STILL haven’t decided where to go on holiday this year? Looking for some exotic destinations?
Why not take some advice from the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle.
PAJust Stop Hoyle! MPs won’t take on Speaker over public cash on dolphin safaris & other fishy trips, so we’ll have to[/caption]
He’s been all over the world, entirely at your expense. And boy, does he get about. You have spent £250,000 on the travels of Long Haul Hoyle in the last two years.
And he never turns right when he gets on a plane. Never. That’s because he knows you are paying for it.
So he swans off to Australia at a cost of more than £40,000, which is rather more than the average wage in our country.
But don’t think for a moment he only goes to big, important countries. Far from it. He seems to have taken a shine to the Cayman Islands, out in the Caribbean.
But then, who wouldn’t?
And when he’s there he likes to stay in a nice hotel, costing £700 per night.
Then there are his trips to Gibraltar. You’ve paid for those, too, and that comes to about £16,000.
Quite expensive? Well, sure — but then dolphin safaris don’t come cheap, do they? Yes, he went on a dolphin safari.
I just hope he was as impressed by Flipper and Co as they were by him. Gibraltar isn’t a country, of course. It’s one of our dependencies.
And there’s something especially fishy about Hoyle’s trips there.
The bloke who did all the fixing for him in Gibraltar, a chap called Albert Poggio, has been rewarded by a House of Commons pass. (I’m not suggesting Mr Poggio has done anything wrong, of course.)
Remarkable, isn’t it? But don’t dare suggest there is anything suspicious about that arrangement.
You’ll get your ear chewed off by Sir Lindsay’s office. Some pompous ass will berate you for daring to suggest Hoyle is milking it at your expense.
As far as the Gibraltar business is concerned, his office has said: “We absolutely refute any suggestion or implication of impropriety.”
No, you don’t. You can deny it, maybe, for a bit. But you can’t refute it.
The point really is that there is no need, in Hoyle’s job description, for him to go abroad.
Not even for undoubtedly important meetings in the bloody Cayman Islands.
He is the Speaker of the House of Commons. A venerable position. It requires him to sit on his backside and choose who speaks in debates.
He also has to shout, “Order, order!” in a loud voice every so often.
AlamyThe Speaker also stayed at Chateau Laurier in Canada’s capital Ottawa, where his room cost £893 per night[/caption]
Taxpayers picked up Hoyle’s ‘subsistence’ bill at The St Regis hotel in Qatar – totalling more than £800
All that gets done within the Palace of Westminster, which you can reach via Tube train or bus. This does not require a long session in the First Class Lounge at Heathrow.
He has some cause to meet parliamentarians from abroad but I’m not sure what is so pressing that he is required to go to the Cayman Islands, still less Gibraltar.
Maybe he was advising those dolphins on how to conduct their political affairs, who knows.
No MPs will have a go at him, because they fear his Speakerly wrath.
But my good mate Kevin O’Sullivan, the brilliant broadcaster from TalkTV, has launched a campaign. It’s called Just Stop Hoyle.
It’s one we can all get behind. Because he needs to be stopped.
It is yet another example of our elected elite believing the rules don’t apply to them.
And that they can spend your money any which way they like — £250,000 in two years.
Sheesh! Think of the air miles you’ve bought him.
HAVING A TOON OF FUN
A BIG shout out to Wonky Donkey and his missus.
I met them on the train from London to Newcastle on Monday.
Wonky was about 70 years old and had an AC/DC ringtone on his phone.
He also had “Wonky Donkey” tattooed on his arm.
I asked him who Wonky Donkey was. “Why, it’s me, man. I’ve only got one leg, y’see, so I tipple over a lot.”
These two, like almost the entirety of the train, were jubilant Newcastle United fans making their way home after their team’s Carabao Cup final win over Liverpool on Sunday. Gawd, they were boisterous.
And the Geordies turned out to welcome their heroes home.
First trophy win in 55 years and they really made the best of it.
Just imagine how happy they’ll be if they ever win a serious trophy.
CURSE OF SICK NOTES
GettyThe Labour lefties succeeded in watering down Liz Kendall’s proposals[/caption]
ALL credit to Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall and the Labour Government for at least scratching the surface of our utterly unsustainable benefits bill.
The Labour lefties succeeded in watering down Liz’s proposals – but even the mere recognition we have a problem is welcome.
For me, the heart of the issue is over-diagnosis.
Too many people are told they have mental- health problems when it’s simply the everyday woes we all associate with living.
Like being a bit down in the dumps because the dog has crapped in the living room.
I am not trying to belittle the misery people go through with serious mental illnesses.
But too many people are diagnosed as suffering from “anxiety” and “depression” and too many diagnosed with ADHD.
A HARD TRUTH
THE UK’s first female bouncer has decided she and all her colleagues should be called something else.
Delia el Hosayny prefers the term “ejection technician”.
She thinks “bouncer” sounds too thuggish.
But Delia is built like a brick outhouse.
And the truth is, you can call them what you like but the chief job of a bouncer is to convince people they’d smash your head into a wall without a second thought. And appear as if they have the capability to do just that.
Sometimes, thuggishness is an undervalued quality.
In space no one can hear you scream…with boredom
GettySuni Williams was escorted out of the capsule after the 286-day mission[/caption]
IT used to be every kid’s dream to be an astronaut.
But I wonder if any children think the same thing today?
I wondered about this when I saw those poor astronauts recovered after being dumped in the sea. They’d been up in that capsule for over eight months longer than expected.
Just floating around the Earth at 16,000mph. No aliens, no playing golf on the moon, no comet to destroy with high explosives before it smashes into the Earth.
It looks, from here, the most boring and irritating job you could ever wish to do, doesn’t it?
JD’S SO RIGHT
THERE are plenty of things not to like about American Veep JD Vance.
He is a bit too sure of himself, for a start.
And he seems to feel a cordial loathing for our country.
But his comment that Britain is “stagnating” because we have let in too many immigrants seems to me incontestable.
Our reliance on cheap labour has driven down wages, meaning fewer and fewer Brits fancy going out to work.
The millions we have let in have changed the culture of our society, and not entirely for the better.
When will someone put a stop to it?
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