Thursday, April 05, 2007
It's Called Hedging Your Bets
Ann Keen is a loyal woman. She's also PPS to the Prime Minister in waiting Gordon Brown. It's safe to say that she doesn't breathe without his say so. So it's all the more interesting to learn that she has invited David Miliband to speak to her Brentford & Isleworth Constituency Labour Party in May. Well, as Talleyrand might say, I wonder what she means by that...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Great fun Iain but I just can`t see it.
Oh yeah? I got an invite from my CLP a few days ago. Sure enough there it is: an opportunity to hear David Milliband hold forth on the environment. My own eyebrows raised at this - the last Labour grandee to grace us with his presence was The Beast of Bolsover. Anne is very loyal to Brown, so what's this all about? An attempt to hug the poor boy to death, I reckon.
Probably worried about her seat and desperate for any gimmick. She's made a safe seat into a marginal, after all, with her utter neglect of constituency business and her incompetent opportunism over local causes such as stopping the Picadilly Line at Turnham Green tube station.
Constituencies are always scrabbling around for speakers. Particularly speakers who wont bankrupt them. Why not Milly Band/ he is probably cheap.
Pah, Ann Keen. Hopefully she's out at the next election. Along with her husband next door. With any luck the beginning of the end of labour nepotism in the area.
The Brentford and Isleworth Consituency LP offices are also a disgrace. A blight on Chiswick High Road. They can't even be bothered to keep the garden tidy.
(The Conservatives solve that problem by not having a garden, the LibDems by not having offices that I know of)
I presume her husband and fellow MP is Alan Keen? I see that their claims for the "cost of staying away from home" - eg buying a second home at the taxpayers' expense - allowance, were as follows: Ann Keen £15,794, Alan Keen £14,494, making a total of £30,288 for the Keen household.
The total claimable for an individual MP is £21,634.
Since being a married couple it seems likely they live in the same (two) houses, that sounds like a thumping great profit to me - but what do I know, I'm just one of the poor sappy taxpayers funding it.
Have blogged this non story HERE with a much better couple of my own. Hat tip please.
Post a Comment