Category Archives: Democracy

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18 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Democracy, Electoral Commission, Voting

“The Prime Minister, the Tatler Tory, his Conservative party Battlebus mistress and a VERY revealing election expenses leak”

“The [Conservative] party was fined £70,000 last week after an Electoral Commission inquiry found it had failed to record correctly £275,000 spent during the 2015 general election and at by-elections like Rochester.

An email showing how ‘Tatler Tory’ Mark Clarke and his mistress ran the Conservative Party battlebus campaign at the centre of an election expenses row was leaked last night.

In the email, Clarke tells MPs his battlebus will not affect their election expenses because it ‘is accounted for out of central campaign spend’. …

… In it, he says the campaign has the ‘full financial support of CCHQ (Tory HQ)’ and has been ‘signed off’ by election chief Lynton Crosby and party chairman Lord Feldman.

On ‘expenses and funding,’ Clarke says: ‘Our costs are met by donations contributed and declared via CCHQ. We fund all activist refreshment. This is not an election expense. We fund all the hotel and transport. This is an election expense and is accounted for out of central campaign spend.’

He advises MPs to contact battlebus campaign aide India Brummitt for further information. She can be seen in the audience in a film of Mrs May – then Home Secretary – in a crowded bar at Clarke’s ‘RoadTrip’ during the Rochester by-election, which the Tories lost to Ukip’s Mark Reckless. Mrs May tells Clarke: ‘What you are doing is absolutely tremendous.’ She leads a round of applause for him.” …

… The Electoral Commission report said the Tories were likely to have ‘understated the value’ of their spending on the three by-elections.

It said the party’s failure to accurately report its expenses meant there was a ‘realistic prospect’ that candidates gained a ‘financial advantage’ over opponents. Former Tory treasurer Simon Day was reported to the police and could face jail if found guilty. Up to two dozen Tory MPs could face charges of electoral fraud.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4327812/Prime-Minister-Tatler-Tory-Conservative-party-mistress.html

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18 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Democracy, Hugo Swire

George Osborne and his pals

We assume this includes old Etonian mates Swire and Cameron – all three fired within a few days when Mrs May took power.

… “For six years, Britain was governed by public schoolboys who were useless at almost everything apart from handing cash to their mates in the City and the housebuilding industry. They boasted of competence, yet tanked the economy so badly that British workers are suffering their worst decade for pay since the Napoleonic wars. They claimed to be compassionate, yet Osborne and his colleagues snatched money off the poor and sent disabled people to their deaths. The believers in free markets called and bungled the referendum that will drag Britain out of the EU. The Conservative and Unionist party has done an admirable job of smashing up the union.

It was a government of Michael Gove and Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt and Boris Johnson [and Hugo Swire]. It was an administration of bunglers, chancers and the shameless; it has done huge damage to the relationship between the political elite and the public. And at its centre was Osborne, the tactician-in-chief, the man who cut taxes on multinationals even while he lifted benefits off disabled people. His reward? To be handed more money by the mates who got most out of him while in office.

The public-school larceny might make you angry; the lack of effective oversight should make you despair. Osborne’s new job must be agreed by parliament’s advisory committee on business appointments, which is meant to regulate the jobs taken up by former ministers. This is the same watchdog that allowed Gove to go back to work for Rupert Murdoch, former health secretary Lansley to take money from drugs firms and the ex-water minister, Richard Benyon, to take on £1,000 a day in the water industry. Dress it up in ceremonial robes but this is class privilege writ large and made all the more glaring by being pursued by politicians who bang on about a “fair crack” and the need for social mobility. …”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/18/george-osborne-laughing-evening-standard-david-cameron

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17 Mar 2017

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Election spending (2) … just to make it crystal clear where the buck stops

“Managing campaign spending

Authorising and paying campaign spending

Only the ‘responsible person’ registered with us and people authorised in writing by the responsible person can incur campaign spending.

