The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 2

2 I NEWS The Guardian Thursday November 19 1998 on in the dark Jennifer Lopez oh George Clooney How to get the latest music for free Kenneth Branagh changes his spots again Paymaster General fails to appease critics with 54-second apology to MPs on undeclared directorships Blair brushes off 'oversight' Robinson faces calls for resignation In the FridayRevsew tomorrow confessions of really goes' David Hencke Westminster Correspondent It is understood some members of the Commons Standards and Privileges committee wanted to demand that Mr Robinson be given a short suspension from the Commons the same punishment given to Robert Wareing, the Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, for breaching rules. But the chairman, Robert Sheldon, is thought to have argued strongly that Mr Robinson should not be suspended, as it would have forced the Government to demand his resignation. No government could keep a minister suspended from Parliament, because he could not do his job. "With regret, I believe that Mr Robinson's credibility at the Treasury has now been seriously undermined and it is time for him to consider resignation," he said. Downing Street and the Treasury played down Mr Robinson's problem, by issuing statements of support.

During Prime Minister's question time, Tony Blair brushed off Conservative calls for Mr Robinson to be sacked. "This referred to the time before he was a minister. He accepts it was an oversight on his behalf," Mr Blair said. However, Labour MPs remember that Tony Blair who was a guest at Mr Robinson's estate in Tuscan during the summer of 1997 dis tanced himself from Mr Robinson last summer by declining an invitation to join him. It was reported that Mr Blair had been poised to replace him with Geoff Hoon, junior minister at the Lord Chancellor's department, in the July reshuffle but that he had stayed his hand after a plea from Gordon Brown.

It is widely thought that if Mr Robinson does not resign now he will go in the next May reshuffle. Last week Sir Gordon Downey, the parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, criticised the punishments handed out to errant MPs. He suggested that public apologies to the Commons should be used more widely. performance. "The Paymaster General must resign today.

He has now been strongly censured by the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges. "Even the Prime Minister's closest cronies cannot be immune from tiie proper standards expected of ministers and members of the House of Commons." He added later: "The time for apologies passed long ago. It is time to bring this sorry affair to an end." Malcolm Bruce, the Liberal Democrat's Treasury spokesman said: "Government ment ministers, particularly at the Treasury, should maintain the highest standards in terms of reporting and adherence to rules. Mr Robinson of breaking rules for not declaring his interest in an offshore trust in Guernsey. The second found he had not properly declared two directorships, and the third found two more.

A fourth report was expected. The committee concluded: "The cumulative effect of the shortcomings identified in these two reports is such that we recommend that Mr Robinson should make an apology to the House by means of a personal statement." The trigger was the disclosure that he had failed to properly disclose the two further directorships including one for Stenbell Ltd, a company which he used to transfer 10 million to a Guernsey offshore trust and tax haven. Mr Robinson, however, kept his statement to a bare minimum. With his boss and friend, Chancellor Gordon Brown at his side, he told MPs: "No attempt was made by me at any time to use my position in this House to advance any commercial interest. The oversight concerning registration, for which I apologise, is entirely my responsibility." However, this statement did not satisfy the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats.

David Heathcoat Amory, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said there had been little sign of contrition or real humility in Mr Robinson's torships in the Register of Members' Interests. In his statement to MPs, Mr Robinson anticipated a further finding against him by the powerful Commons Standards and Privileges Committee by disclosing that he had not declared a fifth directorship. The statement, which was swift and short, followed a demand from Parliament's watchdog committee yesterday that he apologise to MPs for failing to disclose the directorships identified in the final two reports. He is the first minister in Tony Blair's government to have had to make such a humiliating statement. The first report had cleared GEOFFREY Robinson, the Paymaster General, was last night facing calls to resign after offering a less than convincing 54-second personal apology to the House of Commons over failing to declare a string of directorships to Parliament.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats demanded that the 60-year-old Treasury minister step down immediately, after being caught out three times in separate reports by Parliament's watchdogs for not declaring a total of four direc Send out for a Chinese mystic Politics, page 1 5 Food bugs hit 10m people a year James Meikle ABOUT 9.5 million people a year a sixth of the population may be infected by food poisoning and other stomach bugs, a devastating government-funded study will reveal. Previously underestimated illnesses are costing employers, the National Health Service and victims a staggering 743 million a year. The figures were leaked last night amid continuing political rows over delays setting up the long-promised independent Food Standards Agency. It is not clear yet exactly what proportion of the illnesses are due to food poisoning from viruses and other pathogens such as salmonella, Clostridium, E. coli 157 and Campylobacter.

