Pork

Guido has been suffering from a lack of tittle tattle to entertain us during the parliamentary recess. Instead he's been occupying himself with a bit of porkbusting.

The PFIing of the NHS is always interesting. Look where a billion* quid is going:

• £711 million to Leicester, the constituency of Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Health
• £272 million to Staffordshire, the constituency of Charlotte Atkins, the Health Select Committee member

Here's a little bit of porkbusting of my own:

High Peak. Labour ultra-marginal constituency - majority of 735.

Its Buxton Crescent & Thermal Spa project won £12.5m from the Lottery.

Now it's had £5m from the East Midlands Development Agency

Coincidence?

Note also that the second article details another £5m being spent in Derby. By another strange coincidence neither of this city's Labour MPs would be considered safe (Margaret Beckett, 422nd safest and Bob Laxton 502nd safest).