Cheek by Jowell!!!

[InsaneApache]

Like most people in the UK, I have been watching this farrago unravel in the last couple of weeks. I still can't make up my mind wether Ms. Jowell, cabinet minister, did or did not know of her husbands dodgy financial dealings.

I admit to being shocked at their announcement to separate. Is this, however, just another 'smokescreen' or the real thing?

Now that Tony has given her the 'kiss of death' full support (as in footy managers) it can only be a matter of time before she goes.

Good article today in the Sunday Times, the paper that first brought this to our attention.

Stench of sleaze

Until a few days ago Tessa Jowell was in danger of being remembered as a minister so cloyingly loyal to the prime minister that she “was ready to jump in front of a bus for him”. Now she risks being seen as a politician so ambitious that she was prepared to abandon her 27-year marriage to save her career. Politicians have faced conflicts over their personal relationships before; Robin Cook was forced by Alastair Campbell to choose between wife and mistress, while David Blunkett’s love life had more implausible plot lines than a Dan Brown novel. Ms Jowell may have taken us into new territory.

linky

Talking with my wife about this, I am a bit suspicious about Jowells claims that she was kept in the dark about the money. I, for one, would certainly notice £350,000 appearing in my bank account.

Then again I'm not a filthy rich socialist.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I have got very cynical in my old age, yet I am trying to believe that she wouldn't go to the extreme of staging a separation for the sake of her career.

In any case, I don't think it materially alters her problem. It was her responsibility to ensure that her spouse told her about any dealings that might need to be registered. Since she did know that her husband was involved in the Berlusconi trial, and she is Minister for Culture and Sport, she should have insisted on disclosure of any payments that might conceivably been from the media magnate or his affiliates.

Amazingly, the Prime Minister has allowed the defence of ignorance to stand, which means any old crook can simply claim that they didn't know of a deal that should have been registered. That drives a coach and horses through the Register of Interests.

I greatly admire those who have made money through hard work and innovation, creating something. But there's a revolutionary part of me that finds a labour politician married to a media lawyer flashing third-of-a-million quid mortgages around with gay abandon somehow nauseating.

If she didn't ask any questions at all about signing off £350,000 of her home for an investment opportunity, and none at all about how it was miraculously repaid four months later, it really makes you wonder what she does with the information in her despatch boxes.

Cut to Department of Culture, Media and Sport (yes, it's that unwieldy a title) meeting, agenda; Olympics: "Don't bother me with sums, they're hard. Whatever. Look, I signed it, didn't I? Oooh, pretty sparkles..."

[InsaneApache]

Curiouser and curiouser.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has been excluded from Cabinet talks on Iran since 2003 due to her husband's business dealings, it has emerged.

Following a Sunday Mirror report, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport confirmed Ms Jowell did not have access to confidential documents on Iran.

This was after David Mills allegedly tried to use his wife's position to sell passenger jets to Iran in 2003.

link

So let me get this right. Although she had no knowledge of her husbands business dealings, the cabinet office did?

Ms Jowell, who has separated from Mr Mills amid the current row, has been cleared by Tony Blair of breaching the ministers' code of conduct in the affair.

Indeed.

[Marcellus]

Ms Jowell, who has separated from Mr Mills amid the current row, has been cleared by Tony Blair of breaching the ministers' code of conduct in the affair.

Indeed.

The fact that the person responsible for invesigating whether Tessa Jowell broke the ministerial code is the person with the most interest of keeping her in the cabinet is indeed the worst aspect of this incident. For the ministerial code to have any meaning at all, the investigations into alleged breaches of it really must become independent.