Geraint’s bad week continues
The last week will certainly be chalked down as one of the worst of Geraint Davies’ career. The long-serving MP was suspended by the Labour Party after numerous allegations of sexual harassment against young Labour staffers, Labour MPs and a member of Commons staff.
Formal complaints have now been made to the Labour Party about his behaviour, so it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting the whip back any time soon.
So far, only Politico has been able to get a comment out of him. Now Beachcomber can reveal he’s denied squaring up to Commons security in a pre-PMQs showdown.
A Commons source got in touch to say they recently saw Mr Davies “square up” to a parliamentary security officer ahead of PMQs, trying to “barge his way through to the chamber”.
He was, so the anecdote goes, stopped by security before pulling the ‘do you know who I am’ routine.
Geraint’s recollection of the event is somewhat different. He claims he entered central lobby just after the Speakers procession had passed through.
“A security guard, at the back of the crowd that had watched the procession, turned round and pushed me in the chest and I said “please don’t push me” and he said “you don’t have a pass” and I showed him my parliamentary pass then walked past to go to PMQs.
“I decided not to report him as he was trying to do his job although I did think him pushing me was unnecessary and excessive.”
How gracious not to report the guard for doing his job…
Good use for that black-belt
It appears Matt Hancock has set a precedent for what to do when you depart Government as a secretary of state: get on reality TV.
Beachcomber has it on good authority that following his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab has already been approached by Channel 4 who have asked him to appear as a contestant on the next series of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins.
Matt Hancock’s appearance on the show is yet to be broadcast but by all accounts Beachcomber hears he performs rather well.
No doubt Channel 4 is drawn to Mr Raab’s bad boy image and notorious black-belt in karate.
Thankfully it will be the SAS instructors doing the shouting…
No Payne, no gain
Former FT hack Seb Payne is on the receiving end of substantial Twitter abuse at the moment, thanks to the revelation he’s standing to be a Tory MP at the next election.
Seb’s currently running the centre-right think tank Onward, and was always very fair in his pieces about Boris Johnson’s government, so the move really shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Beachcomber thinks the social media pile-on is particularly unfair given two other journalists are also standing as candidates in forthcoming elections – the only difference being they’ve plumped for Labour.
Torcuil Crichton, the Daily Record’s Westminster Editor, is standing for Labour in Na h-Eileanan an Iar; John Hess, the BBC’s Political Editor for the East Midlands for many years is standing to become the Labour candidate for East Midlands Mayor.
Thankfully for Seb, Twitter has no say in who is selected as Conservative candidates…
MPs’ recess travels
It’s been a quiet week in the Red Lion with MPs and peers away on their holidays this week.
Quiet, that is, apart from the tourists from assorted countries who descend upon Westminster on tour buses for their selfies.
But Beachcomber has not been short of MPs sending their holiday snaps from various parts of the world.
One that struck the interest more than most was from one of Parliament’s resident Anglo Italians Marco Longhi, the eminently sensible MP for Dudley North.
He told Beachcomber that he was on a pilgrimage to the Eternal City – Rome.
The picture Longhi Whatsapped over was of the Archangel Michael, not as one may expect from the Vatican City where most pilgrimages end up but the Castel Sant’Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel).
Few remember that originally this was built as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian who was famed for building that wall across the north of England to keep the blue-painted Picts out from what is now Scotland.
Given Mr Longhi’s well-known antipathy to the SNP and all things Scottish Nationalist it seems that his pilgrimage was indeed to a man who had a dramatic solution to keep the lefty rabble from the north out.
