Whisky Galore

The way things have been going for Gordon Brown's Government, you could understand why its Ministers have been driven to drink.

The Ogmore MP Huw Irranca-Davies, a junior Environment Minister, billed us taxpayers £150 for a case of House of Commons whisky.

The whisky was intended as raffle prizes in his constituency. He'll now be paying back the cash after what he calls the indefensible error came to light with the publication of MPs' expenses.

David Davies, the Tory MP for Monmouth, has been explaining how he used a family business to produce leaflets at a cost to the taxpayer of almost £2,000.

He says the work by Newport-based Burrow Heath was done at cost and neither he nor his family profited from the deal.

Other intriguing expense claims include the £100 Justice Minister David Hanson billed us to sponsor a Flint Town United football match. Let's hope local voters don't feel as sick as parrots after that one.

We're still working our way through the receipts. What's striking is how many MPs, having billed us for digital cameras, appear to have charged us hundreds of pounds for PR photos of themselves.

Cock of the south

Gordon Brown's government reshuffle continues. You didn't expect the PM to take Sunday off, did you?

Welsh angles so far: Wayne David replaces Huw Irranca-Davies at the Wales Office. Huw's reward for his on-message blogging is promotion to DEFRA, where his views on hunting might please the odd farmer.

Wayne is replaced as Welsh Whip by Mark Tami from Alyn and Deeside. His job as unpaid assistant whip goes to Ian Lucas of Wrexham. Both took part in the coup against Tony Blair in September 2006 so will need supreme political skills to play the loyalty card with sceptical backbenchers.

Kevin Brennan is promoted to the Cabinet Office and Chris Bryant gets his first ministerial job as deputy leader of the House of Commons.

The Mail on Sunday has lifted the lid on the names of Cheryl Gillan's Buff Orpington chickens.

"I called the two hens Marilyn Monroe and Diana Dors because of their blonde feathers and the cock is Boris because one of his tail feathers sticks out like Boris Johnson's hair." Well, that's her explanation.

The Mail also suggests Gordon Brown is considering an unlikely comeback for yet another Minister who have previously fallen from grace - David Blunkett. At this rate, it won't be long before Ron Davies is standing by his phone.....*

*Apologies to Peter Black who thought of that joke 24 hours before I blogged it. I really must spend more of my weekends reading Peter's blog.

Boris who?

It's the question Welsh Tories here are asking: who's that with Shazia Awan?

Shazia, from Cardiff, was a conference virgin before her arrival in Birmingham this week but has spent the past few days asking questions from the conference floor and rubbing shoulders with the stars of today's Conservative Party.

According to her blog on the official Tory website, she's yet to return to her hotel before 3am. (You know how it is. You fall into conversation about the Barnett formula, LCOs and such like

and, before you know it, it's almost dawn.....).

Shazia has passed her "parliamentary assessment" so can now apply for seats and is tipped for greater things.

She appears to be so on message she's even dressing in party colours: "Getting ready was bit of a mission this morning as I donned a yellow dress; promptly got told to change into blue... I did a rare moment of doing what I was told."

Hmm.....There is a new tradition of on-message bloggers at party conferences. Wales Office Minister Huw Irranca-Davies blogged from Labour's bash in Manchester.

Here's his take on Ruth Kelly's departure from Gordon Brown's Cabinet: "I do hope that the media handles this news responsibly, and refrains from spinning it into something it isn't."

Quite right, too. This was a routine resignation announced in a press briefing at 3am in a hotel lobby. It would be totally irresponsible to infer anything else from it.

Here in Birmingham, the conference has been overshadowed by the global economic crisis. David Cameron is making an unscheduled speech to the conference today amid talk of Parliament being recalled tomorrow.

The crisis has yet to hit some of the party faithful.

Unable to gain entry into the packed call here, one representative apparently headed for Harvey Nichols where she emerged with a Chloe handbag. I'm told they cost around £800 each.

Credit crunch: what credit crunch?

Pot black meets Welsh Questions

As a special treat for all, Prime Minister's Question Time is preceded this week by half an hour's worth of questions to the Secretary of State for Wales.

Paul Murphy and his deputy Huw Irranca-Davies have few executive responsibilities, but found themselves put on the spot today as proxy representatives of the Labour/Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Government.

Tory David Jones wondered why from this month Welsh patients are expected to wait a combined total of 44 weeks, compared to 18 in England.

