Paul Flynn - Stripped of Parliamentary allowance.

A Labour MP says he has been stripped of a Parliamentary allowance for making fun of other MPs on his blog.

Paul Flynn was told to remove posts including ones calling ex-Labour minister Peter Hain a "shapeshifter" and Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik a "clown".

When Mr Flynn refused he had part of his communications allowance removed.

Other MPs have complained of the Commons trying to "censor" their blogs but the authorities say there are rules on using public money for "propaganda".

MPs voted last year to give themselves a £10,000 allowance to spend on boosting the public understanding of Parliament through websites and other publicity material.

They were warned that they would not be allowed to use the money to publish political "propaganda" on their websites.

But Mr Flynn - whose award-winning blog has been praised for its outspoken take on Westminster life and was once described as "magnificently rude" by Daily Mail sketch writer Quentin Letts - said the authorities were not concerned about bias on his site.

They were instead trying to impose the same rules of etiquette that apply in the Commons chamber on the internet, which he said amounted to censorship.**

"They didn't have any complaints about the party political content, it was the courtesies of the House," he told the BBC News website.

"But I have never seen the rules written down. They just rang me up after reading my blog and said 'you can't say that'".

In one post, Mr Flynn compares Labour colleague Peter Hain to a Star Trek character "who liquefies at the end of each day and sleeps in a bucket to emerge in another chosen shape the following morning".

He also turns his satirical fire on Lembit Opik, who recently failed in his bid to be elected Lib Dem president, whom he describes as a "clown" and a "turkey" whose speciality is "mindless political populism over intelligence".- Pot, kettle, black on that one with regards Mr Flynn.

Other MPs branded a "turkey" include Tory Nigel Evans, who Mr Flynn describes as "a tabloid newspaper made flesh".

He has also been critical of Labour colleagues such as Richard Caborn and Ian McCartney who are consultants to the nuclear industry, dubbing their payments "cash for comrades".

Mr Flynn said the authorities had told him to go through his site and remove any criticism of other MPs.

But the Newport MP said he would not be toning down the content of his site and was now paying the £250 a year it costs to run it out of his own pocket.

"Imagine how boring it would be if the only thing you could say about other MPs were nice things. What the hell is the point of that?," he said.

**With regards Mr Flynns comments on censorship, he might want to consider his own self censorship with regards the apology he was forced to put up with regards Endowment Justice who sued him for libel. An apology that has now gone and just gives a page not found error message.

I laughed long and hard at this news of him losing his allowance, its enough to give an OAP a stroke. Sorry Flynn, forgot that you had already been there and done that.

Still to paraphrase his comments about Sen. McCain: Newport is just a "stroke" away from a by-election...

Maybe Mr Flynn should have run his own site, Blogger and some others are free sites and cost not a penny to run. Had he done that he could have avoided the problem of losing money to fund his site and saved the taxpayers of this fair land a few quid as well.

Although I have frequently slated Mr Flynn, the proven liar and libel case losing MP I recommend that people have a read of this for more on dire MP Paul Flynn: Paul Flynn is a cock.

Oh and the thunderdragon lays into the debate.

Also the great Guido has a dig at the aged lying MP.

Paul Flynn's blog has occasional gems, such as describing Peter Hain as a "shape shifter". The parliamentary authorities have withdrawn his allowance because it is partisan. Given that if blogs are boring and non-partisan no one reads them, isn't it a given that they should not be funded by the taxpayers? John Redwood pays for his out of his own pocket. So should the rest of the troughing politicians.

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