Bit naughty to put that on one’s cv – unless, of course, he managed to condense 3 years into one which seems unlikely.
But he DID go to Sandhurst soon after, though again his commission in the Grenadier Guards was quite short (a couple of years or so).
Sir Alan Sugar wouldn’t have been impressed if he’d been on The Apprentice when it got to the examination of the cv stage!
So where will EDDC officers park if the Town Hall becomes a Honiton satellite centre? Just can’t see them paying for parking in Exmouth and getting free parking in Honiton. Or will they get special dispensation to park anywhere in East Devon – and maybe even Teignbridge and Exeter!
It’s quite easy to find out about Hugo Swire’s background (e.g. 3rd Great Grandson of John Swire (b. 1793), founder of the Liverpool textile trading business later to become the Swire Group, the great powerhouse conglomerate based in Hong Kong, Prep School, Eton, St Andrews, Grenadier Guards for a couple of years, Financial Adviser [to whom unspecified], National Gallery, Sotheby’s [where he got his auctioneering skills] here:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Swire
but Claire Wright is less well-known, so here is the background information on her from her campaign team):
NOTE FOR EDITORS – Background – Claire Wright:
Claire Wright, an Independent member of the East Devon District and Devon County Councils, is standing, as an Independent, for the Parliamentary constituency of East Devon. Aged 39, married with a young daughter, Claire has lived in East Devon for most of her life. A very experienced local campaigner, she announced her bid for Parliament last June, in response to public pressure, and launched her manifesto, based in part on the results of a local survey, in January.
She started campaigning whilst at school, organising protests against animal cruelty. This concern to confront perceived wrongs has seen Claire leading many campaigns on a variety of local issues, from fighting to retain a local hospital’s inpatient beds and other key services essential to the local population, to protecting the beavers and important native trees. She is the Woodland Tree Trust Champion for Devon. As a staunch advocate of openness in central and local government, she has worked to expose the links between local developers and the Conservative-led district council. She has been outspoken on many subjects including the need for a housing local plan, to safeguard the environment from inappropriate development, and the district council’s very costly plan to move to a new office and sell valued parkland. In 2010, Claire campaigned successfully to retain overnight stays at Honiton Hospital and led a group to create the first-ever play park near Ottery St. Mary.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
Claire Wright has an impressive understanding of the local area, its people and what concerns them. This has been gained, initially, by work on the Ottery Town Council where she served from 2009 to 2013 and the East Devon District Council where, in 2011, she ousted the long-standing Conservative leader. In May 2013, Claire was elected to the Devon County Council after securing 2,974 votes which represented 74 per cent of the total vote. This was the biggest share in the South West. She is the leader of the non-aligned group of three Independents and one Green councillor. The main committees on which Claire sits are the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny, Procedures and Member Development. She is also on several other committees.
In her council work, Claire has focused on two main themes, to encourage more transparency and openness at East Devon District Council and to save the district from the very real threat of over-development. Recently, having announced her bid for Parliament, Claire organised a survey to establish what concerned local people. Hundreds responded and her very popular blog has a huge audience, keen to find out what is happening in local politics and her constituents’ views.
CAREER
Claire worked in the NHS from 2001, in a PR role, and initiated campaigns to improve health. She also worked for Devon County Council before becoming a freelance in 2008. This permitted flexibility in her work and family life and the freedom to speak her own mind and to represent people’s views instead of representing an organisation. As her parliamentary bid claims, she is “free to speak, free to act”.
On joining the town council, Claire worked hard for the local people and was rewarded when the Honiton hospital maternity unit allowed overnight stays. Other campaigns have been concerned with fighting the planning chaos that followed the National Planning Policy Framework, effective in 2012, and supporting the local communities that have been engulfed by large scale housing proposals. She is also involved in fighting a project to create a new and local quarry for which there is no economic benefit for the community and which would damage the local tourist sector and the environment.