For example, someone may be authorised to spend money on particular items, or up to a particular amount.

These rules are in place to make sure that spending can be controlled and accurately recorded and reported.

You should make sure that your volunteers and campaigners know who can and cannot incur costs.”

Click to access to-campaign-spend-rp.pdf

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17 Mar 2017

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Elections: Campaign spending rules for dummies

Presumably, Ms Hernandez read this:

“The types of election spending

There are two types of spending by or on behalf of parties at elections. These are:

Party campaign spending on campaigning to promote the party and its policies generally.

For example, national newspaper adverts for the party, or leaflets explaining party policy.

It also includes spending on promoting candidates at elections where the party nominates a list of candidates for a region, instead of individual candidates for local areas.

Candidate spending on campaigning to promote a particular candidate or candidates in their local area.

For example, leaflets or websites that focus on one or more candidates and their views.

Different rules apply to the two types of spending.

This guidance covers party campaign spending only.

Allocating spending between the party and the candidate

If you are not immediately sure whether something is promoting the party or the candidate, you must make a fair and honest assessment of the facts.

This will help you decide how to allocate the item’s costs against the right spending limit.

Spending will usually fall into one category or the other.

You should only divide the costs of an item between different spending limits if you are sure that it is reasonable to do so.

You should not split costs if an item is produced mainly to promote a candidate, and uses the party’s name or refers to the party’s policies purely in support of that aim.

For example, if a leaflet focuses on a candidate but includes some of the party’s key policy pledges as a way of telling voters what the candidate stands for.

If you are still not sure how you should allocate an item of spending, please call or email us for advice.

Click to access to-campaign-spend-rp.pdf

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Comments on record fine for Conservative expenses scandal

“… Four aspects of this record fine are worth noting, especially in terms of what it means for forthcoming decisions on legal action against more Conservative MPs than makes up Theresa May’s majority in the House of Commons.

In short – it’s bad news for the Conservatives as the Electoral Commission has found repeated evidence of spending missing from constituency expense returns. That’s with the police, who have started interviewing MPs under caution, and the Crown Prosecution Service, which has received files from a dozen police forces now.

1. Conservative Party repeatedly hindered the Electoral Commission

The Conservative Party repeatedly refused to cooperate fully with the Electoral Commission investigation, requiring the Commission to go to court to get access to relevant evidence. Even after that, two further legal notices were issued in response to the party failing to provide information requested. The Electoral Commission also had to issue a legal order against a Conservative Party campaigner who “had chosen not to provide information voluntarily”.

“The Party hindered and caused delay to the investigation”, the Electoral Commission’s report concludes. This is notable different from its conclusions on other parties it has investigated recently, where cooperation was forthcoming and sustained.

2. When parties split costs, they must keep good evidence

It is a normal and legal part of election expenditure to split some costs between different legal areas. For example, a leaflet might both promote a local election candidate and a general election candidate and as a result its costs are split between the two candidate’s different expense limits.

One area where the Electoral Commission found against the Conservative Party was over its splitting of staff costs where staff were located in a constituency at the time of a by-election but were also continuing with their normal party roles as well as helping on the by-election.

“The Party could provide no record of how those proportions were determined for any of the by-elections. It did not have any written record of the formula at all, either generally or in relation to any of the three by-elections,” the Electoral Commission reports.

3. Police investigations into Conservative MPs are continuing

As the Electoral Commission’s report says, “The Commission does not have specific powers to investigate and enforce incomplete candidate returns”. The fines and police referral by the Electoral Commission are all about national record keeping and expense limit compliance, not what MPs and their agents got up to.

4. Electoral Commission’s conclusions worsen the legal risk faced by Conservative MPs

All the accommodation costs for national staff relocated to constituencies during three Parliamentary by-elections which the Electoral Commission investigated should have been included in local constituency returns even if the staff were spending some of their time on non-constituency campaigning.

