Dave's dodgy diner

It’s not cash for access, it’s policies for power. To win and keep power, politicians want money. They’re quite prepared to sell a few policies in order to achieve their heart’s desire.

The Tories are bang to rights. Cameron is personally guilty. In an honourable world he would resign. In this one, he will call for some sort of Parliamentary inquiry into political funding which will conclude that private donors should be discouraged.

And, in exchange, the politicians will vote to take taxpayers’ money instead in a clear admission that they can’t actually trust themselves (let alone each other) to deal honestly.

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No sooner said than done –the Government’s new planning regime will destroy the countryside and deny urban areas the investment they desperately need.

Now we can see it’s happening already: a new town in the green belt between Birmingham and Coventry to go alongside the HS2 plus a third runway at Heathrow. They cannot be serious.

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Beware exploding Duracell batteries. Strangely, when you ring them up to complain, they don’t sound at all surprised to learn one of their AAs has blown up.

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It’s that time of the year again – the time when local councils, health authorities and other Government bodies try to get rid of as much money as possible before the end of the month. An NHS manager told me the other day she resigned after being asked to spend £30 million in March, having struggled through the previous 11 months trying to obtain any cash at all to improve services for the elderly.

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The scandal at the Ministry of Defence goes on and on. The car-boot sale of Harrier jump jets to the Americans has left this country defenceless. Now the planned aircraft carriers, which won’t be built for years, can’t accommodate the aircraft they’re supposed to carry. This country’s defence policy must be run by enemies of the state because nobody in their right mind would conduct it in this way.

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Dear Dave, If I have more kids, no job and no income and I plot terrorist attacks in this country and abroad, will you give me a bigger house too? It’s only fair and reasonable or do we only offer these things to friends of the late Osama bin Laden?

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BMW is offering workers in Oxford a six per cent pay rise – if they knock 10 minutes off their tea break. Is this an assault on our national character?