Press Release from Claire Wright claire-wright.org)
‘THE INDEPENDENT WITH THE BEST CHANCE OF VICTORY ACROSS THE UK’
‘Claire Wright, the Independent fighting to be the next Member of Parliament for the East Devon constituency, is now regarded as the candidate most likely to unseat the current MP, Foreign Minister Hugo Swire. She is drawing ahead of the other three parties contesting the seat and the data implies that she is attracting support from many anxious to see a Conservative defeat.
Her odds, according to Ladbrokes, have changed from an initial 66/1 to 6/1, which are the best odds of any independent candidate in the UK. A spokesman for the company confirmed that “it is now definitely a two horse race” as others lose ground.
The spokesman also asserted that the improvement in Claire Wright’s odds have been ‘the most dramatic of any candidate, of any party, in the UK’ and now her prospects of victory are seen to be’ better than for any other independent across the whole country’.
Claire Wright, an experienced district and county councillor, who has lived in East Devon for most of her life, has devised her campaign on her extensive knowledge and experience of the constituency. Her manifesto was based on a survey of views from hundreds of responders and thousands of conversations with voters across the whole of the constituency.”
We must not forget that, in addition to “cash for influence” there coexists another system of “access for influence” created by this government and in which our current MP plays his part.
This buddy system (posh name: strategic relationships) pairs high-ranking MPs with up to 80 multi-national companies and gives the top executives of those companies fast-track and frequent contact to those MPs, as explained here:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/18/buddy-scheme-multinationals-access-ministers
“… Analysis of official registers reveals the 38 companies in the first wave of the initiative – more than two-thirds of which are based overseas – have collectively had 698 face-to-face meetings with ministers under the current government, prompting accusations of an over-cosy relationship between corporations and ministers.
The full degree of contact between the chosen companies and the government is not known as telephone calls, emails, and meetings with officials are not recorded on the registers. …”
…”Among the first wave of “buddied” firms were some which have been targeted by campaigners for paying little or no UK tax, or making “sweetheart” deals with tax authorities, including Google and Vodafone. A spokeswoman for UK Uncut, which campaigns against tax avoidance and spending cuts, said the regularity of government access for big business was drowning out other voices.
“There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who have marched, written to MPs, gone on strike, protested and occupied over the cuts and privatisation which are devastating our lives,” she said.
“These demands by ordinary people have been ignored by a cabinet of millionaires which is choosing to only take the calls, the meetings and the dinners with big business and the banks to introduce policies which benefit them and the wealthy minority in this country.”
The new companies to be given ministerial buddies – but not yet publicly disclosed – include the property firms Atkins and Balfour Beatty, which have been paired with climate change minister Greg Barker, who is overseeing work on the government’s green deal and zero-carbon homes programmes.
David Heath of the Department of Agriculture is paired with food businesses Nestlé, Unilever, Mondeléz (formerly part of Kraft, and includes Cadbury) and Associated British Foods (owner of Primark and Kingsmill). Statoil is added to the oil companies already in touch with Vince Cable; foreign office minister Hugo Swire has been buddied with Procter and Gamble, and David Willetts with Cisco. The culture minister Ed Vaizey is paired with Telefonica (O2) and Everything Everywhere (Orange and T-Mobile), while Green adds engineering firm GKN to his list.”
Only three days ago, this appeared in an article in “Tribune”
http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2015/02/mind-the-tax-gap-avoidance-is-an-election-issue/
entitled
“Mind the tax gap – avoidance is an election issue”
“…The resulting loss of tax revenues is hard to quantify. Tax dodgers don’t own up to it. HMRC reluctantly admits to a tax gap (tax avoidance, evasion and arrears) in the United Kingdom of £34 billion a year. But other more serious investigations estimate it to be around £120 billion a year. A large part of this is due to organised tax avoidance. Major corporations, such as Amazon, Pepsi, Deutsche Bank, Ikea, Heinz, Accenture, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Dyson, Google, eBay, Starbucks and others, have become expert at avoiding taxes on their profits.
and here are some more articles on how Procter and Gamble avoids tax:
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/66936437/procter-gamble-dark-art-tax-avoidance
Community Voice on Planning (CoVoP) groups seem to have started a craze on youtube. Bradford have adapted it for themselves, after FRAGOFF (www.fragoff.co.uk) set the ball rolling.
