Home News Columnists Ken Oxley

Labour minister’s mickey-take row

Jun 22 2008 Sunday Sun

NOTHING’S going right for Labour at the moment.

With the economy heading down the plughole, it needed a break and thought it had one when Tory David Davis quit as MP to fight a by-election on a point of principle — always risky for a politician — about plans to detain terror suspects for 42 days without charge.

Davis was painted in some quarters as a vain egotist, and he revealed that Cameron wasn’t quite as in charge of his party as he’d like us to think.

And then Labour’s Culture Minister Andy Burnham put his size twos in it. In an interview, he spoke of Mr Davis having “late-night, hand- wringing, heart-melting phone calls with Shami Chakrabarti”. Human rights campaigner Chakrabarti has threatened to sue the minister if he does not apologise for his “smear”.

Burnham claims it was all light-hearted and, according to a newspaper quote from an unnamed friend of his — who no doubt bears a striking resemblance to Burnham — he never meant to insinuate the pair were anything but pals.

Be that as it may, it has come to something when a Labour MP takes the mick out of a Tory for consulting with a human rights campaigner over a matter of principle.

Labour isn’t putting up a candidate against Davis, no doubt an attempt to increase its vote on recent elections. They couldn’t do any worse.

Keep up to date with the news. Sign up for News Alerts

Have your say on the latest news and sport in our Forums