That’s because otherwise they would have been based in their normal offices without accommodation being paid: “There is no reason the Commission can see as to why only an unspecified proportion of the accommodation costs for staff was included in the invoices to candidates. The Commission is satisfied that the entire accommodation costs, for staff and volunteers, were incurred for the purpose of basing individuals in Newark, Clacton and Rochester and Strood, to facilitate those individuals’ work on the respective by-election campaigns. This money would not have been spent otherwise.”

Moreover, when it comes to the Thanet South general election contest, the Electoral Commission has concluded that some of the expenses put on the party’s national expense return should have been included in the constituency return instead as they were for constituency campaigning: “The Commission is satisfied that a proportion of the costs included in the Party’s campaign spending return associated with the team based in South Thanet did not relate to Party campaign spending and should not have been included in the Party’s spending return. In particular, a proportion of the £15,641 included in the Party’s 2015 UKPGE spending return in relation to the Royal Harbour Hotel constituted candidate campaign expenses and should not have been included in the return.”

Likewise on the Conservative battlebus tour, the Electoral Commission has found that the Conservative Party wrongly claimed that all its costs were national election expenditure because in reality the battlebus operation often promoted constituency candidates and so a proportion of its costs should have counted against their limits.

Because the Electoral Commission doesn’t have direct jurisdiction over constituency returns, the question therefore of under-declaring costs on constituency returns has not been followed up by them in this report. That, however, is a matter for the ongoing police investigations. For example, on the question of the Conservative battlebus, the Electoral Commission concludes: “The Commission has not sought to identify the extent to which any affected candidates may have underreported their campaign spending, which is an RPA [Representation of the People Act] matter and therefore a matter for the police.”

In other words, the Electoral Commission has found a number of issues which directly mean that constituency expense returns were wrong. They haven’t issued fines or taken other action over them as those matters are with the police.”

http://www.markpack.org.uk/148784/conserative-party-electoral-commission-fine/

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16 Mar 2017

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Employing your spouse in Parliament – a solution for Mr Swire and others

To those MPs who employ their spouses and partners (including Hugo Swire), some of whom say they need to employ them for their loyalty and trustworthiness, Owl says:

It’s easy – employ them as unpaid volunteers.

“Big Society” in action! Sorted!

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16 Mar 2017

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Conservative Party fined laughable £70,000 for breaking election rules

Owl says: £70,000 – laughable. Four pots of Hugo Swire’s honey (allowing for inflation) auctioned off at the next Tory fundraiser will sort that out. £700,000 better, £7 million best! AND if the party can’t keep track of this sort of accounting – what sort of mess is it making regionally and nationally!

“The Electoral Commission has fined the Conservative Party £70,000 over “significant” election campaign expenses issues.

The independent elections watchdog said the party had made “numerous failures” in reporting its expenses for the 2015 General Election and three by-elections in 2014.

It has also referred one matter, relating to the party’s treasurer declaring he had examined the return and believed it to be complete and correct, to the Metropolitan Police.

The investigation found the party’s 2015 General Election spending return was missing payments worth at least £104,765.

Separately, payments worth up to £118,124 were either not reported to the Commission or were incorrectly reported. …

… Commission chairman Sir John Holmes said the Tories’ failure to follow the rules “undermined voters’ confidence in our democratic processes” and said there was a risk political parties were seeing such fines as “a cost of doing business”.

The fine comes after a dozen police forces announced they had sent files to the Crown Prosecution Service as part of a probe into the Conservatives’ 2015 election expenses.

The allegations centre around whether spending on hotels for visiting activists and certain campaign material was incorrectly registered as national rather than local spending.

At least three Tory MPs have been quizzed by police investigating whether election finance laws were broken in the 2015 contest.

Sir John said: “Our investigation uncovered numerous failures by a large, well-resourced and experienced party to ensure that accurate records of spending were maintained and that all of the party’s spending was reported correctly.

“The rules established by Parliament for political parties and their finances are there to ensure transparency and accountability.

