ANDREW PIERCE: Who are you to talk, Baroness Spendthrift?

ANDREW PIERCE: Who are you to talk, Baroness Spendthrift?

Like any exiting Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is busy working on his Resignation Honours list.

The 252 Conservatives in the Upper House are outnumbered by 434 Labour, Lib Dem and cross-benchers, so Boris aims to drape the ermine over dozens of new shoulders to help address this imbalance. And his plans are annoying all the right people.

In the Guardian last week, Gordon Brown called it a ‘scandal’. The Labour peer and Lord Speaker John McFall said it ‘undermines public confidence in our parliamentary system’.

But the noisiest of all in this squawking chorus has been Baroness D’Souza, one of McFall’s predecessors as Speaker. 

The 252 Conservatives in the Upper House (pictured) are outnumbered by 434 Labour, Lib Dem and cross-benchers, so Boris aims to drape the ermine over dozens of new shoulders to help address this imbalance

‘Overstuffing the chamber . . . to achieve a majority of Tory-voting peers will not resolve the problem of poor and ill-thought-through legislation,’ she moans. ‘Instead it will do the public a disservice.’

This from the woman who as Speaker insisted taxpayers should not ‘begrudge’ the £4,000 of their money she spent on flowers over five years to brighten up her parliamentary office. In justifying her extravagance, D’Souza argued that there should be more ‘respect’ for the ‘mystique’ of Westminster.

Then there was the £1,120 she spent taking a Russian delegation to the ballet, including £230 to keep her chauffeur waiting outside for four hours. Let alone the £10,000 splurged on ceremonial clothes during her tenure.

So who is she to talk about ‘doing the public a disservice’?

Love’s labours lost on Liz Truss 

As she appears unstoppable in her quest to become the new Conservative leader, there is one battle Liz Truss seems unable to win . . . with her own daughter.

Asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari at the first Tory hustings last week if she’d watched reality show Love Island, Truss replied: ‘I did for ten minutes with my teenage daughter and I was horrified and turned it off. 

‘Unfortunately, she wasn’t — and I’m quite worried she’s gone to watch it on her own!’

With the final airing tonight, the TV remote is sure to be fought over at Casa Truss.

Former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson racks his brains to find something positive to say about the party’s leader Sir Keir Starmer. ‘Brilliant speeches on the platform, but awkward in interviews,’ was Johnson’s verdict on the Political Party podcast. Brilliant speeches? What did we miss?

Boris Johnson makes no secret of his admiration for Winston Churchill. But historian David Starkey believes he is more similar to David Lloyd George. ‘Both had disrupted childhoods,’ says Starkey. ‘Both had ways with words. And both were driven by a powerful sexual appetite.’

Olwen — one of the Welshman’s legimate brood (he had several illegitimate children, too) — once demanded of a shop assistant: ‘Don’t you know who I am? I am Lloyd George’s daughter!’ ‘Aren’t we all, dearie?’ the girl replied.

Eccentric arch-Remainer Rory Stewart lost the Tory whip in 2019 after he failed to support Brexit legislation.

Now, in a further step away from Conservative values, Stewart has come out in favour of proportional representation.

He makes the case in Leftie mag the New Statesman, saying: ‘People point out that I spend a lot of time sounding like a Lib Dem — they’re probably right.’ Sounds like Boris was correct to kick him out.

Leadsom wouldn’t stay Mum

In her new political memoir, Snakes And Ladders, former Tory Cabinet minister Andrea Leadsom makes an astonishing revelation. On the very day she gave birth to her daughter in 2005, she dragged herself out of bed to attend a selection meeting for a Tory Parliamentary constituency. Leadsom wasn’t chosen — but I hope the committee admired her grit. How many of today’s work-from-home generation could say they’d do the same?

Tory MP Rehman Chishti has no regrets about his catastrophic bid to run for the Tory leadership. In an interview with PoliticsHome, the MP for Gillingham and Rainham said he hoped to be remembered as ‘somebody who has self-belief’. Having secured precisely zero votes from his fellow MPs, I’m not sure this ‘self-belief’ was justified.

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