Daily Archives: 20 Jul 2018

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

20 Jul 2018

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Conflict of interest, Scrutiny, Sleaze, Tax avoidance

BoJo refuses to leave (free and almost tax free) Foreign Office luxury pad that should go to Jeremy Hunt

“Boris Johnson has refused to budge from his £20million taxpayer-funded mansion, as Downing Street admitted he could still be there for “weeks”.

There is growing anger as he remains at the luxury official residence, despite resigning as Foreign Secretary 12 days ago.

The Tory MP was today spotted sheepishly leaving the mansion, with two large suitcases packed in an awaiting car for him.

But wife Marina Wheeler was understood to still be in the home today.

A No10 spokeswoman said: “He’s leaving within the next few weeks.”

Mr Johnson refused to answer questions on his living situation when confronted by the Mirror at the property.

Two taxpayer-funded, unmarked police cars with four staff waited for two hours at One Carlton Gardens in Central London as the MP readied himself.

Mr Johnson was whisked away in a Jaguar, with the suitcases in a 4×4 BMW.

He has raked in thousands from renting out a home just four miles away in Islington, North London, while he lived rent-free in the mansion.

Grenfell Tower survivor Aalya Moses, 57, who spent months cooped up in a hotel room as she awaited a new home after the blaze, hit out at the former Cabinet minister.

She said: “If he’s still living in there I think it’s disgusting, it’s outrageous.

“A man like him will have earned plenty of money and he’s living for free in a second home he shouldn’t really be living in any more. And it’s at the taxpayers’ expense?

“What planet is he on? It’s diabolical.”

Labour MP David Lammy said it was proof of a “serious class problem” here.

Referring to the recent scandal over treatment of Windrush migrants, he added: “Those like Boris Johnson, who are drenched in privilege, feel entitled to claim far beyond what they are owed.

“Meanwhile, many of the poorest in our society often do not get even their most basic rights.

“As Boris luxuriates in Carlton Gardens at the taxpayers’ expense, despite resigning from his role, many from the Windrush generation remain homeless due to Government failures and its hostile environment.”

It also emerged Mr Johnson may have enjoyed the grace-and-favour property without paying tax.

Ministers are usually expected to declare such accommodation as a taxable benefit on the department’s annual report, according to the Treasury.

Mr Johnson, who has lived there since being made Foreign Secretary two years ago, has not.

The Treasury said: “Government ministers occupying official residences by virtue of their jobs meet the statutory conditions for an exemption from a tax charge on the property itself.

“However, tax is charged on associated services, such as heating, lighting, repairs…

“The charge of the benefit limited to 10% of the net earnings from the ministerial salary (not including their parliamentary salary).”

HMRC declined to comment on individual cases.

The Foreign Office failed to respond to the Mirror for comment, and to confirm whether Mr Johnson had vacated Carlton Gardens.

The Foreign Office leases the mansion from the Crown Estate, which looks after the Queen’s properties. Officials paid £482,341 a year in rent on it in 2015.

If this has not gone up since then the Foreign Office is paying £1,321.48 a day for the property.

That means as of yesterday, the taxpayer had paid £14,536 for it since Mr Johnson quit over Brexit on July 9.

The Georgian mansion is considered the most plush of all the ministers’ grace-and-favour pads. …”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-wont-budge-rent-12955434

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

20 Jul 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Conflict of interest, Corruption, Democracy, General Election, Lobbying, Sleaze

Comments

1 Comment

“Revealed: Tory donors who paid £7m to socialise with Theresa May”

Owl says: hedge funds expect to make squillions from Brexit.k

“Jacob Rees-Mogg’s business partner, Brexit backers and wife of Putin minister among benefactor

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s business partner, a string of Brexit backers and the wife of a former senior minister to President Putin are among the Conservative donors who have paid more than £7m to socialise with Theresa May since the general election.

Eighty-one party benefactors have paid a total of £7.4m to the Conservative party for access to the prime minister at dinners, post-prime minister’s questions’ lunches and drinks receptions since July 2017, records show.

Party insiders say the large amount raised over just nine months from a single revenue stream is evidence that the Tories are aiming to be “election ready” for the autumn.

At least 10 of the donors, who joined the Leader’s Group for £50,000 a head, are supporters of a hard Brexit.

Dominic Johnson, who attended two of the group’s events in 2017, is the co-founder of Somerset Capital Management – an investment firm set up with Rees-Mogg, a hard Brexiter and the chairman of the European Research Group [ERG].

Somerset was recently reported to be warning its clients about “considerable uncertainty” as a result of Brexit, and set up a fund in Ireland, which benefits from EU financial passporting rights.

Sir Michael Hintze, the hedge fund billionaire who gave £100,000 to Vote Leave, is a familiar figure in Conservative circles and attended at least one dinner in 2017 with the prime minister, sources said.

Hardy McLain, a retired US hedge fund manager living in London, attended events in 2017 and 2018. He previously donated £20,000 to the Vote Leave campaign.

It is the first time since July 2017 that any details of dinner guests of May’s Leader’s Group have emerged. Their identities have been quietly released by the Conservatives this week.

Receiving campaign donations is a routine activity for politicians. But each gift carries with it a potential conflict of interest if the prime minister’s policies appear to benefit those who made the donations.

Edmund Truell, who attended dinners in 2017 and 2018, owns a Swiss-listed private equity business called Disruptive Capital, whose mission statement is to “exploit market uncertainty” to generate returns.

Only two women are among the Leader’s Group donors disclosed in the documents.

Lubov Chernukhin, whose husband, Vladimir, was the deputy finance minister of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was given access to the prime minister between last July and September. She has given £626,500 to the Tories since 2012, including £160,000 to play tennis with Boris Johnson and £30,000 to dine with the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson.

