Andy McSmith's Diary: So that’s how Meg Hillier became Margaret Hodge’s successor

When MPs were electing a successor to the formidable Margaret Hodge to chair Parliament’s most important committee, the Public Accounts Committee, last month, they could have chosen Gisela Stuart, who is known for her contempt for “rudderless leaders who drift with the political wind”, or Helen Goodman, who would have brought specialist knowledge to the post, as a former Treasury civil servant. Instead, they chose Meg Hillier, whose greatest distinction is that Ed Miliband sacked her from the shadow Cabinet because she was hopeless.