See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijhAwpoQHvM And here’s Bradford’s version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw-UOPLsIIw
Mmm, wonder if fellow CoVoP members, East Devon Alliance, will appear on youtube sometime soon? We’ll keep you informed..
By Exeter Express and Echo | Posted: February 25, 2015
The Knowle in Sidmouth
A LEADING East Devon District Councillor has accused the council of “forcing” a vote on its controversial relocation project ahead of the local elections in May.
The council’s relocation project is set to be decided upon next month, because of the looming local elections.
Ward member for Ottery St Mary Councillor Claire Wright, criticised council officials for prematurely “forcing” a vote on the project “just days “ before the pre-election period known as purdah which prevents council’s from making any major decisions so as not avoid the risk of prejudice.
The council was pursuing plans to relocate to a purpose built office at SkyPark. However, at the end of November, the local authority announced a U-turn on its plans and instead the council backed the revised plan for the council to retain the council-owned East Devon Business Centre at Heathpark in Honiton where a new build will also be constructed – formerly earmarked for a supermarket – and to use existing space at Exmouth Town Hall.
Councillors have been informed that a meeting of the Cabinet has been brought forward a week to March 11, and will include a report on the office relocation.
A joint meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny and Audit and Governance committees is being held the day later to make recommendations on the relocation report.
And, at an additional meeting of the full council on March 25, a decision will be made on the relocation.
Cllr Wright, said: “It is a shocking indictment of the way that the Conservative leadership operates at the Knowle.
“This is the most controversial and costly project, apart from the local plan, which incidentally has been deliberately delayed until after the election, in years.
“There has been stacks of concern about the facts and figures, as well as the enormous cost and the millions that would need to be borrowed.
“So, instead of waiting to allow a new council to make up its own mind on the plans, the Conservatives force through a vote, just days before the election period starts.
“What a disrespectful way to run a council.”
A council spokesperson, said: “The special council meeting to decide on the proposed office move needs to take place before the end of March so that the proceedings do not fall inside the purdah period leading up to the local election on May 7, during which time no major decisions can be taken.
“The scheduled date for Cabinet was March 18, but there would not have been sufficient time for the council to receive the paperwork from Cabinet so as to discuss it on March 25.
“It was therefore agreed that the cabinet meeting would take place on March 11, to allow more time.
“It also followed that the cabinet reports and recommendation would need to be referred to Overview & Scrutiny and Audit & Governance Committees before full council.
“The chairs of those committees have therefore agreed to meet in a single session on March 12, with one item on the agenda – office relocation.
“That will allow time for all the documentation to be processed and available for councillors to make an informed decision at their meeting on March 25.”
he added: “At full council in December, members rejected a proposal that the decision should be postponed until after the election and tasked the deputy chief executive with continuing to progress the project.
“In the interests of transparency, the cabinet deliberations must be scrutinised by both committees.”
These three developments were the ones preferred by local people to the Millwey Rise develipment as they felt that it might get a much-needed by-pass built. nFormer planning supremo Kate Little refused to put it in the Local Plan.
Now Persimmon is showing its hand and, with no Community Infrastructure Levy in place because we have no Local Plan they do not have to provide infrastructure other than that needed by the development itself.
One to watch: and put in just in time to meet the decision deadline of the current council.
From a correspondent:
… it’s interesting that they can manage to arrange all these special meetings before going into purdah, but they can’t possibly find the time to progress the Local Plan!
We know all about that, but East Devon isn’t a safe seat any longer. 6,000 majority, 6,000 lost voters back on the register (and maybe more to come), a new party AND a 100% local opponent with a stunning track record at town, district and county council levels who has pledged: no second job!
East Devon Watch 