Today was Gordon Brown’s last Treasury Questions. I was fortunate enough to be drawn No. 5 and took the opportunity to ask a question about the Smith Institute, the registered charity that appears to have virtually set up headquarters in 11 Downing Street.
If you haven’t kept up with the Smith issue, you may want to read Guido on the subject. – he has taken an interest in it for months. Suffice it to say that the Charity Commission is investigating whether the Institute’s activities are wholly charitable and is interested in its use of No. 11.
Surprisingly – or not, whichever way you care to look at it - Gordon didn’t answer himself. He left it to his deputy, Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I suggested that it was odd that No. 11’s householder was apparently unwilling to answer to the House over his domestic arrangements. Timms is a nice, straightforward man and seemed uncomfortable to be asked the question, so he simply didn’t answer it.
And so we say farewell to Chancellor Brown. Next time he is at the despatch box he will be Prime Minister. But I doubt that he has heard the last of the Smith affair.
If you haven’t kept up with the Smith issue, you may want to read Guido on the subject. – he has taken an interest in it for months. Suffice it to say that the Charity Commission is investigating whether the Institute’s activities are wholly charitable and is interested in its use of No. 11.
Surprisingly – or not, whichever way you care to look at it - Gordon didn’t answer himself. He left it to his deputy, Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I suggested that it was odd that No. 11’s householder was apparently unwilling to answer to the House over his domestic arrangements. Timms is a nice, straightforward man and seemed uncomfortable to be asked the question, so he simply didn’t answer it.
And so we say farewell to Chancellor Brown. Next time he is at the despatch box he will be Prime Minister. But I doubt that he has heard the last of the Smith affair.
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