“Where the rules are not followed, it undermines voters’ confidence in our democratic processes, which is why political parties need to take their responsibilities under the legislation seriously.”

He went on: “This is the third investigation we have recently concluded where the largest political parties have failed to report up to six-figure sums following major elections, and have been fined as a result.

“There is a risk that some political parties might come to view the payment of these fines as a cost of doing business; the Commission therefore needs to be able to impose sanctions that are proportionate to the levels of spending now routinely handled by parties and campaigners.”

Responding to the investigation, a Conservative Party spokesman said the party had complied fully with the investigation and will pay the fines imposed.

“As we have consistently said, the local agents of Conservative candidates correctly declared all local spending in the 2015 general election.”

He said the party’s campaign headquarters “accepted in March 2016 that it had made an administrative error by not declaring a small amount constituting 0.6 per cent of our national spending in the 2015 election campaign.

“This error was subsequently corrected and the Party has since improved its accounting practices, reporting structures and staff guidance. Even taking this into account, the Conservative Party still considerably underspent the statutory national spending limits for the 2015 general election.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-party-fine-tory-tories-electoral-commission-70000-election-campaign-expenses-a7632516.html

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Postal votes and election rules – a worrying anomaly in the rules

Electoral rules currently allow political parties to invite voters to send postal ballot application forms (not the actual completed ballot papers) to political party offices rather than to the local authority conducting the election. As the website Skwawkbox says below, this would appear to be potentially fraught with the risk of facilitating fraudulent applications, but it is currently permitted.

However, political parties are not allowed to encourage voters to do this. In fact, the Postal Vote Code of Conduct instructs them to discourage it by making the preferred return address that of the official Electoral Returning Officer.

However, blogsite Skwawkbox:
Yet another Tory electoral breach – the SKWAWKBOX needs your help

gives an example where a local Tory office of a nearby authority (Somerset) gave its own address as its first option and that of the Electoral Returning Officer as the second option. With no address given for the ERO.

From Skwawkbox.

“A local resident wrote to Somerset County Council’s Strategic Manager of Governance and Risk about this breach and received this response:

“Thanks for sending a scan of the letter. Having studied the Code of conduct for campaigners in Great Britain and spoken to the Electoral Commission the letter should have the Electoral Services Office as the primary address for return of the form. The letter can include a secondary address.

Clearly this is not the case with the example that you sent through. Campaigners can receive completed forms and should then forward them to the Electoral Registration Officer’s address within two working days of receipt.

In the light of what you have sent through Pat Flaherty as County Returning Officer has raised this formally as an issue with the Conservative Party elections agent to point out what needs to happen under the requirements of the Code.”

As Skwawkbox says:

“This may seem like a small ‘technicality’, but it’s in such seemingly insignificant areas that space for election-tampering can exist – affecting the wellbeing of thousands and even millions of our citizens. … “

Skwawkbox is asking its readers to check for similar errors on party political websites to see what they say about arrangements for postal vote application forms and to let it know of any potential infringements of the Code of Conduct.

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15 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Democracy, Hugo Swire, Scrutiny, Transparency

Will Swire do the right thing and fire his wife? Or will she do the right thing and resign?

“MPs will be banned from hiring relatives using public money after the next general election, according to new rules issued by the expenses watchdog.

The new rules, released on Wednesday, state that no new “connected parties” can be employed in politicians’ offices. Members of MPs’ families who are already employed will be allowed to continue to work in their offices, despite widespread criticism of the practice.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) said it would not force MPs to sack individuals who are currently working for them.

The rule change was released following a comprehensive consultation of MPs’ business costs and expenses. It comes amid the scandal in France over allegations that presidential candidate François Fillon paid his wife hundreds of thousands of pounds for little work.

Ipsa’s senior officials have argued that the employment of “connected parties” is out of step with modern employment practice, which requires fair and open recruitment to encourage diversity in the workplace.

