The reduced Wilcock: Lord Laidlaw

Being on holiday, it means I’ve actually got time to read Alex “reassuringly extensive” Wilcock’s blog postings in full. All this has given me an idea. I’m going to launch a new service on this blog – “The Reduced Wilcock”. I’ll read his full postings and boil them down to one paragraph and one sentence versions. I do the reading so you don’t have to.

Shrunken, shrivelled but just as good as the original – that’ll be The Reduced Wilcock. Exclusive to this blog.

Here’s the first one:

You may have heard that Lord Laidlaw, a very rich Conservative donor and tax exile, said he would stop being a tax exile when he was appointed to the Lords. But three years on, he is still a tax exile. Boo to him. But double boo to the Lords’ Appointments Commission who are set to name and shame him in a forthcoming review. They should have demanded evidence from him of him stopping being a tax exile before letting him become a peer.

854 words down to 83. I thank you.

And in one sentence:

Lord Laidlaw is a rich Tory who hasn’t kept his promise to the Lords’ Appointment Commission, but they were foolish to let him become a peer just on the strength of a promise.

The full unabridged, unedited version is available on Alex’s blog.

UPDATE: Lord Laidlaw has now quit the House of Lords.