Archives for July 31, 2007

It seems the Foreign Secretary David Miliband has a "double" who works at Stormont. The Speaker's advisor Richard Good is forever being told that he looks just like Foreign Secretary (he does). In fact, he is growing a little weary of phone calls immediately after the news that start with "did you know...."

(Previous entry had described Mr Good as special advisor - when it should have been advisor.)

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The DUP's Gregory Campbell has apologised to the chairman of the Committee for Standards and Privileges for failng to register his positions as MLA and councillor in a timely fashion. He was late in registering his membership of the Northern Ireland assembly after both the 2001 and 2005 election, and his membership of Derry City Council after the 2005 poll.

The apology came after a probe by the Commissioner for Standards and Privileges Sir Philip Mawer in which Mr Campbell made several arguments, including that the person who made the initial complaint was wrong on the facts and therefore the complaint should be disposed of.

News of the MP's eventual mea culpa was contained in the report by the Standards committee. In the report Sir Philip notes in paragraph 27, Appendix One that had Mr Campbell been willing to acknowledge and apologise (for what the MP himself called an oversight) then he might have been able to deal with the issue under the rectification procedure. Such a procedures in certain circumstances means a formal report can be avoided.

Sir Philip continues: "Since Mr Campbell has failed to do either, I make this formal report to the Committee in order that it may take such action as it sees fit."

A meeting between the MP and the Committee's clerk helped clear up the matter as the MP apologised on July 18.

Another point that comes up in the report is Mr Campbell's concern that at one point the Commissioner rang the DUP Whip's office to ask Mr Campbell to make contact, even though the MP's letters to Sir Philip included his home address. Sir Philip in a letter to the Clerk of the committee explains that he had not been asked to communicate with the MP only through his home address - and in fact had addressed letters to the MP at the House of Commons. However at one point Sir Philip, needing to check progress of a reply from Mr Campbell, asked his PA to check the position with Mr Campbell's office. She duly rang Mr Campbell's office in the House but was diverted to the DUP Whips office. Sir Philip writes that this was "something of which she could not have been aware" and adds: "I can only express regret for any difficulty her entirely inadvertent contact with the staff of his party's Whip's office may have caused Mr Campbell."

Now what difficulty would that be?

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