Party Lines: January 7th

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Liam Byrne responded to the Public Administration Select Committee’s report on quangos, and said Francis Maude is “Britain’s most expensive butcher”:

“The committee appears to confirm that Francis Maude is now Britain’s most expensive butcher.

“Labour wants to see fewer quangos and savings made. But now we know that the Tory-led Government has handled this so badly that any savings have gone up in smoke. It’s no wonder the select committee says the Government’s so called bonfire of the quangos has been ‘botched’.”

David Blunkett accused Nick Clegg of “a betrayal” by reducing the debate on control orders to “yah-boo politics”:

“Certainly when I was involved in overseeing MI5 they explained to me, in words of one syllable, just how difficult surveillance was.”

“To boil (debate over control orders) down to ‘You’re in favour of civil liberties’ is not just naivety, it is a betrayal. It boils it down to a ‘yah-boo’ politics that Nick Clegg believes in civil liberties and all ex-Home Secretaries don’t.”

And MP Barry Sheerman told the BBC said that he is “sad” that David Chaytor got a prison sentence for his expenses fraud conviction, and said it was “out of character” him him to be dishonest:

“I’m sad he got a prison sentence, because I couldn’t think of anyone better to be working in the community with unemployed people, or young people rather than being incarcerated at the taxpayers’ expense. Most of us who’ve known him over these years still think it’s totally out of character to be dishonest.”