Alisa Swidler, a US philanthropist and friend of Bill Clinton who has given £336,686 to the party, also attended an event with May.

The party’s chief executive, the mining tycoon Sir Mick Davis, told a meeting of donors in September that the party needed to raise an additional £6m through the parliamentary cycle if it was to win the next general election.

The party spent £18.5m on last year’s election, when the Conservatives lost their working majority, compared with £11m by Labour. Sources told the Guardian the Tories are aiming for a 40% annual increase in the party’s budget – money that will be spent on up to 100 local campaign co-ordinators.

Records show that Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative party treasurer who gave millions to the party under William Hague’s leadership but stopped donating during Cameron’s premiership, appears to be back in the fold and is a member of May’s leader’s Group. He was joined by the former government adviser and investor in payday loans, Adrian Beecroft.

May appears to bring cabinet members to each event. She was joined by Amber Rudd and the party chairman, Brandon Lewis, at events between the election and the end of September; the chancellor, Philip Hammond, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, accompanied her to Leader’s Group meetings in the autumn; between January and April this year, May was joined by Johnson, Michael Gove, Liam Fox and four other cabinet ministers.

The Conservatives had not updated details of donors who attended events since July 2017. Cameron pledged to release donors’ data following an outcry over the Leader’s Group dinners and whether they were allowing the rich and powerful to buy access to the cabinet.

The documents were spotted this week by campaigners for a second referendum on membership of the EU. Chris Bryant, the MP for Rhondda and supporter of the People’s Vote campaign, said: “People will rightly be angry to see the government listen to Brexit donors in return for donations to the Tory party while denying the British public a vote on their deal.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/20/revealed-tory-donors-who-paid-7m-to-socialise-with-theresa-may

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

20 Jul 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Health and Social Care (local)

Comments

1 Comment

Beware the employer suddenly interested in your “wellbeing”

Comment on Guardian article, pertinent to the current situation of less people doing more work.

“At my last job, there was a sudden uptick in the company’s interest in things like sleeping patterns and mental health. Obviously the more switched-on people reacted with mounting worry (what were they about to do to us?), but it got really sinister when we were introduced to an online system which could help us ‘keep track’ of our fitness and stress management regimes. Not, of course, compulsory (they don’t dare go that far yet) but it was framed as an amazing indication of how much the company cared about us.

I recall asking the person who was taking us through this exactly who was keeping hold of this very intimate personal data, where it went and what was done with it (some of the fine print suggested outsourcing) – they could not give me an answer to that and seemed uncomfortable that it had been asked, which was a dead giveaway. Needless to say, before I left the corporate clouds were gathering – job responsibility creep had started, people were getting looked at askance for not having picked up an email over the weekend, the cottage industry in oversight was the only one expanding…

Never, ever forget that your relationship with your employer is purely transactional. They are renting your time , labour and expertise and you owe them nothing more than what you have mutually contractually agreed to. Don’t let them put themselves in any other relationship to you than that – they are not your friend, they are not your parent and they are certainly not anyone who has any business being interested in your inner life. That’s the way to avoid job stress.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/20/wellbeing-buzzword-employers-mental-health

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

20 Jul 2018

Posted under

Accountability, Austerity cuts, Conflict of interest, Local Government Finance, Privatisation

Privatisation: today Barnet … tomorrow …? The end of “easy councils”

Owl gathers that the company Barnet outsourced most of its services to is known in the borough as C(r)apita!

“London Borough of Barnet is considering proposals to bring 11 services back in-house — including finance and accounting — in a move that could spell an end to its “easy council” approach.

The council achieved notoriety in 2012 when it decided to outsource up to 70% of its services through a separate joint venture company established with Capita.

But a report to the council’s cabinet this week recommended a rethink of the policy in response to the outsourcing giant’s financial problems and continuing austerity.

The council report said: “Capita’s focus in future will be delivering technology-enabled services, at scale, where the company believes it can add the most value to service delivery.”

Capita’s change of strategic direction — including a sale of treasury adviser Capita Asset Services — occurred last year after issuing a series of profit warnings.

The council added: “The rapidly changing external environment has accentuated the need for the council to increase the level of direct control it exercises over the levers that affect its strategic direction”.

In response, the council says it prefers the option of bringing some services back in-house, rather than a wholesale insourcing, or continuing with the existing arrangements.

Finance and accounting — apart from transactional services provided from a shared service centre in Darlington — are among the services earmarked for a return to direct council provision.

Others include estates, strategic human resources, some social care services, regeneration commissioning, highways, economic skills and development, cemeteries and strategic planning.

Another 17 services, among them printing, payroll, pensions administration, customer services, development control, trading standards and licensing, would continue to be outsourced to Capita.

Officers at the authority will now work on defining the best way forward and drawing up a business plan for changes.

Richard Cornelius, Barnet’s council leader, said: “Many things are working well, and it’s right that we build on them. Where this is not the case, changes are needed.”

Cornelius said that changes would only be recommended if they offered a good deal for the Barnet taxpayer.

Jonathan Prew, managing director of Local Public Services at Capita, said: “The proposed review is an opportunity to respond to changing circumstances and needs that have evolved over the last five years to ensure that a future partnership is focused on providing services that will deliver best value for residents and all stakeholders.

“Our partnership has achieved significant financial benefits, and we continue to be focused on strengthening our performance where we need to and delivering quality services across the borough.”

The chief executive and leader of the council have resigned from the board of the joint venture, Regional Enterprise, to avoid conflicts of interest during the review period.”

http://www.room151.co.uk/resources/barnet-on-the-verge-of-returning-services-in-house/