Labour MPs pitched in to make the point that patients from North Wales should continue to have access to NHS hospitals in north-west England despite moves to treat more Welsh patients within Wales. (A committee of Welsh MPs returned from hospitals on Merseyside this week raving about the facilities).

Plaid Cymru's Hywel Williams found himself defending the Labour-led Assembly Government, arguing that those arguing for stronger links with England have yet to come to terms with devolution.

Question Time was certainly livelier than usual, but anyone watching on television may have spotted Labour backbencher Stephen Pound playing a mock game of snooker using a crutch borrowed from his colleague Paul Flynn.

Historic milestone

I can feel the hand of history tapping me on the shoulder again.

MPs have debated, for the first time, a Legislative Competence Order - effectively a request from the Welsh Assembly Government to legislate in a particular area.

The National Assembly for Wales (Legislative Competence) (Education and Training) Order 2008 cleared the Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee with little fuss after 46 minutes of debate. You can read it here.

The Wales Office Minister Huw Irranca-Davies noted "this is an historic day and an historic moment". He was, as ever on message - so much so that a Tory MP pointed out that he was reading verbatim a speech made in the House of Lords by Baroness Morgan of Drefelin last week.

The LCO will now, in all probability, be nodded through the Commons chamber itself tonight before being rubber-stamped by the Queen via the Privy Council.

The Assembly should be able to use its new powers in this area from May.

Hey big spender?

There's a bit of a row, as you might expect, over the increase in the Wales Office budget - at a time when other government departments are told to tighten their belts on administration costs.

The Wales Office (the Whitehall department that represents Welsh interests at Westminster) will see its budget rise from £4.68 m to £8.44m next year, although the figures are disputed by the department itself.

I've just interviewed Peter Hain's deputy, Huw Irranca-Davies, who explained that when you include LCOs, front-loading, framework powers, revenue spending and exclude capital spending, it's nowhere near as big as 80 per cent - although the jargon did leave me struggling by the end of that answer.

The £4m increase is a drop in the ocean of an overall Welsh budget of £14bn but that won't stop opposition parties highlighting the scale of the rise.

Oh, and here's a photograph of the Secretary of State for Wales (he's on the left), showing how the countryside is still open. Peter Hain may have an Aga, but his wellies are definitely not green.

Happy (half) hour

This may come as a blessed relief or a shocking attempt to dodge political accountability, depending on your point of view. Some may even describe it as a slap in the face or snub to Wales. Take your pick.

The monthly parliamentary feast that is Questions to the Secretary of State for Wales will no longer take place every four weeks.

Instead, Secretary of State Peter Hain and his deputy Huw Irranca-Davies will be put on the spot every fifth week.

The idea is to make some of the larger Whitehall departments more accountable. The Wales Office has a small (although rising by 80 per cent next year) budget, relatively few staff and even fewer executive responsibilities. So MPs often ask Ministers to account for the actions of other Ministers, in Cardiff or in Westminster.

The Wales Office has also missed out on one of the reforms to Question Time introduced in the new session of Parliament. Those Ministers held accountable for 40 minutes or more at the despatch box can be questioned on topical issues.

Welsh Questions last but 30 minutes so MPs will need to use their ingenuity to devise questions with a more topical relevance.

Funtime Wednesday

Another fun Wednesday beckons. The first question time for Gordon Brown since he decided not to call a general election.

Monday's statement on Iraq was a sombre affair, light on partisan insults. Today's half-hour should be rather different.

The warm-up act, the hors d’œuvre, the appetiser, is 30 minutes of questions to Wales Office Ministers Peter Hain and Huw Irranca-Davies.

The questions were tabled before Parliament returned from its summer break this Monday but that shouldn't stop creative MPs from posing more topical queries - perhaps raising the missing millions from the Welsh settlement in the spending review.

What will be the impact of the deal on the Labour/Plaid coalition government in Cardiff Bay? If the local government settlement west of the border mirrors that in England then councils may find it a struggle to keep council tax rises low in the run-up to next year's elections.

Will the "challenging" settlement create tensions between Labour and Plaid Cymru?

Plaid parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd says Ministers will have to prioritise the policies in their coalition accord: "They may have to make cuts here and there.

"We knew it was going to be tight. It is disappointing, not devastating is it?"