Apr 09 2007
Labour’s next tacky scheme - the sale of Ministerial statements?
<p>Labour’s defence of the sale of the stories of mariners released from Iran plumbs a new low in the long and dispiriting history of Labour spin.</p>
<p>We are told that these mariners are "instant celebrities". It would be wrong to stop them selling their story. It would be impractical to do so. Their friends and loved ones could sell the story??instead if they were banned.</p>
<p>Some Ministers are instant celebrities - usually when they make some dreadful mistake and attract headline treatment. On the same logic we should say they should be able to sell their account of how they made the mistake.??They ??could carry on this government’s????tendency to tell Parliament after everyone else to keep the street value of the exclusive up and to allow the sale to a single media outlet first.</p>
<p>If criticised Ministers could say "I have become an instant celebrity. It is not practical to stop me selling my story. It might leak out. My wife or friends might tell a newspaper. Far better for me to tell it the way I want as an exclusive to a single paper and single TV channel, to maximise the payment."
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
The scale of the degeneration of this country, in just ten years under this atrocious Labour government, of which this sale of active service personnel’s stories is a further example, is both shameful and alarming. It is no wonder that it is reported in The Daily Mail today that “Well-educated professionals and managers are leaving the country in droves, according to John Salt, an expert on migration from University College London.” Is the Conservative Party, under Cameron’s leadership, ready, willing and able to reverse this rot? At the moment, I regret to say, that I remain to be convinced.
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