Some viral infections of the intestines are not caught through food. The incidence of food poisoning has previously been estimated at only a million cases a year, ten times the number of reported cases. Julie Sheppard, senior public affairs manager of the Consumers' Association, said: "If these findings are accurate it is extremely disturbing. In the light of these figures it is even more essential that we have an independent body which can put consumers' interests first." Plans for the new agency, which would report to the Department of Health rather than to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, have been dogged by behind-the-scenes rows in Whitehall, particularly over cost. The Treasury says the food industry must help pay for it, a demand that industry lobbyists have rejected as a "tax on But the health department insisted there was no delay on publishing the information in order to save further government embarrassment.

Drafts of the report on a study commissioned five years ago ran into hundreds of pages following checks with GPs and on millions of samples. A spokeswoman said: "This will provide the first accurate picture of the true extent of the kind of organisms respon sible and the socio-economic cost of all infectious intestinal disease, not just food-borne infections. Attack on food safety, page 7 mm Theatre producer Ken Campbell. taking a pidgin production to Papua New Guinea, with Mebi, mebi no mebi, that is the question Simon Hoggart OUR mini-constitutional crisisette continued yesterday as the wholly undemocratic House of Lords fought to prevent a wholly undemocratic electoral system being imposed by the vaguely, sort-of, sometimes-on-alternate-Tuesdays-democratic House of Common's. It led to a great cloudburst of ersatz anger during Prime Minister's Questions.

William Hague, who has developed a nice line in fake ingenuousness, inquired about the 20 Labour MPs who had spoken on the closed list. How many had been in favour? (As if he didn't know.) Aha! said Mr Blair, or words to that effect. They had all voted in favour. Whereas in the House of Lords, only 21 peers who were neither Tories nor hereditaries had plumped for the closed list. Mr Hague rebounded with his best line.

"Why don't you ask one of those Chinese mystics you're turning to, to teach you the ancient art of answering the question?" This was a reference to Cherie Blair calling in afeng shui expert to give the once over to 10 Downing Street. I found this profoundly depressing. We have an heir to the throne who talks to plants, and a Prime Minister who evidently imagines it will help to save the economy if his wile moves the plants next to the window. Anyhow, it turned out that only one Labour backbencher had spoken for the closed list, and he had opposed it in committee. The Tory leader was almost drowned in the waves of fake laughter that roared down from the Tory benches.

The cross-benchers had been against the Prime Minister! he continued. So had the law lords! And the bishops! Labour MPs, who had had a rotten time up till then, spotted a chink. If the lads with the purple shell suits and the cro- changed that to 'Seten, takem mi hambag'. That will otfend your South Pacific readers. As long as we change that we should be OK.

Otherwise they'll get the spears out and eat us." The tour, which is being finalised, will visit New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides. "They've all got tribal languages in Papua New Guinea, but if they want ziers were being called in aid, Mr Hague must be on weaker ground than they thought. But then the Prime Minister recovered the Tory position for them. "Supporting the Labour Party's position were the Liberal Democrats At this the Tories went into maximum hilarity routine. Mr Blair might as easily have said: "and my team of performing poodles obey my every They slapped their thighs, clutched their sides and fanned themselves as if about to faint, like students at the Donald Wolfit School of Thespian Arts being ask to read for Falstaff.

As for who's right, both their sets of statistics are, strictly, accurate. As Disraeli almost said, there are lies, damned lies, and House of Commons Questions. Later in the day they debated again whether to send the closed list system back to the Lords. Jack Straw said: "Our decrepit opposition has lurched from one wheeze to another and is now impaled on a ludicrous proposition." Dead metaphors should never be brought to life. We had a vision of the Tories, drunk, reeling round until they fell onto the spikes, gushing blood Mr Straw is the Delia Smith of the mixed metaphor, with, perhaps, the same frozen charm.

In mid-afternoon Geoffrey Robinson made a personal statement about the third official rebuke he has received for failing to declare his interests. The statement, which was meant to serve as a form of punishment for his misdeeds, lasted just 54 seconds. Its length and tone would have been appropriate if Mr Robinson had stepped on your toe, but not if he had done something as serious as spilling soup in your lap. Finally I owe readers a word of explanation. Yesterday I wrote that there were no romantic songs about British roads, such as the A303, which was debated in the Commons on Tuesday.

