Harriet Harman Used Public Money For A Labour Party Rally

Deputy Labour Leader and repeatedly convicted traffic menace Harriet Harman has been caught out again, this time using tax payers money to fund her travel to a Labour Party rally in Exeter, seat of Ben Bradshaw, he of too many twits make a twat fame.

The real reason for Brown taking the Goats on the road, is really to try and rally Labour support in marginal constituences.

In a leaked letter from Ms Harman seen by The Times, she made plans to meet candidates, officials and trade unionists from across the South West region to discuss campaign strategy.

The letter, sent 12 days before the February 5 visit, said: “This will be a chance for me to hear directly from you as party members in a private meeting to talk about the issues and campaigning activity in the South West. It will be particularly helpful for me to hear from you in the run-up to the general election about the activities taking place in the area.”

Details of the meeting were not released to the press at the time.

Labour is vigorously defending the seat, held by Ben Bradshaw, the Culture Secretary, with a 8,559 majority over the Conservatives. Ed Balls used the same occasion to visit Plymouth, where Labour holds two seats.

The Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: “Gordon Brown has been caught red-handed using government money to fund political activity. It is clear that these meetings are simply designed to ship the Cabinet into marginal seats to secure good PR for Labour’s election campaign at taxpayers’ expense.”

Mr Carswell has written to Sir Gus O’Donnell, the head of the Civil Service, asking him to consider blocking further regional Cabinet meetings and to investigate whether the meeting breached ministerial rules, which say that public money must not be used for political or electioneering events.

With only a few short weeks to go to the General Election do Labour really care any more about standards in public life?

Did they ever?