Gordon Brown in cover-up tricks scandal!

Gordon Brown must have lost a couple of marbles in the reshuffle process. He's been gulping on about transparency, yet he now steadfastly refuses to release the report into the expense pot that minister Shahid Malik was dipping into. Tahir Zaman is a property landlord who claims he rented Malik property at below the market rate. So the basic accusation against Malik is that he claimed full whack whilst just paying Mr. Zaman a near-peppercorn rent. It also seems that Mr. Zaman may unwittingly be a target of the Downing Street Smear Machine.

So instead of transparency we get a prime minister who is top of his game, not as prime minister, but as a cheap cover-up conman. He wants to suppress the report of Sir Philip Mawer. A spokesman for Gordon Brown said, "It is not our intention to publish the report. It goes into quite a lot of detail about Mr Malik's personal affairs. It would not be appropriate to publish."

Not appropriate? What planet are these morons on? In the midst of a scandal over how some MPs enriched themselves and made a mockery of the system, the Downing Street bunker resorts to cover-ups and secrecy. Is this what Labour MPs were told on Monday night when they crammed into that committee room? "Don't worry," says the hapless Brown, in some mea culpa moment. "It's all back to cover-ups and cosy deals tomorrow!"

Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat MP and freedom of information campaigner, has said, "Gordon Brown has fallen at the first fence on the transparency course. If Mr Malik has been cleared as we are told, why not publish the report?" Why not indeed!