Here's the Article on Jacqui Smith LabourList Didn't Want You to See

Yesterday, I took Derek Draper to task for failing to publish on LabourList a single article on the hot political story of the day - Jacqui Smith's expenses. I made the point that it was impossible to imagine ConservativeHome not covering a similar story on the Tory side. Draper hit back and posted THIS piece, pointing out that they had included links to Mirror and Guardian articles in their lunchtime email. He also said...

None of our posters or readers have posted anything today on the subject or on the specifics of the Jacqui Smith case, if they we'd have had no hesitation in publishing them.

This turned out to be untrue. Two minutes after Draper published his post, Labour Party member and blogger Shamik Das submitted an article on Jacqui Smith to Derek Draper and his deputy, Tom Miller.


His email was sent at 16.05, but as of 7.30am this morning - more than 15 hours later - it strangely hasn't appeared. Shamik isn't a happy boy, and has emailed me to ask if I'd be interested in publishing it. Delighted to oblige.

The lurid revelations over the weekend about the Home Secretary's latest expenses bungle raise serious questions not just about her or even the Government but of the political class as a whole.

Trust in our elected politicians has never been lower, nor anger at their indiscretions greater. It's one thing to make genuine mistakes during the good times; quite another to actively be "on the fiddle" - as many people will see it - during the worst economic downturn this nation's ever seen.

A poll in this morning's Telegraph confirms the level of public distrust in our elected representatives: more than three-fifths (61 per cent) of those polled are less trustful of MPs than they were before the current expenses row blew up and nearly half (46 per cent) of respondents believe the system of allowances for second homes is wrong in principle and should be scrapped.

The greatest indicator of public loathing, however, is the two-thirds who think MPs' salaries and expenses to be too generous by half - a proportion bound to increase when next a poll is published following the announcement this afternoon of a 2.33 per cent rise in their basic wage to a staggering £64,766, though the freeze on Ministerial pay will most certainly be welcomed.

And it isn't just the perceived financial impropriety that so appals taxpayers as the fact that many MPs simply do not believe what they are doing to be wrong. So out of touch with their constituents are they - especially in these recessionary times - that they actually believe the taxpayer should pick up the tab for bath plugs or pay-per-view films.

For the Home Secretary to state that she inadvertently signed off the expenses claim for Raw Meat 3 and By Special Request - not to mention two, yes two screenings of Ocean's Thirteen - simply will not wash. This is the modern-day Home Secretary of the United Kingdom we're talking about, not some Colonial satrap in 19th-century India; it would be nice to think she'd have the common sense to check line-by-line the contents of what she's signing for.

We're forever being told that politicians aren't in it for the money, that they genuinely care about what they're doing and believe what they're doing to be right, and while the vast majority of MPs undoubtedly go into politics for all the right reasons, forsaking greater financial remuneration in the private sector, it is the alarming ease with which they forget where they've come from and how their constituents live that is the most depressing aspect of this sorry affair.

Cover-ups add to the degree of public anger, with many callers to phone-in shows and the like outraged by the attempts of certain MPs to suppress these embarrassing facts, be they bawdy backbenchers getting down and dirty in Commons work rooms or Tory blue-rinsers billing the taxpayer for their childcare; as so often in the past it's the botched concealment of damning evidence as much as the offence itself which lead to our rulers' downfalls.

The sight of MPs going to court to prevent newspapers from revealing the truth is contemptible, lowering them to the level of washed-up celebrities and diminishing not only themselves but the their offices.

Journalists often receive a kicking for the sensationalist, hypocritical nature of some of their reporting, yet it is they the public must thank for exposing these scandals, and with the government now mired in sleaze from top to bottom, bearing all the hallmarks of the dog days of the Major administration, it is the Fourth Estate who now stand head and shoulders above the establishment as the guardians of probity and propriety.

I might disagree with a few lines of that, but it's well written and deserved to be published on its own merits. Perhaps Mr Draper might like to explain why he felt it was unworthy of publication.

He may well say that he and his deputy haven't been at their computers since 4pm yesterday and that if Shamik had had a bit more patience, they'd have published it in their own time. If so, it rather reinforces the point I made about LabourList when it first started - that Derek Draper severely underestimated the time it would take up.

UPDATE: Shamik tells me that although the LL post was timed at 4.03pm, it didn't appear until much later - well after he sent his email - which, incidentally, has still not been replied to. Indeed. LL hasn't been updated now for 19 hours.

Despairing Liberal has made the point that I have not commented on the Eric Pickles drinks party. Indeed not. I wasn't there. Unlike Tim Montgomerie, who has indeed addressed it HERE on ConservativeHome.

Similarly, he complains I haven't commented on the Boris programme on Channel 4 last night. Indeed not. I haven't seen it. I'm not taking the Arsene Wenger defence, but do people really want me to comment on a programme I haven't seen? However, I have Sky plussed it, and will no doubt comment on it when I have seen it - which won't now be until next week as I am in Cardiff for three days from tomorrow.

UPDATE 2.35pm: Delighted to report that Shamik's article has now been published by LabourList. A mere 21 hours after he submitted it. All's well that ends well, then.