LibDem Voice has some news on Brent Centrals dirty politics.

Labour Minister Dawn Butler has issued a legal apology to Sarah Teather for calling her a hypocrite over MPs’ expenses. Butler made the accusation while the running of Sarah Teather’s office was under investigation. The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner later dropped the investigation because there were no grounds to suspect any wrongdoing by Ms Teather.

This issue came up at the MapRA Hustings on Monday night. There was a question from the floor on expenses which had Dawn attempting to justify £66,000 ACL since 2005 for her Wembley second home, when she has another property in Stratford. As we know, Sarah Teather has not claimed the second home / additional costs allowances. Dawn did well and may have carried it, but a follow up question on Brent Labours’ smear campaign and the ficititous complaints to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner about Sarah Teather by someone from Dawn Butlers team made a stench. Sarah announced that she had received a written apology from Dawn – you can download it – and won the ‘clean up dirty expenses’ applause.

Cllr Ann John attempted a last minute clawback… however her proclaiming of a ‘citizens right to know’ sounded hollow, now that we know of the ‘false… improper…wholly untrue….’ nature of what they wanted us to know.