Three former cabinet ministers, Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon [pictured below], were suspended from the Parliamentary Labour party last night in an unprecedented crack down on sleaze.
"The Labour Party expects the highest standards of its representatives and believes that they have a duty to be transparent and accountable servants to their constituents at all times."
The move was implemented by the party's chief whip, Nick Brown, and fuelled by backbench revulsion at claims that the trio had been using their ministerial experience to seek profitable lobbying consultancies. The decision was taken by Number 10 after party officials watched a Channel 4 programme which secretly recorded the former ministers expressing a desire to work for a consultancy firm at a fee of up to £5,000 a day. Byers, the former cabinet minister, described himself as a "cab for hire". Later, a Labour party spokesman said that Margaret Moran, the MP for Luton South, had also been suspended after featuring in the Dispatches programme.
Read the full Guardian article here.
