Chris Huhne... going soon?

[don4l]

Chris Huhne seems to be in need of some friends at the moment. I wonder where they all are? Does he have any friends, or has he stabbed too many allies in the back?

First we see revelations about possible PCOJ with the speeding points. Next, somebody leaks a letter from Vince Cable, which attacks Huhne's ridiculous windmill plans.

There are rumours that Huhne is avoiding the press today, and he apparently failed to appear in the House for his own energy bill today.

This video shows the kind of person that we are talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIke19Wkr14


Personally, I feel that the sooner he goes the better.

Don
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[don4l]

Stu R said:

Certainly seems to be skating on thin ice doesn't he?

If he's not gone soon he's got some friends in high places!

That's the point. He doesn't seem to have any friends.

I get the impression that he has been a bit ruthless on his way to the top. Being ruthless can reap dividends in the short term, but eventually you end up with too many enemies.

The bookies seem to have him as odds on favourite to be ne next cabinet minister to leave his post.


Don
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[don4l]

Guido reports that there are more revelations to come in the Sunday papers.

http://order-order.com/2011/05/12/for-huhne-the-be...

Guido said:

Guido has been digging on this one all week and the it’s a total mess. One Downing Street source gave him a 10% survival rate past Sunday…

Things seem to be shaping up nicely. Let's hope that Guido is right on this.

Don
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[don4l]

thinfourth2 said:

Why?

What difference will it make?

Do you really think him going will make anything even vaguely better

You will just get some idiot trying to out green the previous idiot.

The only possible benefit to anyone is the company that has the contract for making the headed paper beyond that i don't see any gain for anyone

You might be right, but we couldn't have anyone worse than Huhne. So the worst case scenario is that things stay the same.

Some of the Liberals might take a slightly more sensible approach. Vince Cable's attack on Huhne's policies show that there is not total agreement.

Any slowdown in the construction of the windmills would be a step forward.

Don
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[don4l]

Einion Yrth said:

colonel c said:

Are we likely to run out of suitable Lib Dem MPs to make ministers out of?

The existence of Huhne and Cable as ministers would tend to suggest we already have.

David Laws?

Don
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[don4l]

colonel c said:

That will be the same David Laws who was happy to defraud the tax payer out of forty grand to keep the public from knowing he was homosexual. I think that is somehow worse that the ones who were pocketing our money for personal gain. Not that he tried to keep the truth about his personal life hidden. Although that's bad enough but the fact he was happy to fiddle 40k of public money to do it.
Now the cs want to ease him back into government because he's supposed to be such a 'brilliant politician'. It's Mandelson all over again.

I am not convinced by his "hiding his homosexuality" argument. That just seems to be like playing the race card. He also fiddled his phone expenses, and £2000.00 worth of builder's bills, neither of which can be defended by his privacy arguments.


You do not have to steal taxpayers money to protect your privacy. Even if you were stupid enough to believe that such behaviour was acceptablem why would you claim £250 a month more than the market rate for similiar properties?

The fact that the media are going easy on Laws shows how far standards in society have fallen.


Don
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Edited by don4l on Friday 13th May 10:46

[don4l]

elster said:

If he said he was in a relationship he could have claimed almost twice as much.

How so?

Would he have been entitled for more by designating his boyfriend's property as his main residence?

Don
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[don4l]

Victor McDade said:

Gone by monday?

The 'Wail' have got hold of a 13 minute telephone conversation between Huhne and the person who allegedly took his speeding points.

The Telegraph also has a bit on this story. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberalde...

You have to love the Wail. I'm not sure if any other newspaper could produce the following:-

Sunday Mail said:

While Mr Huhne dumped his attractive Greek wife Vicky for former lesbian Carina Trimingham, Mr Clegg is married to glamorous Spanish-born Miriam Gonzalez Durantez.

Don
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[don4l]

Things are hotting up nicely. Essex police might actually investigate the case, and Huhne seems to have gone into hiding.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberalde...

and...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1387423/Ch...


Don
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[don4l]

Oh dear, the PM has expressed "full confidence" in Chris Huhne. That is usually done about a week before dismissal. I was hoping that he would go today.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13409701

Don
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[don4l]

So after a few days being AWOL, Mr Huhne has finally popped up in this short interview:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedd...


Interviewer: "Secretary of State, are you completely confident that Essex Police will find nothing that will incriminate you?"

C.H. "All I want to say is simply that these allegations are simply incorrect. They have been made before and they have been shown to be untrue. And I very much welcome the referral to the police as it will draw a line under the matter."

Interviewer: "If they are old allegations, why are they still being made then?"



C.H "I don’t want to say any more than that. I think the police can get to the bottom of this."

Interviewer: "Did you ever ask anyone to take points on your behalf?"

C.H. "Thank you."


His answers seem very evasive indeed. Why not give a direct denial when given the opportunity?


Don
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[don4l]

Bedazzled said:

If Vicky Pryce did take the points, presumably she signed a form saying so, and is just as guilty of lying to the police. And yet she's claiming the moral high-ground insisting on 'honesty', a mere 8 years later. A woman scorned, and being exploited by political opponents, why get behind that?