Pay for MPs’ relatives costs the public purse around £4m a year, and around 150 are currently on the payroll.

Employing relatives is one of the most controversial practices still allowed under the changed expenses rules….

… MPs will be banned from hiring relatives using public money after the next general election, according to new rules issued by the expenses watchdog.

The new rules, released on Wednesday, state that no new “connected parties” can be employed in politicians’ offices. Members of MPs’ families who are already employed will be allowed to continue to work in their offices, despite widespread criticism of the practice.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) said it would not force MPs to sack individuals who are currently working for them.

The rule change was released following a comprehensive consultation of MPs’ business costs and expenses. It comes amid the scandal in France over allegations that presidential candidate François Fillon paid his wife hundreds of thousands of pounds for little work.

Ipsa’s senior officials have argued that the employment of “connected parties” is out of step with modern employment practice, which requires fair and open recruitment to encourage diversity in the workplace.

Pay for MPs’ relatives costs the public purse around £4m a year, and around 150 are currently on the payroll.

Employing relatives is one of the most controversial practices still allowed under the changed expenses rules.

In 2009, the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended a ban on the practice as it was “not consistent with modern employment practice designed to ensure fairness in recruitment, management of staff and remuneration”.

Proposals to ban family members from working for MPs following parliament’s expenses scandal were dropped by Ipsa after a backlash from politicians – with the caveat that they were restricted to putting just one family member on the payroll.

MPs who have employed family members include the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, and the Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, who employs his wife, Felicity.

Many MPs say their relatives are willing to work much longer hours than they could ask of other staff. They believe the practice helps them maintain a family life amid the long hours and pressures of Westminster.

A report by the watchdog earlier this year revealed that the pay of connected parties is on average £5,600 higher than that of other staff, and going up at twice the rate of other staff in parliament. At the time of the last general election, relatives’ average salary was £31,350 a year.

Ipsa has said controls to prevent misuse of public funds in payments to family members are “limited”. There is no central time-keeping system for MPs’ staff, and MPs are responsible for monitoring and paying overtime.

Ipsa said it was “difficult to discover whether MPs are breaking the rules” and said there was a risk MPs could break the rules or “act fraudulently without detection”.

It added: ‘The quality of our data records and the absence of controls to prevent false declarations of connected party status means that there is a high risk that any instance of an undeclared or inaccurate status will not be identified.’

Between 2010 and 2015 the cost of employing MPs’ relatives was about £21m.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/15/mps-to-be-banned-from-using-public-money-to-hire-relatives-expenses

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15 Mar 2017

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Election expenses scandal – Devon and Cornwall info passed to Crown Prosecution Service

“Twelve police forces have passed files to the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations that Conservatives broke campaign spending laws at the last election, after a 10-month investigation by police forces across the country.

The revelation is likely to increase concern in Downing Street and the Conservative party about the seriousness of the investigations, which could affect several sitting MPs and even lead to election results being declared void if there are prosecutions.

The CPS said it had been passed files from Avon and Somerset; Derbyshire; Cumbria; Devon and Cornwall; Gloucestershire; Greater Manchester; Lincolnshire; the Metropolitan police; Northamptonshire; Nottinghamshire; West Yorkshire; and Staffordshire police.
Continue reading →

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15 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Democracy, Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

Tory voter or NHS supporter? You can’t be both

Up to 100 Tory MPs believed to have been ready to revolt over National Insurance hike for self-employed. Result: abandoned after Budget within a week.

Absolutely no Tory MPs ready to revolt about cuts, privatisation and contraction of NHS. Result: it goes forward – with budget funding to speed it up.

Tory voter or NHS supporter? No middle ground.

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14 Mar 2017

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Election expenses scandal – update

“Conservative MPs embroiled in an election expenses row have accused party officials of trying to dodge blame.

Two dozen Tories are understood to be under police investigation over claims they overspent on their local campaigns during the 2015 general election in which spending limits are tight.

