Houses of Parliament: Tory Bloggers Making Passes

Infamous security breacher John Hirst aka Jail House points to an excitable Independent scoop with an illegitimate Tory fundraiser getting the run of the corridors of power.

Not so long ago, before he more or less gave up blogging, Mr GuF reached out to a shoddy Times Story which Guido spun up some more. As I recall, you check by all means, the Times named and party-tagged three Labour peers while naming but not party-tagging two Tories and a cross-bench Military Toff. Which ain't really that fair.

Purely in the interests of fairness these were the cross-bench Janner-scragger Lord Bramall and the Tory Lords Bougham and Vaux (hang on, that's only one) and Jopling.

Then under the rather sexy heading "Nadine Dorries Gave Samuel Coates One" The Daily Pundit pointed at some ambitious Tory Boy Bloggers thusly:

'A number of bloggers also get passes from MPs. Iain Dale gets a pass from Keith Simpson, the Conservative front bench foreign affairs spokesman, while Samuel Coates, the deputy editor of Conservative Home, gets a pass from Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP. Jonathan Sheppard, from Tory Radio, is given a pass by Andrew Turner.'

So that's Keith Simpson Gave Iain Dale One? Or Andrew Turner Gave Jonathan Sheppard One?

Which helps explain this from Adam Boulton:

We also have to deal with the rise of the blogger. Iain Dale, Guido Fawkes et al want Lobby passes. But do they want to operate as journalists or gossip columnists? It’s up to the Serjeant at Arms whether to let them in.

While it makes Iain's terse riposte look rather disingenuous:

Can I make it clear that I do not want a lobby pass. It is true that 18 Doughty Street has applied for one, but I have made clear that it is not for me. I am not a lobby journalist and I do not wish to become one ...

... But I do already have a pass for life to the corridors of the HoP!