Monday
Spare a thought for Michael Shanly, a property developer who is either Britain’s most incompetent tax evader or the most unlucky. If ever a man is entitled to feel he has been picked on it is Shanly, as a report from the National Audit Office has revealed he is the only person to be prosecuted by an HMRC crack unit of accountants set up in 2009 to pursue high-net-worth individuals thought to be paying less than their fair share of tax. To be fair to HMRC, the unit has only passed two cases on to the Crown Prosecution Service so it can claim a 50 % hit rate – though some credit for Shanly’s conviction must go to the French authorities who passed on a list of about 6,000 British citizens who were squirrelling money away in HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland.
Tuesday
The rewards for failure can some times be quite high. Most people might have assumed Will Straw would have wanted to keep a low profile after the way he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as the mastermind of the Stronger In campaign in June’s EU referendum, but instead he was rewarded with a CBE in David Cameron’s resignation honours list. Straw had this to say when asked what he had done to deserve the gong by Labour’s Paul Flynn: “I don’t know why I was given the reward. I didn’t ask for the award, but when I was offered it I wasn’t going to turn it down, not least because I had been – as campaigners on both sides of this campaign had been – away from my family for a lot of the campaign, and I wanted to have an occasion to take my wife to the palace.” As someone who was also away from home during the referendum , I’m sure my gong will soon be in the post.
Wednesday
MPs may not be very forgiving of other people’s weaknesses – scarcely a day goes by in the Commons without someone being outraged by something – but they are very indulgent towards each other. You might have thought that Michael Gove would have been sent to the backbenches indefinitely for the levels of treachery he displayed towards his friends during the EU referendum campaign, but the former justice secretary believes two months is quite enough for rehabilitation and has successfully got himself elected to the new Brexit select committee. Forgiveness can also be a two-way process: just months after Labour-MP-turned-washing-machine-salesman Keith Vaz stepped down from his position as chair of the home affairs select committee after he was alleged to have offered to stump up the cash to buy cocaine for a couple of sex workers, his comeback has begun. With the support of more than 150 Tory MPs who are keen that any future misdemeanours of theirs be treated with such quality of mercy, Vaz has been elected to the justice select committee. Pour encourager les autres. Or something.
Thursday
Last year the Spectator parliamentarian of the year awards were a – relatively – sober lunchtime affair at the Savoy hotel in London. This year the awards were moved to a gala evening dinner and my invitation sadly went awol. Must have been something I said last year. As you might expect, it is largely a bunfight for top Tories, though there are the few exceptions. Last year Diane Abbott collected Jeremy Corbyn’s award for ‘campaigner of the year’; this year she did the same for John McDonnell. Next year she might even win the category herself for her willingness to appear any time, any place, anywhere. Boris Johnson won ‘comeback of the year’, though he rather spoiled it by declaring Brexit would be as big a success as the Titanic. I guess it all depends on whether you’re one of the lucky ones in the lifeboat. The winner of the top accolade went to Theresa May, though the Speccy had been careful to relabel her category as politician of the year. Last year’s winner was David Cameron. Remember him?
Friday
My local hospital, St George’s in south-west London, is to be put in special measures after inspectors from the Care Quality Commission declared it to be unsafe and inadequately led. In its defence, I would like to claim what could be a world record for treatment at its A&E department today. Having woken up at 3.30 in the morning with crippling pains in my back which felt awfully familiar to the kidney stones I had 12 years ago, I woke up my wife and got her to drive me to St George’s. After no wait whatsoever, I was seen by a nurse, given pain relief and packed off to a cubicle. Within the next 90 minutes, I had had my blood taken, an ultrasound and a CAT scan performed, and by 9am I had been diagnosed with two kidney stones and sent back home with a packet of painkillers and the advice that they would either dissolve or pass within the next few days. Fingers crossed for the former. The moral of this – apart from a hospital in special measures also being a centre of excellence – is to get ill in the middle of the night.
Digested week: Judges 1 – 0 Brexit
