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Diary Diary
(2 days later)
• With dark hounds of controversy circling Grant Shapps's business career, the Tory chair needs to be careful. He still hasn't really explained his alter ego of Michael Green to anyone's satisfaction. He needs to be squeaky clean. Which makes us look with interest at the website of PrintHouse Corporation, the printing firm he founded and of which he is a shareholder. By all accounts, a firm of some distinction. And this is interesting – among the testimonials is one from the Labour party. There it is: "Many thanks for your attention and brilliant delivery service – I would recommend you to anyone! Jos Maloney, The Labour party." So we look deeper. For a start, who is Jos Moloney? No one seems to have heard of him or her. Intriguing. Is she a relative of Michael Green? After many inquiries, we find that there is a Jessica Moloney, a Labour official in Lewisham Deptford, but she says she didn't write anything like that to Shapps's company. However, she did work closely with another party member, Jos Bell – who did, as head of a local campaign, order some leaflets from PrintHouse and may have sent them something complimentary. PrintHouse subsequently supplied the local Labour party itself with an estimate for further work but Maloney, on learning of the Shapps association, decided not to proceed. So what do we like best about all this? Is it that the testimonial may have come from a composite of two individuals? Or that Grant Shapps's company has been working for Labour? Neither, in fact. It is that while David Cameron was desperately trying to garner support for Andrew Lansley and his half-crazed health blueprint, Shapps's firm was printing leaflets castigating his party's plans for the NHS. • With dark hounds of controversy circling Grant Shapps's business career, the Tory chair needs to be careful. He still hasn't really explained his alter ego of Michael Green to anyone's satisfaction. He needs to be squeaky clean. Which makes us look with interest at the website of PrintHouse Corporation, the printing firm he founded and of which he is a shareholder. By all accounts, a firm of some distinction. And this is interesting – among the testimonials is one from the Labour party. There it is: "Many thanks for your attention and brilliant delivery service – I would recommend you to anyone! Jos Maloney, The Labour party." So we look deeper. For a start, who is Jos Maloney? No one seems to have heard of him or her. Intriguing. Is she a relative of Michael Green? After many inquiries, we find that there is a Jessica Maloney, a Labour official in Lewisham Deptford, but she says she didn't write anything like that to Shapps's company. However, she did work closely with another party member, Jos Bell – who did, as head of a local campaign, order some leaflets from PrintHouse and may have sent them something complimentary. PrintHouse subsequently supplied the local Labour party itself with an estimate for further work but Maloney, on learning of the Shapps association, decided not to proceed. So what do we like best about all this? Is it that the testimonial may have come from a composite of two individuals? Or that Grant Shapps's company has been working for Labour? Neither, in fact. It is that while David Cameron was desperately trying to garner support for Andrew Lansley and his half-crazed health blueprint, Shapps's firm was printing leaflets castigating his party's plans for the NHS.
• Nothing wrong with that. It just looks funny. And Dave's pretty alive to how things look. In his new book, Live From Downing Street, the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson tells how Big Dave worried about perceptions, even as he headed out to the Arctic to prove his green credentials. "The image-conscious Cameron was adamant he would never be seen in a hat," says Robinson, "Even when the temperature dropped below minus 25 degrees centigrade. His team believed only losers were filmed wearing hats. John Major had been ridiculed after being snapped in a turban on a trip to India, and William Hague for an ill-judged flirtation with a baseball cap." And who was famously snapped in a woolly hat while out jogging? Wasn't that Boris?• Nothing wrong with that. It just looks funny. And Dave's pretty alive to how things look. In his new book, Live From Downing Street, the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson tells how Big Dave worried about perceptions, even as he headed out to the Arctic to prove his green credentials. "The image-conscious Cameron was adamant he would never be seen in a hat," says Robinson, "Even when the temperature dropped below minus 25 degrees centigrade. His team believed only losers were filmed wearing hats. John Major had been ridiculed after being snapped in a turban on a trip to India, and William Hague for an ill-judged flirtation with a baseball cap." And who was famously snapped in a woolly hat while out jogging? Wasn't that Boris?
• They do like to divide the world into the arbitrary camps of winners and losers, for if quotation books are to be believed, Margaret Thatcher defined a loser as anyone riding the bus beyond the age of 26. And for Dave, it's anyone who wears a hat. People of substance, aren't they?• They do like to divide the world into the arbitrary camps of winners and losers, for if quotation books are to be believed, Margaret Thatcher defined a loser as anyone riding the bus beyond the age of 26. And for Dave, it's anyone who wears a hat. People of substance, aren't they?
• Some things change, some stay the same. Austin Mitchell, the veteran MP for Grimsby, knows that now. "Shut up Menschkin. A good wife doesn't disagree with her master in public and a good little girl doesn't lie about why she quit politics," he tweeted in the direction of Tory Louise Mensch on Monday. Cue a merde-storm, prompting something of a clarification. "Wife, three daughters, one granddaughter and Labour press office all demand that I withdraw my tweet. No chance of front bench now," he said, the soul of contrition. It was ironic, he told the Press Association afterwards – I love Louise Mensch. "I'm surprised that people have taken it so negatively. What happened to humour?" Whatever indeed. So much changes, but some things stay the same, including the Guardian cuttings library. And thus, from 1989, we find our report on an off-the-cuff speech made by Mitchell at a Burns night dinner in London: "In Grimsby we know a woman's place," he said. "It's on her back on a kitchen table." That was ironic, even back then. Ever the master of irony.• Some things change, some stay the same. Austin Mitchell, the veteran MP for Grimsby, knows that now. "Shut up Menschkin. A good wife doesn't disagree with her master in public and a good little girl doesn't lie about why she quit politics," he tweeted in the direction of Tory Louise Mensch on Monday. Cue a merde-storm, prompting something of a clarification. "Wife, three daughters, one granddaughter and Labour press office all demand that I withdraw my tweet. No chance of front bench now," he said, the soul of contrition. It was ironic, he told the Press Association afterwards – I love Louise Mensch. "I'm surprised that people have taken it so negatively. What happened to humour?" Whatever indeed. So much changes, but some things stay the same, including the Guardian cuttings library. And thus, from 1989, we find our report on an off-the-cuff speech made by Mitchell at a Burns night dinner in London: "In Grimsby we know a woman's place," he said. "It's on her back on a kitchen table." That was ironic, even back then. Ever the master of irony.
• Finally, here we go again: Halloween and Bonfire night, and once again the police furrow their brows at the prospect of all that antisocial behaviour. They seem particularly concerned about what the pesky mites will do as they go house to house in north London. Hence the response, Operation Hallfire. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.• Finally, here we go again: Halloween and Bonfire night, and once again the police furrow their brows at the prospect of all that antisocial behaviour. They seem particularly concerned about what the pesky mites will do as they go house to house in north London. Hence the response, Operation Hallfire. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Twitter: @hugh_muir Twitter: @hugh_muir
• This article was amended on 1 November 2012 to correct the spelling of the surname Maloney, which had been rendered as Moloney in two instances.