Mary Honeyball's Strong Condemnation of Allegedly Unethical Labour Lords

A while ago, Mary Honeyball MEP condemned very strongly members of the upper house of the United Kingdom who were accused of unethical practices. She made a very strong point which was one of the few good ones she occasionally comes up with in the midst of a farrago of nonsense and confusion, the poor woman, about such behaviour. She has also been absolutely transparent about her expenses.

Then the post failed to make it onto her new wordpress blog.

Then the Home Secretary was embroiled in the scandal which may yet force her to resign, and which has compromised the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord Moonie, who were an odd couple sharing Gordon Brown's old flat as I understand it even though the Chancellor was claiming that his lodging meant that it was his London home, qualifying him for a huge expenses supplement. Letters for the latter day Klugman and Matthau still arrive there.

There is no suggestion that Alistair Darling, or Lord Moonie, or the Prime Minister who once lived in the flat, did anything illegal.

Mary's new blog has practically all her posts on it for a period before and obviously after the ignoble Lords one. So I assume that she forgot it.

Never mind. I've found it reproduced on UK Political Blog feeds here. In fact, I've even copied the text and will helpfully send it to Mary if she has lost it.

In my mind, I'd like to think that Mary was a political genius who was holding the piece in check until Harriet Harman, Labour's Deputy Leader who is running a dual campaign to get Gordon Brown's job and to attack all men, required her to release it with an update (which didn't include scurrilous stories about how Harman used to pay researchers who are now abroad but on facebook cash-in-hand when she was in opposition and they were fresh down from Oxford, allegedly).

I suppose Mary could be a prophetess wandering in the wilderness of Strasbourg eateries, a sort of Esther-cum-Elijah searching for an ear in which to whisper the still small voice of non-God. Prophets are there to outrage conventional wisdom, and Mary has already done for her relationships with Catholics, libertarians, smokers (whom she likened to child abusers), Amazon.com, and sundry other pinatas with grace suited to Baldung's John the divine on Patmos. That's why I've put the image on this post.

Ah well, never mind. I'll just ask friends of mine who are directly involved in all the events whereof I've written what went on. The thing to bear in mind is the image Mary presented of herself in an oddly revealing post a few weeks back, of growing up in--I think it was--Dorset or somewhere surrounded by Tories and determined to have different and radical opinions. In terms of her London electoral appeal, that usually means that she ends up standing in the rubble of political coalitions, but, as I've noted before, I've gone from contempt to a sort of odd and inexplicable affection for her blog. When she wrote about canvassing and how she missed it, the psuedo-religious if empty ritualism of it was clearly something that comforted her. The whole thing was a little touching, in its way. I wonder if she actually wants to be a list appointee in the European parliament; I certainly don't think she thinks she is doing bad, or doing nothing.

UPDATE: Sometimes, I feel a little wistful for a decent Labour Party. They aren't much in evidence these days, but on the comments on Mrs Honeyball's post (she's recently incurred the wrath of some fairly frank-speaking libertarians, dockers and marines, by the look of it) one Fiona Colley turned up. She appears to be a hardworking Labour Councillor and much involved in London rail, as an opposition member in Southwark.

Mary Honeyball's opinions on catholics, the government's behaviour, and the likes of various types like Luke Akehurst (whom I think I understand a little now) helped me resign from the Labour Party last year. It's good to see someone who doesn't appear to be an argument against local government actually looking for a debate. Her colleague Val Shawcross also seems to be a competent local representative too.

UPDATE TWO

Mrs Honeyball, in the comments, has now explained that she was not aware that the 'ignoble Lords' post had been lost and has restored it. As I say in the comments, we do not agree on a great deal but over the months I have become aware of her very strong personal integrity. I am happy to correct any error.