homes.

Woodward abandoned the Tories in 1999 after a row over his refusal to toe the party line on the banning of Section 28, a clause outlawing the promotion of sexuality by schools and local authorities.'

The Daily Mail as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Anonymous said...

If they did split, I wonder who would get custody of the butler?

Anonymous said...

Enough money for "reserved places"?
Donation perhaps....?

Scipio said...

Oh for goodness sake - who cares? If he was splitting because of another women would the mail be running the same story (actualy, they probably would)! Yes he is loaded, yes he represents (politically speaking) all that is bad about new Labour, and yes he almost certianly gay/bi-sexual (and eveyone in the Westminter village has been saying so for years), but at least he hasn't imploded like the poor old member for Wincdhester, or had his 'moment of madness' on Clapham Common (that we know of). He is porbably having a bit of a rough time sorting out his emotions - and there are children involved. Just because he is who he is doesn't mean he should be denied a bit of privacy to work things through. Unless there is evidence that he is acting illegally or hypocritically, then the papers should wait until a formal comment about the seperation is announced. I'm totally in favour of the free press (i'd die fighting for it), but I'm just not sure where the public interest is here?

Anonymous said...

Don't believe anything the Mail says against him. They have had a rather unpleasant hate campaign going for some time now.
I am pretty sure this is all bollocks. He should be allowed some privacy. What's the man done wrong?

Scipio said...

I do wonder how much tax he will pay on $24 million though? Not that I suppose it matters when you are (presumably) about to get a nice divorce settlement from someone who is worth as much as his wife is! Still, it's a shame for the kids - and being a rich kid doens't make it hurt any less.

Anonymous said...

Oh and one more thing: they are all going on holiday together. He hasn't been around all the time, recently, as he was Northern Ireland minister (untilt he reshufle), which involves a lot of travel.

Praguetory said...

Yalland - If you'd die fighting for a free press you should already be dead. Fool.

Anonymous said...

If anybody has had a hate campaign against Woodward then I am sure that it is entirely justified. My sympathy for him is about as great as his loyalty to us.

The point about the house is a good one. Woodward - a socialist now presumably - sells his house for 24m but his ideas would stop ordinary people accumulating such a fortune. Thus we can add hypocrite to traitor on his list of virtues.

Still, in three years Shaun is finished. Then we will really have a laugh at him.

Yak40 said...

MoS also has story re Dr David Kelly's "suicide".
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=397129&in_page_id=1770

Anonymous said...

I do wonder how much tax he will pay on $24 million though?

ZERO I should have thought since the house will be owned by an offshore trust ..........

I am rather more interested in Camilla and when we can meet........

Anonymous said...

Traitor? He left the party over section 28, which almost everyone can now see was deeply unpleasant. It would have suited his career better to stay a Tory and oppose the abolition of section 28, but he didn't. He stood up for his beliefs. He's not a socialist either. How many Labour MPs are actually socialists?

Anonymous said...

James Schneider
All members of the Labour party are socialists, and not just because they all say they are either. There are many types of socialists from Adolf Hitler to Bono, but they all have one thing in common. State and or workers control of the means of wealth production, and the right of all to share equally in the benifits and oppertunities created by society.

Sounds good untill you read Animal Farm or read between the lines of what this all, in reality meens for you.

To be a socialist you have to believe that the leaders of such a powerfull state entity can be trusted. History and our own personal experience of human beings demards us to understand that they can not.

Some, but an ever decreasing amount of socialists believe that this "minor detail problem" of socialism can only be adressed when society is in an almost perpetual state of revolution.

Most sensible people think socialism of all types is totalitarian elitist bullshit. That power and wealth is safer when dispersed into the many many private individuals and companies that created it. It is also fairer and helps make people and society more productive, free and progresive.

The situation is not that we have no socialists in the Labour Party. It is that we have always had to many socialists in the Tory Party.

If you do believe the statement you made, try to stop watching to much BBC output.

Anonymous said...

What was disgusting about clause 28? Tt prevented local authorities spneding ratepayers money promoting homosexuality. The law was a direct reaction to the trouble making of loony left labour councillors. Is anyone seriously suggesting this is how local government should be spending its money?! The country is worse off without this law, and I dream of the day when we can have such legislation again.

Woodward was promised a job by Blair and company in 95. Woodward got a safe seat and cabinet post, Tony Blair got a high profile defection. Every decent person got a kick in the teeth. He put personal ambition over loyalty to his friends and betrayed the people wh voted for him 1995. That his personal life is a shambles now is surely a cuse for rejoicing and perhaps proof that there is a God after all.

Woodward's party are the party that hate Grammar schools, the only path most working class children have to get wealth like his or Blair's. This is why I despise these people. If they claim not to be socialists now then it is only because the country wouldn't elect them if they admitted it.

I only stop short of wishing him a painful disease because I know Iain would not print the letter.

Anonymous said...

Wolfenden never told us when he produced Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in 1957 that his son was a practising homosexual, alcoholic, and drug-addict.

Shaun Woodward did not tell us when he crossed the floor to Labour whether he really did so over Clause 28 or whether Labour spun that one, or whether Lance Price who admits to having spun that story in some context, knew Shaun Woodward in another context and perhaps pressured him.

One of the unfortunate things about homosexuality in public life is that we still do not know wgo is being blackmailed by the Peter Tatchells etc and who is advocated courses of action based upon motivations unknown to the public.

It may well be that Shaun Woodward's "private life" is private, but should Lord Woolfenden have been the man to draft a Report or was that the reason he was chosen ?

Anonymous said...

"One of the unfortunate things about homosexuality in public life is that we still do not know wgo is being blackmailed by the Peter Tatchells"

I doubt Peter Tatchell is blackmailing anyone

strapworld said...

'Woodward to give all the money from the sale of his country estate to the poor of his constituency'

The headline you will never read here first on Iain's blog!

Anonymous said...

What a nasty little homophobic rag the Mail on Sunday is - sneering and envious too.

What is wrong with a Sainsbury heiress using her own rightfully inherited money to buy a substanial house? And then selling it at a tidy profit? And those proceeds going to husband and wife - I thought the Mail on sunday supported marriage.