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Louise Haigh mobile phone story

gentlegreen said:
Bloody GiffGaff have my old phone quasi-locked so I can't use a PAYG SIM I bought FROM THEM.
I gave up arguing with their hopeless tech support.
I feel sure they need to do something with the IMEI
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I vaguely recall having arguments with EE who refused to/delayed issuing me with a PAC code (iirc) to unlock my phone so that I could use a Greek SIM card when I was spending a month in Greece volunteering with a refugee charity, which cost me a fortune in UK phone charges.

You might need to ask them for a PAC code.
 
The39thStep said:
The Telegraph article may be speculative however it also has some plausible elements to it.

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Yes, they don't quite nail it, but the central allegation - that Starmer's lot gave this to both the media and the Tories - rings true. Which tells you all you need to know about the Starmer court. Shades of the 2017 gen election as well, with the party machine prioritising the defeat of the left.
 
AnnO'Neemus said:
Someone making a mistake and thinking something had been stolen in, say, a mugging or burglary or whatever, and reporting an item stolen in the confusion/immediate aftermath, which subsequently turns out not to have been stolen, is fairly understandable, surely.

That would be a low level scandal.

It's the conviction, it's the being charged in the first place and then pleading guilty that bumps this up from low level scandal to 'Very strange, wtf went on there then?' mid-level scandal, and then when put into the context of Keir politicians aren't above the law Starmer and how he was informed and knew about Haigh's conviction before her cabinet appointment was confirmed, that bumps it further up the scandals league.

I mean if someone pads out an insurance claim, claiming more items were stolen, like 'Yeah, my purse/wallet has gone, house keys, makeup bag... and also an expensive diamond ring, a gold necklace, an iPad, FitBit, washing machine, cuddly toy...'

Something like that would seem more obviously suspect.

So it's really weird that someone was charged and convicted on the basis of one item that could/should have been 'Oh, wasn't stolen after all, I thought it was in my bag, but I'd actually left it on my desk/in my coat pocket! Oops! My bad! Sorry about that!'

And why did the solicitor advise her to plead guilty if it was a genuine mistake? That doesn't make sense.

I can't imagine why someone would (a) be charged; and (b) plead guilty, in such circumstances, if they weren't actually guilty.

And all the 'it was historic offence' when it was only 10-ish years ago, it's not like a juvenile record has been unearthed or an MP in their sixties was found to have done something in their late teens/early twenties, that would be a long time ago.
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A conditional discharge would be filtered after 11 years from DBS checks, whereas a suspended sentence would never be filtered. Dunno if this was a factor... Maybe if a conviction was highly likely.
 
brogdale said:
What does it say behind the £-wall?
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It isn't paywalled , but nothing new.

The difference between 'one phone prosecution' and ' two phones reported and prosection for one' is entirely trivial. But Lord Alli's largesse recipient chooses to go with that.
Ffs!
 
Wilf said:
It isn't paywalled , but nothing new.

The difference between 'one phone prosecution' and ' two phones reported and prosection for one' is entirely trivial. But Lord Alli's largesse recipient chooses to go with that.
Ffs!
Click to expand...
Exactly. Starmer's party enforcers would exploit any morsel.
 
Wilf said:
It isn't paywalled , but nothing new.

The difference between 'one phone prosecution' and ' two phones reported and prosection for one' is entirely trivial. But Lord Alli's largesse recipient chooses to go with that.
Ffs!
Click to expand...
Major difference that is - not really just one incident and so suggests guilt. Like the Car Insurance Claim "I knocked down a man, he admitted it was his fault because he'd been knocked down before."
 
brogdale said:
What does it say behind the £-wall?
Click to expand...
Louise Haigh quit as transport secretary after “more information came to light” about her fraud conviction than she had previously disclosed to the Prime Minister, Downing Street sources have claimed.
No 10 insisted it was Ms Haigh’s decision to resign on Friday morning after she admitted pleading guilty to misleading the police a decade ago.
But The Telegraph understands the decision was taken after media reports revealed she had not told the full story over the conviction to Sir Keir Starmer. The exact nature of the new information is not known.
However, The Times was told there had been more than one incident involving a missing phone – rather than only the one Ms Haigh had admitted to when he appointed her to his shadow cabinet in 2020.
The former transport secretary said she told Sir Keir about her conviction in 2020, claiming she had pleaded guilty after a phone she thought had been lost following a mugging subsequently turned up.
But The Times said that it was Ms Haigh’s employer, the insurance company Aviva, that had reported her to the police over concerns that she had allegedly claimed at least two phones had been lost or stolen.