Hopefully she will get off with a suspended sentence as a reward for coming forward with evidence. Hopefully, Huhne won't get off so lightly.

Don
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[don4l]

Guido Fawkes is suggesting that Newsnight will be covering this story tonight - with an emphasis on the fact that Vicky Price was at a London Conference when the speeding offence took place.


Don
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Edited by don4l on Monday 16th May 21:58

[don4l]

Andy Zarse said:

don4l said:

Guido Fawkes is suggesting that Newsnight will be covering this story tonight - with an emphasis on the fact that Vicky Price was at a London Conference when the speeding offence took place.

Indeed they di, and Michael Crick also suggested that she went out to dinner with some colleagues after the conference was over making it wirtually impossible for her to have been on the M11 at the time of the offence. It shouldn't be too hard to prove one way or another.

Crick also deconstructed Huhn's defence that this was "old story", what a lying hound he is, the Huhn story starts at 22mins, Crick at 28.40...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011cp3p/News...

Huhne does seem to think that we are all gullible fools. His interview at lunchtime yesterday was utterly unconvincing. In fact, it really insulted the intelligence of the viewer.

Dave Cameron, who had earlier expressed confidence in Huhne, blatently refused to support him later in the day.

It reflects badly on modern society that such duplicitous behaviour has not already led to his resignation.

In the past, the fact that the man had left his wife and children would have made him unfit for high public office.

Don
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[don4l]

Bedazzled said:

Vicky Pryce is not some timid housewife, she's an intelligent and successful economist. Even if he put her name on the form without her knowledge, when she received the NIP she decided to go along with it, and yet he's taking all the flak.

It wouldn't surprise me if he did it, of course, although it's not impossible for her to have been in the area at roughly the time he left the airport. Nobody seems to know what time the speeding ticket was, either.

Her part in this is irrelevant. He is a minister of the crown, and we expect a certain degree of personal integrity from him. He seems to be falling woefully short on this front.

He also seems to have been quite ruthless in his rise up the ranks of the Lib Dems. This ruthlessness means that he has few friends who are willing to defend him in his hour of need.

Did you watch the "Calamity Clegg" interview that was posted earlier in this thread?

Don
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[don4l]

JPJPJP said:

what would the offence be if he had indeed passed the points to his wife?

would she also be guilty of an offence for allowing this to happen?

The offence is "Perverting the course of justice". It often results in a prison sentence of between 9 and 18 months.

She could also be guilty of the same offence. However, the court would take into account any pressure that he might have applied to her.


Don
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[don4l]

Bedazzled said:

don4l said:

Her part in this is irrelevant. He is a minister of the crown, and we expect a certain degree of personal integrity from him.

Her part is only irrelevant if you're following a political agenda, the law applies to all citizens equally. If they did do this, they should both be convicted of PCOJ, she had ample opportunity to correct it when she received the NIP. She needs to wake up and realise that the media is exploiting her personal circumstances.

Perhaps "irrelevant" was the wrong word to use. What I should have said is that there is little reason for public interest in her role.

He is a minister of the crown. I'm surprised that anyone would feel that one needs a political agenda to recognise that his role is of national interest whereas her role is not.


Don
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[don4l]

Oh dear, this afternoon in Parliament...

Immediately after Chris Huhne's Carbon Budgets statement, Labour's Karl Turner will present his Dangerous Driving (Maximum Sentence) Bill to the Commons. :ROFL:

The bill would increase the maximum jail sentence for dangerous drivers from two to seven years.

So, will Chris disappear after his Carbon Budgets stuff, of will he hang around in acute embarassment. I'll be watching Parliament Live from 5:15.



Don
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[don4l]

More revelations in the press today. The Sun are alleging that he had a previous affair when he was an MEP. The Mail has a story from two former Lib Dems that Huhne spent £10k more on his election campaign than he was legally entitled to.

This reminds me of the wise words Jimmy Durante.
"Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down."


I wonder what stories will appear in tomorrow's papers?

Don
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[don4l]

Huhne seems to be stepping up his campaign to save his career in today's papers. He now seems to be using his own children in his defence. How could anyone stoop so low?

Sunday Telegraph said:

Relations between the two camps have now sunk so low - after Miss Pryce covertly taped her husband to try to secure a confession from him - that a friend of Mr Huhne told The Sunday Telegraph: “If he has to stand down then he has to stand down. But at least he doesn’t have to share a bed with that woman again. She is an awful, awful woman. He left her and she should get over it.”

The friend also claimed that Miss Pryce’s allegations could have disrupted their son’s A-level preparation, potentially jeopardising his chances of securing the necessary grades to get into Oxford University.

The friend said: “She really could have waited for their son to have finished his A levels. Maybe the boy’s mother should have waited for a week before trying to get his father sent to jail.”

Mail on Sunday said:

The friend said the family were angered further by reports that Mr Huhne was seeking a private meeting with his ex-wife to call a truce ‘for the sake of the children’.

Are there no depths to which a politician will not sink? This is the man who promoted the value of family relationships in his election campaign - while he was having an affair!

Don
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Edited by don4l on Sunday 22 May 08:53