Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Saturday 12 June 2010

Ainsworth interview

Coventry North East MP Ainsworth, who spent the 11 months up to the General Election in the cabinet, was rarely able to secure one-to-one meetings with Mr Brown and when the two did get together Ainsworth says his views on defence policy were generally ignored, he has revealed.

“It’s no secret that Gordon and I are not each other’s greatest fans,” he explained. “I found him very difficult to work with. Impossible really.”
Makes Mrs R think, "Aww, poor Bob.

Then she read this :-
In his first major interview since resigning as Secretary of State, Ainsworth admits he is struggling to get used to “normality”. He’s gone from a cossetted life, whisked around the world with first class travel accompanied by a retinue of support staff and armed security guards, to the role of a backbench constituency MP.
Why on earth did he, or indeed any government minister, need all that? It does, though, help explain this profligacy. Since 2008 (Fausty)
£178 million [spent] on MPs' pay and perks
....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funnily enough, while I despised Ainsworth while he was in office, now that he is able to speak his mind, it does seem that he had at least some principles.

Or maybe I'm getting a bit soft in the head! Err, probably.

Mrs Rigby said...

That newspaper interview was quite revealing and did elicit some sympathy.

But ... too many of them (Labour) are saying they 'had principles but didn't speak out'.

Trouble is with Ainsworth in particular, his 'not speaking out' or 'not standing his ground' may have cost lives - but did keep him in a job, and a nice lifestyle.