On Friday morning, sources on the Left of the Labour Party accused Sir Keir of double standards and forcing out Ms Haigh because she was not in his centrist wing of the party.
Union sources accused Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, of having a hand in the her departure.
Ms Haigh had been expected to unveil her plans to nationalise the railways early next week – a responsibility that will now fall to Heidi Alexander, who was announced as her successor on Friday.
“Pushing someone who was doing all the good things – rail nationalisation, buses – and she’s been doing the heavy lifting on the policy side,” said a union insider.
Describing Mr McSweeney as a “shadow prime minister [who] tells Keir what to do”, the insider added: “You’re a target when you’re on the soft Left.”
Other sources, along with confidantes of Ms Haigh, said her decision to resign was “personal” and emphasised that she had been working “hand in glove” with No 10 until Thursday night.
Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary.

Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, has admitted pleading guilty to misleading the police a decade ago Credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
One former Labour aide said that she had been dealt with so harshly because she is on the Left, adding: Unless there is more to come out, it seems implausible that there was a deeper motive in forcing her out.
“There will be some concern in the unions over what this means for bus and rail policy, and people with environmental concerns might be worried about what it could mean on the third runway at Heathrow.
“There are people in the Cabinet who have been angling about that issue, so I wonder if that’s a source of tension. Keir was obviously also angry about what she said on P&O.
“I don’t think the strike deal she did with the rail unions is a major issue, as it is below inflation over three years, which is less than what other public sector unions have got.”
A former aide to Jeremy Corbyn, the ex-Labour leader, said of the resignation: “This seems like a very big step to take for a spent conviction from such a long time ago. What usually happens in these situations is people are told they are resigning.
“It’s hard to imagine that if this had been one of Keir’s allies on the Labour Right that he would have acted in the same way. I imagine there will be some real anger among the rail unions.”
The Prime Minister’s spokesman declined to say whether Sir Keir knew that Ms Haigh had a fraud conviction when he appointed her to Cabinet in July. He said she resigned “following further information emerging”.
The spokesman would not say whether the Prime Minister still believes that “you can’t be a lawmaker and a lawbreaker” – a quote he used in 2022 after Boris Johnson was fined for breaking Covid rules. He also would not say whether any other Cabinet ministers had convictions.

The spokesman indicated that Ms Haigh had broken the ministerial code by not informing the Department for Transport’s permanent secretary in writing of the conviction before taking up her role.
The code states that “ministers must record in writing and declare private interests which might create a conflict of interest, accurate or perceived”.
In her resignation letter to Sir Keir, Ms Haigh said she was “sorry to leave under these circumstances” but was best placed to support him “from outside Government”.
She wrote: “As you know, in 2013 I was mugged in London. As a 24-year-old woman, the experience was terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, I reported the incident to the police.
“I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone. Some time later, I discovered that the handset in question was still in my house. I should have immediately informed my employer, and not doing so straight away was a mistake.
“I appreciate that whatever the facts of the matter, this issue will inevitably be a distraction from delivering on the work of this Government and the policies to which we are both committed.”

‘Huge contribution to make in future’​

The Prime Minister replied: “Dear Louise, thank you for all you have done to deliver this Government’s transport agenda.
“You have made huge strides to take our rail system back into public ownership through the creation of Great British Railways, investing £1bn in our vital bus services and lowering cost for motorists. I know you still have a huge contribution to make in the future.”
Ms Haigh was at the centre of several rows during her time in Cabinet. Her offer to train drivers of a 15 per cent pay deal sparked a flurry of inflation-busting pay rises for public sector staff totalling £8 billion, despite the Government’s insistence that it had inherited a £22 billion “black hole” from the Conservatives.
She then described P&O Ferries as a “rogue operator” following the sacking of 800 staff who were then replaced with agency workers in 2022.
DP World, the owner of P&O Ferries, initially responded by shelving a £1 billion port expansion. Sir Keir distanced himself from Ms Haigh’s criticism, and the company soon reversed its decision and went ahead with the investment.
However, it was an embarrassment for the Government that overshadowed the run up to its flagship investment summit.
 
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