Trying To Put Howard To Flight

Howard Flight is in trouble again. He just won't follow the autocue.

I once attempted to nail him for raising a question to the then Prime Minister (Tony Blair) relating to an item in his own Declaration of Interests which referred to what was then his deputy chairmanship of Guinness Flight Hambro Asset Management Ltd. I claimed that his question was unparliamentary in that it amounted to advocacy on behalf of that body.

I raised the matter via a written complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards preceded by a couple of points of order to the Speaker, Betty Boothroyd. But when Howard Flight responded the Commissioner accepted his submission. The Commissioner's response was then accepted by the Commons' Standards and Privileges Committee. This is the link to their report.

In 2005, Flight was secretly recorded stating that if the Conservatives won the coming election they would make more spending cuts than those they had promised to the electorate. It led to a spat with the Tory Leader Michael Howard and the blocking of Flight's re-selection as a candidate. But perhaps it is exactly what Flight then said that appealed to David Cameron who recently recommended him for a Peerage. But then he should have known that Flight can't keep his lip buttoned.

Well I did try to sort this out in 1997.