‘This stinks’, came the cry – and I fear it was bang on: HENRY DEEDES sees the Government feeling the heat over David Cameron lobbying scandal
We heard name-calling, we saw finger-wagging and witnessed more sprayed-on fury than a World of Sport wrestling bout. Ahhh, that’s more like it!
Following Monday’s Prince Philip-induced armistice, hostilities resumed in the Westminster trenches yesterday.
At issue: The murky matter of David Cameron‘s lobbying on behalf of lending company Greensill Capital.
Namely, how the financial firm and its slick Australian boss had got access to one of the Government’s Covid rescue schemes after a series of matey text messages between Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Cameron, whose stake in the now dead duck firm was set to be worth squillions.
David Cameron and Boris Johnson, pictured together in 2011, are at odds after an inquiry was launched into the former PM’s lobbying on behalf of lending company Greensill Capital
‘Grubby, shabby Government!’ bellowed barrel-chested Toby Perkins (Lab, Chesterfield) in the Commons this week
This ripe, smelly affair is now subject to a formal inquiry. Here was the Commons back to its flappiest, jowl-wobbling best, with spittle-flecked insults soaring across both sides of the chamber.
‘Grubby, shabby Government!’ bellowed barrel-chested Toby Perkins (Lab, Chesterfield). ‘This stinks, this downright stinks!’ yelled Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Lab, Slough).
‘Tan’ is an excitable cove prone to overblown displays of hysteria. But on this occasion I fear he may be bang on.
We were here because of an urgent question tabled by shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds, demanding Rishi come to the Commons to explain himself.
Miss Dodds, on borrowed time they say, is desperate to knock some of the shine off Rishi’s smile before she’s inevitably hoicked in the coming months.
Imagine her irritation when Mr Sunak conveniently decided this wasn’t a matter for him at all but for someone in the business department.
A gulpy junior minister, Paul Scully, was despatched to take the flak. Whenever Dodds gets cross, her head bobbles around on top of her neck. Yesterday, it was a like a helium balloon caught in a hurricane.
Even her auburn curls had turned a furious shade of inky black. The Chancellor was ‘running scared,’ she fumed. ‘He’s just spent £600,000 on communications. You’d think that would extend to communicating with Parliament!’
By her standards, a bona fide side-splitter.
Lex Greensill, owner of the lending company which has links with former PM David Cameron
The Government whips managed to find one or two Tory MPs to come to his aide. But Wes Streeting (Lab, Ilford N) pointed out that when MPs pleaded with the Chancellor for help during the pandemic they were lucky to ever hear back.
Yet a ‘few texts from Dodgy Dave’ were enough to secure Greensill ten meetings with the Government.
Jon Trickett (Lab, Hemsworth) accused Cameron of using high office as ‘a grubby route to riches in the after-life’.
Dave’s not dead, of course. But when this is all over you sense his business career might be.