The Metropolis

Jellied Eels: The News in review

Angela Confeggi | Thursday 22 July, 2010 20:07

Team Expenses Scandal continued to collect star recruits with Tory MP Zac Goldsmith under investigation and Lord Taylor of Warwick being prosecuted over his records. The Independent states that the prominent Tory peer is ‘alleged to have claimed over £11,000 in expenses by pretending that his home was outside London’, although this was his actual residence.

A housing battle of another kind came to a legal close, with the Appeal Court ruling that peace protestors in Parliament Square must leave the site. The Democracy Village, awkward to attack with its anti-war foundations, has been instructed to dismantle after Boris Johnson played the World Heritage Site card. According to the Daily Mail, the group was initially formed to oppose the Afghan war but ‘had become little more than an al fresco dormitory for drug takers, drunks and the homeless’.

The Evening Standard reports on City Hall’s own contentious inhabitants, with Boris spending nine times more than predecessor Ken Livingstone on headhunters. The £450,000 expenditure in two years follows Johnson’s campaign criticism of Ken Livingstone for spending an ‘“excessive” £17.4million on consultants in the previous eight years’.
This hasn’t quashed Boris’ value on the nose. With Labour candidacy not announced until September, Betting Agency Paddypower has already marked the incumbent as favourite to win the 2012 Mayoral Election. Ken Livingstone has a probability of 11/8 to Oona King’s 5/1.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone’s attempt to maneuver his Private Member’s Bill banning certain face coverings, read Burqa and Hijab,* through Commons has not been met with grassroots support. Speaking to the Telegraph, Hollobone said he will refuse to meet with women wearing full Islamic dress at his office unless they lift their veil. The Kettering MP then challenged other European nations to ‘sit up and take notice’. However* Immigration Minister Damian Green* said that there is no possibility of a Coalition proposal emulating the recent French Bill.

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