Not really. He might cop the awesome wrath of Nick Clegg, who's made paying interns the big difference of principle between the two parties, but otherwise media organisations (who almost certainly do the same) won't push this.

I love the "safe pair of hands" thing about Hammond. Sure, he's done reasonably well at protecting rail investment, even if he does accept all the "nothing to do with privatisation" bollocks about rail costs. But he's been in the job 17 months.

That's quite a low bar.

If they didn't promote Theresa Villiers (the minister of state in transport, and a formerly shadow transport secretary for nearly 3 years) she must be incredibly bad. Still, with meteors like Greening about...

Oh did I say that Peter Bone, having moaned about tittle tattle, got asked what he thought about the allegation that Fox had gone to rich people asking for them to pay for Werritty, replied with "I lost interest halfway through the question"?

The straight-talking Tory right!

I've just remembered Letwin.

Hammond now looks to me like Mark Waugh on the safe hands front.

Top tip on Twitter : "David Cameron - why not appoint Nick Clegg as Defence Secretary? That cunt can't have ANY friends......"

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

How many more times in the next two days is Fraser Nelson going to pop up trying to portray Fox as the victim in all of this?

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www.newshuddlines.blogspot.com

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

Interesting point made on the Ken Livingstone/David Mellor programme on LBC this morning (one of the best programmes on radio, BTW). Normally when something as obviously dodgy as this is going on the civil servants would have words with each other and further words would be had with Cameron suggesting that he really needed to have a look at it. So the question is: did the civil servants keep schtumm because they wanted to see Fox fall? Or did they do their job but Cameron chose to ignore them? Given his track record on Coulson, I incline towards the latter.

This might shut up Bone and the like....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15324686

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... -lies.html

If this is true, where's the fraud? Most of the money seems to have gone on first class airfares, but he had to fly.

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

The fraud is in Werrity claiming to be a ministerial advisor, his business cards clearly designed to give the impression that this was an official position and that he had gone through all the vetting procedures. It's rather like claiming to be a police officer. It doesn't matter if you haven't eaten at the staff canteen, you are still claiming to be in an official position which you are not.

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"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."
Voltaire

And why did he have to fly? Why did he have to be there at all? Other ministers and Defence Secretaries manage to cope without drafting in their mates as special advisers, and he doesn't seem to have any particular experience or qualifications that fitted him for the job better than anyone else. If he did, presumably he would have been officially on the payroll. You have to wonder whether the reality is that he was there for his own benefit, not Fox's or the government's.

Werrity would have been paid on a self-employed basis at best, and I'd be surprised if those who paid him were in any position to dictate exactly how he did whatever he did. It's probably easier to talk to foreign dignitaries if Fox was present than by phone. Which means flying.
They were undoubtedly deceived, but fraud id obtaining money by deception.
And Werrity's employers are reported to be angry about being named. They aren't going to testify in court, let alone make a formal police complaint. Not over what is probably small change to them.

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

The various donors to Werrity's companies seem to have been under the impression that their money was meant to have gone towards organising conferences working towards peace in the Middle East. As none of the money seems to have been spent on anything other than first class air fairs and five star hotels for AW, perhaps this is where financial fraud might lay.

Call my cynical, but I would think the chances of a prosecution are pretty slim.

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"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."
Voltaire

As I said. The "victims" aren't going to be inclined to cooperate with the police. And how can Fox have been unaware of what was going on? He knew Werrity had no right to be present at the meetings. Not profiting from a fraud doesn't mean you can't be charged with conspiracy to defraud.

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Sick Left-wing Zealot.

Fox is going to claim he's been cleared of financial gain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011 ... erial-code

Has he fuck. He's a liar. How do we know what he might have been promised in the long term? Or that there isn't money in an account somewhere? He's not as clever as he thinks he is, clearly. But he's not stupid enough to have had money paid into his main current account.

An enquiry lasting 4 days by a civil servant doesn't "clear" anyone. It merely doesn't find evidence of wrongdoing.