Oink Oink! Oink Oink!

What Labour MPs said, and what they did

By Brendan Carlin, Political Correspondent
Telegraph
Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 09/01/2007


Tony Blair promised a "whiter than white" government but "say one thing, do
another" hypocrisy scandals - particularly over schooling - have dogged New
Labour from the start.
.. Tony Blair himself: accused of hypocrisy within barely six months of
becoming Labour leader after boycotting local schools in Islington to send
son Euan to the grant-maintained London Oratory Roman Catholic school, miles
away from his Islington home.
.. Lord Falconer, the Prime Minister's former flatmate, sent his daughter and
two eldest sons to fee-paying schools.
.. Harriet Harman: in 1996 the then Shadow Cabinet minister sparked fury in
Labour ranks by sending her son to a selective grammar school. "She made the
Labour Party look as if we do one thing and say another," said fellow Labour
MP Diane Abbott.
.. Diane Abbott: hoist by her own petard in 2003 after sending her son to a
£10,000-a-year fee-paying school. Even Miss Abbott, MP for Hackney North and
Stoke Newington, later said her decision was "indefensible".
.. John Prescott: The Deputy Prime Minister lived up to his "Two Jags"
nickname, following up negotiating the Kyoto climate change treaty by
travelling 250 yards by car in Bournemouth.
.. John Prescott again: Last year, Mr Prescott - then in charge of council
tax - was forced to apologise after it emerged he had not paid it on his
official London residence.

ROBBIE

Orwell, somewhere, said he would have done the same. I can't find it
in CEJL, tho.
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f.TakeThisOut@verizon.net

||: Deliver me from every pride -- the Middle, High, and Low -- |
||: That bars me from a brother's side, whatever pride he show. |