I used to regularly come across disgraced rookie MP Shahid Malik at AntiNazi League national meetings. I was gobsmacked when he was elected MP in 2005 – he was a bumptious, egotistical, gladhanding arse even then.
Well, he’s an even bigger bumptious, egotistical, gladhanding arse now. But greedier.
Sky News presenter: Can I ask why a £800 massage chair is so important to you?
Shahid Malik: You see, I’d have more respect for you if you were honest about the figures. You know full well it is £730.
Malik’s rise from obscurity to Labour’s National Exec to the Commission For Racial Equality to neophyte Labour MP to the Dept for International Development to Justice Minister, in the short space of four years, has been astonishing; this even though questions were asked by his local paper about exactly how it was he was elected, for which he unsuccessfully sued the paper for libel. It was expensive too. I wonder who paid his costs?
He’s denying wrongdoing now as well. Will he sue the Telegraph? And will his suit have the same, lame result as before?