Sainsbury's cashback
Rachel Reeves , Issue 1643 LAST year's freebie brouhaha hasn't deterred Rachel Reeves from accepting more cash from one of Labour's wealthy donors. In January the chancellor took £15,000 from Lord (David) Sainsbury "to support my parliamentary and political duties".

Why she needs such help when the Treasury provides a well-funded base for her day job and the parliamentary expenses system covers reasonable constituency costs is a mystery. Other cabinet ministers seem to get by without such help when in office, and previous chancellors didn't tap up rich mates for cash.

The chancellor, of course, has far more say over government policy affecting the wealthy than anyone else (and Reeves failed to come down hard on them in a budget that hit employers with a national insurance hike on wages). Hence the ministerial code saying: "Ministers should not accept gifts, hospitality or service which would, or might reasonably appear to, compromise their judgement or place them under an obligation".

If the gift relates to political or constituency work, "ministers should be mindful... of the associated need to maintain the public's confidence in the standards of propriety among ministers".

Perish the thought Reeves has added to her woes by falling foul of this.

Troll call
Meanwhile, who to believe on the expense-fiddling allegations dating back to Reeves's time working at HBOS in Leeds?

The story was initially put out on LinkedIn by former HBOS executive Kev Gillett, who was cited as a credible source because of his senior position in the bank. His CV shows he was "managing director, Bank of Scotland Business Banking" between December 2002 and August 2007, before later working on the bank's merger with Lloyds TSB.

This period marked the collapse of HBOS, later subject of a damning report from the parliamentary commission on banking standards titled "An Accident Waiting to Happen". Among its findings was that the bank's "culture was brash".

That would have suited Gillett. Unmentioned in reports were the words in his post after the chancellor's dobbing-in: "Now she is robbing people who've worked hard. Now she is ruining every agricultural family. Evil evil socialists."

Not that he need worry: "Thank F I live in [Portugal] and I've 77p in my [UK] pension. F the socialists," he adds – it escaping him for a moment that it was "the socialists" who bailed out his wrecked bank.

The charming Gillett can also be found dismissing people whose CVs he doesn't like as "Johnny Bullshit" and lamenting from the Algarve how the UK appears "some alien world, reported on by weird angsty, jealous, puerile journalists (aka couldn't get a real job)". That'll be the hacks now making him famous.