Oh no Rosie

[InandOutlander]

I'm so sad to see her go, she was the shining light within the Labour camp.

Here's the link to RD's registered interests. Two donations this year, both for election campaign costs.

https://members.parliament.uk/member/4616/registeredinterests

Also, she wrote an article for UnHerd, no financial disclosure, I don't know if that means it was below a certain threshhold? Or that she wasn't paid.

Duffield accepted £12k in election funding, took hotels and flights to the USA and Taiwan, valued at over £20k.

The 12k is there on the register. I assume the hotels and flights are from different years?

May 2024:

1. Employment and earnings
Role, work or services: Writing an article
Payer: UnHerd, 6 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP
Payment: £1,000 for an online article.
Received on: 1 June 2023. Hours: 3 hrs.
(Registered 2 June 2023)

Thanks. I've looked at the members' interests here:
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4616/registeredinterests

This gives details of the election funding, but not the other £20k you mention. I've had a look back at previous years and I can't find it there either (although it's not that easy to search so I might have missed it). Maybe you could give a direct link as I requested before (which you obviously have, since you mentioned it).

I'm not sure why you think it should matter if Rosie Duffield had direct funding from donors for her election campaign rather than via the Labour party (who also have funding from private donors for the election). Perhaps you could explain what you think the issue is here.

The register is a right tedious faff to go back through. Perhaps the pp could direct us to the specific timeframe when these expenses were claimed?

The register is a faff to go through, but it depends a lot on the individual member.

Most MPs are pretty clear with their declarations. If they're saying "Mr X donated £5k to my election campaign" or "I had these earnings from work at the Bar" or "I own two rental properties" then you can be fairly sure that's what you're getting. I know I roast David Lammy sometimes, but you can see what he earns from his media work.

A lot of the current controversy comes from, shall we say disingenuous entries, like when designer suits are passed off as office expenses or a birthday party as a networking event.

I've looked through the records since RD became an MP and I can't find anything like this.

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/standards-and-financial-interests/parliamentary-commissioner-for-standards/registers-of-interests/register-of-members-financial-interests/

The only things that the PP could complain about is a £350 ticket to a golf tournament in 2021 and a £5000 donation from Lord Matthew Oakeshott in 2019 (which is a bit odd, as apparently he's a Lib Dem). And UNISON helped her with the cost of sending Christmas cards in 2017 and 2018.

Other than that she's only received money for actual work like writing newspaper articles or TV appearances.

Perhaps they meant expenses?

https://www.theipsa.org.uk/mp-staffing-business-costs/your-mp/rosie-duffield/4616

That is, briefly: accommodation, staffing, travel expenses.

I don't think the Oakeshott donation is odd in the context of 2019. I wouldn't be surprised if he had made campaign donations to anti-Brexit MPs of various parties. He saw it very much as a "stop Boris" campaign.

I've gone through all the expenses and cannot find any mention of air travel at all.

There are travel expenses for both MP travel and staff travel, these are all described as road, rail, or taxi.

Mark Reckless and Douglas Carswell defected from Tory to UKIP in 2014 and resigned to force by-elections. They both won the by-elections.

Given the poll out today suggesting the Labour Government is less popular than the last Tory government, I suspect a by-election is the very last thing Labour would want. That is unless they are just vindictive towards RD and hoping the Tories would reclaim RD seat from her.

The speed of which Labour has lost voter confidence is staggering. It’s been 3 months, the poll is very sobering.

nut what did they expect. Wearing free clothes, going to free events and holidays and taking pensioners fuel allowance, whilst just constantly constantly going on about bloody hard decisions and the tories to excuse themselves.

They only have themselves to blame

Ridiculous pre GE lines and now this

Labour should still be in the honey moon period. Not yet 3 months and if there was an election tomorrow, the tories would get in.

I am not sure I’ve ever seen a government fuck it up so fast.

Its interesting that you frame following the rules as 'hiding behind the rules'?

Either the rules are fit for purpose, or they are not.

If they are not, they need to be changed , but it's not RDs job to change them. Why shouldn't she follow the rules as they are?

I've never understood this holier than thou attitude of 'holding people (that you don't agree with) to account' for following the rules such as they are.

What's good for the goose....

Also, are labour voters allowed to complain about the government, given that it's only been a short time since they were elected and part of that was summer recess? If so, it seems inconsistent to put a time limit on MPs getting frustrated and leaving the party. It's not like MPs do nothing at all while Parliament is in recess - they are still expected to meet with and correspond with constituents and work on their behalf (and can still receive abuse on social media).

They did. It was a deliberate strategy to turn up the heat on Cameron and force him to commit to a referendum.

It's memorable because it's unusual. There were loads of MPs who crossed the floor in the 2017-19 parliament, mostly over Brexit related issues, and none of them triggered a by-election.

When the SDP was founded in 1981, 28 Labour MPs and 1 Conservative joined it; of those, one resigned and fought a by-election.

So it's not unprecedented, just rare.

Also, are labour voters allowed to complain about the government, given that it's only been a short time since they were elected and part of that was summer recess?

I suspect there are some Labour folx who think the voters should be accountable to the party and not vice versa.

Remember Billy Bragg during the Corbyn years saying the Jewish community had to mend fences with Labour? The attitude isn't exclusive to the hard left. If Starmer is down in the polls, he probably feels the voters have let him down.

They literally had an open goal. Even Tories were disappointed in the last government. And they have still fucked up in record time.

For me, it's not so much what they've done specifically, it's how bad the optics are. It makes me think 'are you really so naive/stupid you couldn't see how this would go down? '

And if so, what other awful decisions are you going to make?

Apologies if I missed the link up thread:
Does anyone have the link to the aforementioned opinion poll about the government's (lack of) popularity please?

It’s literally all over every news outlet.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/28/keir-starmer-hits-new-low-in-personal-popularity-ratings

Ha ha! Thank you. Multi-tasking today. I haven't got as far as the normal news yet. I was catching up on the interesting MN threads.

I came here to post that - in fact I was going to use exactly that phrase: "put hte boot in". They really are pathetic.

They've also published a snide piece by Gaby Hinsliff:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/01/rosie-duffield-keir-starmer-mp-prime-minister-labour

I suppose it must grate on them that Rosie is a person of principle.

That is about his personal ratings. This one was about the government:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/keir-starmers-government-now-less-095922706.html