In fact, Kula Shaker have a song called 303, which includes the memorable and evocative line: "You can find your way home on theA303." I apologise for this mistake and for any inconvenience it may have caused. an anachronistic hereditary majority in the House of Lords to kill this Bill. Tory peers have exercised an hereditary veto over the elected Labour Government's programme." Earlier in the Commons, Mr Blair and Mr Hague exchanged harsh words in what they each see as a popular campaigning issue the Tories defending voter rights against Labour "control and Labour using the row as a "peers vs people" propaganda gift in the drive to end hereditary privilege. Mr Blair said the Conservatives had "the strategic vision of a not least because the Tories and Liberal Democrats stand to gain up to 10 European seats apiece if the reform goes through in time. Several Tory peers, including the former minister, Tristan designs on the world Taking this as his inspiration, Campbell wants pidgin to be adopted as a world language.

We could all become fluent by the millennium. "The reason I am doing this is to alert the wol that it can have wintok by next week," he said, offering a two-day course for 25 "money back if you're not fluent by 6 pm the next Campbell has been interested in Pidgin since 1965. The first pidgin Macbeth was "Alas poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite good jest" "My word mi sad blong rabisman Yorik. Mi bin save emfala tumas gud, Orasio, wan tugudala blong krismas lafit gat no tata finis." From to talk inter-tribally they tok pigsin," says Campbell.

"We use the Vanuatu pidgin. It grew up on the sugar plantations. The British used slave labour but separated people from the same islands so they couldn't talk to each other. It was like an experiment in loneliness. They cracked it by listening to the guards, most of whom were Irish.

It became the pride of the plantation that they could teach it in two days." blong woman killim Makbed olgeta dedfinis yeh." "Doubtful it stood, as two spent swimmers, that do cling together and choke their art" "Mebi mebi no mebi, Olsem tufala swim bagarap draon finis." PHOTOGRAPH: SUE ADLER performed at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts earlier this year. The academy's chairman, Timothy West, was so impressed that he observed: "If it can't be done in pidgin, it probably isn't worth doing." The production has since toured the country and played a stint in the West End. Before heading for the South Pacific, Campbell will take his pidgin Shakespeare to some slightly less exotic locations: Bath, Brentford and Southend. He insists that his version of Shakespeare is unlikely to offend scholars. "Basically they love it, it's so much fun.

It's like having one eye looking through a prism and one eye looking at the world. It doubles the experience." The world will talk one language within a week. mm mm Pidgin Shakespeare Shakespeare's Macbeth "Makbed blong Willum Sekspia" "To be, or not to be" "Mebi, mebi no mebi." "No child of woman burn can harm Macbeth" "No pikinin kamtiu hambag Dan Glaister Arts Correspondent WOL wintok insaed wan wik or at least that is the hope of the actor, clown, comic, educationalist and theatrical producer Ken Campbell. In an exotic variation on taking coals to Newcastle, Campbell is to take his latest theatrical venture a pidgin rendering of Macbeth to Papua New Guinea and other islands in the South Pacific. "Somebody from the national theatre of Papua New Guinea came to see my production of Pidgin Shakespeare and he's invited us to go up the Sepik River in a couple of punts.

"But he did say that some of it was incredibly rude. In English. Lady Macbeth says 'Unsex me here'. In pidgin we Garel-Jones, and the former Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, warned their own party against falling into a trap. But only three Tories were confirmed as having rebelled against the party line by voting for the closed list.

The Conservatives are further promising havoc in the coming year. "It is not just what we could do to the Lords reform bill. It is what we could do to other bills," one senior Tory peer predicted. Mr Hague presented the issue in terms of Mr Blair using "every constitutional check and balance to expand the power of your own clique of cronies at the expense of the power of the Mr Blair said the fight was no longer about the system for picking MEPs. The Lords' stance had made the case for reform of the Upper House.

European election bill lost after Lords resist Blair party controls for fifth time 10.9 APR on loans of 7,500 continued from page 1 pean Parliament candidates. The Conservative leader, William Hague, will be pleased that he was able to demonstrate that the Opposition, after being almost ineffectual since the 1997 general election, has been able to block the Blair juggernaut even though the Conservatives may suffer if they have to fight the European election under first-past-the-post, where the party's divisions on Europe are glaringly emphasised. In a statement outside the Commons, Mr Straw challenged the Tories to support the bill so the European elections could take place under proportional representation. He said: "The public will scarcely believe that a party so heavily defeated at the last election have been able to use 0845 600 60 16 Lines open 8am to 10pm, 7 days a week Borrow from 1,500 to 1 5,000 Repayments guaranteed to stay the same throughout your loan Payment Protection Cover available Borrow for almost any reason including consolidation of creditstore card debts Approval, in principle, over the phone call now quoting ref: T34 Calls are charged at a local tale Telephone calls are directed to the Tesco Person.il Finance Call Centre and may be recorded for security or training. All loans subicct to status Loan applicants most be aged 18 or over.

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