Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour has changed, but so too have the Conservatives. The Conservatives once called themselves the party of business. That’s a distant memory. And their failure to put the national interest above the interests of their friends and donors, utterly removed from the lives of working people. He claimed that MacGregor had verbally threatened to withhold money from a steelworks in his Workington constituency. Wragg’s claims were followed by allegations from Christian Wakeford, the Bury South MP who defected to Labour, that he had been threatened with a loss of funding for his constituency if he rebelled as a Tory MP. Campbell-Savours says the privileges committee ruled in his favour. MacGregor went on to become the head of the National Coal Board during the miners’ strike. He died in 1988.

Jewell said she has uncovered evidence that Tory constituencies were prioritised over less affluent Welsh areas for receiving funds through the community renewal fund, and that this, alongside other publicly known examples, constitutes enough evidence to warrant an inquiry. The Labour peer and QC Dale Campbell-Savours points out that the parliamentary authorities have previously investigated threats to withhold funds from an MP. DO NOT PAY THE RANSOM! And more importantly DO NOT REPLY, because sometimes a scammer will escalate if you reply . If they really had a video or picture of you they will at least show some proof like a screenshot. If they allege that they have your corporate, personal or health information they should have shown a sample of it as well. I believe that the UK government’s practices amount to wholesale corruption and that a public inquiry needs to be held to explore these funding decisions in detail, since what we know about is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg and the fear shared among many is that billions of pounds may have been misappropriated.”

The Conservatives as the party of business is a “distant memory”, the shadow chancellor has claimed, arguing that Labour’s plan for the country is “proudly pro-worker and proudly pro-business”.

And only last week, the High Court ruled that the government’s use of a VIP lane to award PPE contracts to the friends of Tory MPs and Ministers was unlawful. The Guardian’s home affairs editor Rajeev Syal has done some research and found that there is a precedent for parliamentary authorities investigating threats to withhold funds from MPs if they vote certain ways. That the defendant has a view to make a gain for himself or another or have intent to cause a loss to another. William Sylvester used to pop up in some many British productions I always thought he was a British actor. This was until I saw him in the US movie, The Lawyer which spun off the television series Petrocelli. The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, accused the Conservatives of no longer being the party of business given that they had presided over a “ lost decade” of low growth.It would absolutely be wrong and, look, the reality is that my experience as a minister is, of course, that that is not a tactic that I’ve ever seen or heard of being deployed and the wider reality, of course, is that we also have a civil service, we have our officials who are, of course, precisely in place to make sure that in all funding allocations there is due process and proper rigour. So, by now you should already understand the reason why I remained unnoticed until this very moment… Sajid Javid said the partygate scandal had been “damaging to our democracy”, and defended the lifting of mask rules in schools since it is “harder to teach children” if they wear them.

The Radio Times wrote: "Not one of [Maurice Elvey's] best efforts. We could do with more surprises, but the pace is unrelenting and there are typically solid performances from Mary Germaine, William Sylvester and John Arnatt." [6] In this excerpt from Hansard in January 1981, Campbell-Savours recalled the meeting with MacGregor, who had taken issue with his criticisms in parliament of British Steel. Kine Weekly said "The picture... opens well, but as soon as it moves to Markham’s mansion its action becomes a trifle stilted, Mary Germaine, as Carol, displays good looks and obvious acting ability, and William Sylvester, although a little too sure of himself, registers as Jimmy, but the rest are a very mixed bag. Even so, the sound stellar portrayals, coupled with the 'twist' ending, give it the benefit of any doubts." [3]The question is: why is a country with such rich resources not seeing that potential realised? Why are so many working people here in Bury and all across the country not feeling the benefits? The Treasury chief secretary, Simon Clarke, has said it would “absolutely be wrong” for government whips to threaten to withdraw constituency funding if MPs did not support the prime minister.

In her speech this morning in Bury, where she was introduced by Christian Wakeford, who defected to Labour from the Tories yesterday, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said Britain has had a “lost decade” under the Tories.My first job there was to analyse the Japanese economy. Japan had just reached the end of what was often called its ‘Lost Decade’. We now talk about Japan’s ‘Lost Decades’ - 30 years of stagnant growth. Plaid Cymru MS Delyth Jewell is calling for an inquiry into the revelation that the government threatened to withhold funds for a school unless MP Christian Wakeford voted a certain way. In 1981, when he was the MP for Workington, Campbell-Savours complained to the privileges committee – and had his complaint upheld – after being threatened by Iain MacGregor, the then head of British Steel.