The House Of Blackmail [DVD]

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The Treasury chief secretary, Simon Clarke, has said it would “absolutely be wrong” for government whips to threaten to withdraw constituency funding if MPs did not support the prime minister. On the wider whipping system he said there was “obviously a legitimate difference between trying to persuade people to support key policy and doing something which obviously would involve misuse of public funds in that way”.

Wragg’s claims were followed by allegations from Christian Wakeford, the Bury South MP who defected to Labour, that he had been threatened with a loss of funding for his constituency if he rebelled as a Tory MP.The Labour peer and QC Dale Campbell-Savours points out that the parliamentary authorities have previously investigated threats to withhold funds from an MP. The Guardian’s home affairs editor Rajeev Syal has done some research and found that there is a precedent for parliamentary authorities investigating threats to withhold funds from MPs if they vote certain ways. They both engage with Markham and his associates. The house has a butler who likes to listen in through the keyhole. Later that night Markham is found dead. Both Jimmy and Carol are suspects. That the defendant has a view to make a gain for himself or another or have intent to cause a loss to another.

The Radio Times wrote: "Not one of [Maurice Elvey's] best efforts. We could do with more surprises, but the pace is unrelenting and there are typically solid performances from Mary Germaine, William Sylvester and John Arnatt." [6]Campbell-Savours says the privileges committee ruled in his favour. MacGregor went on to become the head of the National Coal Board during the miners’ strike. He died in 1988. When the prime minister said, ‘F business’, I thought it was a throwaway remark. Little did I know it would be the central organising principle of his government. Labour would start now with our plan to create apprenticeship opportunities for young people, which could have seen 100,000 extra apprenticeships created this year, to drive our economic recovery. In this excerpt from Hansard in January 1981, Campbell-Savours recalled the meeting with MacGregor, who had taken issue with his criticisms in parliament of British Steel.

Anyone with any substantive evidence to substantiate that kind of allegation should go to the relevant authorities. In 1981, when he was the MP for Workington, Campbell-Savours complained to the privileges committee – and had his complaint upheld – after being threatened by Iain MacGregor, the then head of British Steel. I believe that the UK government’s practices amount to wholesale corruption and that a public inquiry needs to be held to explore these funding decisions in detail, since what we know about is likely to be only the tip of the iceberg and the fear shared among many is that billions of pounds may have been misappropriated.” Kine Weekly said "The picture... opens well, but as soon as it moves to Markham’s mansion its action becomes a trifle stilted, Mary Germaine, as Carol, displays good looks and obvious acting ability, and William Sylvester, although a little too sure of himself, registers as Jimmy, but the rest are a very mixed bag. Even so, the sound stellar portrayals, coupled with the 'twist' ending, give it the benefit of any doubts." [3]There, they meet Markham (Alexander Gauge) and his two associates, an elderly Eastern European doctor (Hugo Schuster) and a sharp-tongued American (John Arnatt), also a Polish maid (Ingeborg von Kusserow) and a seedy, spying butler (Denis Shaw). After some sparring from Jimmy, Carol agrees to pay the money, but is unable to withdraw it from her bank until morning. The pair must remain until then and, with the windows electronically secured, there is no way to escape. During the night, Markham is murdered, and the killer could only have been someone staying at the house... The Conservatives as the party of business is a “distant memory”, the shadow chancellor has claimed, arguing that Labour’s plan for the country is “proudly pro-worker and proudly pro-business”. It’s either something he can substantiate, or it isn’t. I think that’s the point. And I simply need to see any evidence that that has in fact occurred. I think we have to accept objectively here that Mr Wakeford is not entirely a neutral source on these matters, having made the decision that he has. The shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, accused the Conservatives of no longer being the party of business given that they had presided over a “ lost decade” of low growth. William Sylvester used to pop up in some many British productions I always thought he was a British actor. This was until I saw him in the US movie, The Lawyer which spun off the television series Petrocelli.