Karl McCartney, MP for Lincoln and one of those under investigation, wrote a bombshell email to the party chairman attacking the party’s handling of the controversy linked to its election “battle bus”.

In it, he wrote: “We didn’t create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters) did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media.”

Sky News can reveal:

:: An email sent to 30 Tory MPs claims the party has withheld a draft report it has already received from the Electoral Commission into the issue.

:: A second email to the party chairman claims Conservative Central Office was to blame for the expenses “mess”.

:: The MPs held a showdown meeting with party chairman Patrick McLoughlin on Tuesday afternoon to air their concerns.

:: MPs implicated in the row said they felt “scared” about the outcome of the investigations and believe Downing St is worried.

The spending row centres on the Tories’ use of an election battle bus to campaign in key seats, and whether spending on hotels and campaign material were incorrectly registered as national spending, which has much higher limits than local spending.

Meanwhile, Kent Police refused to confirm reports Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, who defeated ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage in Thanet South, was questioned under caution last Friday over his expenses.

If Conservatives are found to have committed any offence, their political opponents could ask for the contests to be rerun.

Mr McCartney, a justice of the peace who was elected in 2010 and fought off a challenge from Labour in 2015, is said to be acting as an informal “shop steward” to the group of mainly newly-elected MPs implicated.

He wrote to colleagues last week saying Conservative Central Office (CCHQ) had received a draft report from the Electoral Commission, which has been investigating party spending for a year.

Mr McCartney said this information came from a Conservative-party appointed solicitor who is acting for the group, but claimed the contents of the report had not been shared with MPs.

However, a Conservative source denied officials had received the report.

Mr McCartney wrote: “I have made my disquiet and disbelief at this course of action pretty clear in a blunt email to the party chairman and the whips office overnight.”

In that email, also seen by Sky News, and addressed to Mr McLoughlin who is in the cabinet, he wrote that his colleagues “feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend for themselves”.

He added: “At what stage do you think you (the Party) might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didn’t create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.

“The initial cock-ups, ‘strategy’ and ineptitude with regard to this issue that has so negatively impacted our: lives, standing in our communities, standing amongst colleagues, families and our regard for particular parts of the Party centrally, and were all of CCHQ’s making…need to stop.

“We are the ones who are now (and since the beginning as individuals have been) in the media spotlight and it might have been a little more reassuring and collegiate if the powers that be in our party perhaps tried to be a little bit more supportive and less interested in covering their own backsides.”

Mr McCartney asks why MPs were not warned about the Electoral Commission report, expected to be made public in the coming weeks.

He said none of the MPs have been questioned by the Commission and asked: “Who else has had a copy? And what are the ramifications of its current version and what if it accepts your feedback and rewrites whole swathes of their draft?”

He asked the party chairman for guidance on dealing with media inquiries, saying: “We do need a press release for national and local media interest. I would rather sing from the same hymn sheet.”

On his website, he wrote: “The Conservative Party advised us that the so-called campaign ‘battle buses’ were, as at previous general elections and in keeping with the practice of both the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats, a national campaign expense.

“This meant that they were not to be declared in our own election expenses.”

Another of the MPs in the group, elected in 2015, and under police investigation said they firmly believed the spending was correctly registered.

The MP said: “People are scared, this has been hanging over us for more than a year. I absolutely believe it was legitimately national spending in my case.

“Our solicitor which they have paid for agrees that the law is what it is and we haven’t broken it. But I think CCHQ have been quite complacent about how far it would go. No 10 is now very concerned about it.”

A Conservative spokesman said: “We are cooperating with the ongoing investigations.”

http://news.sky.com/story/expenses-scandal-tory-mps-say-party-officials-covering-own-backsides-10801909

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14 Mar 2017

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Election expenses scandal: some Tory MPs in panic mode

Our current Police and Crime Commissioner, Alison Hernandez, was election agent for MP Kevin Foster [Torbay] who took the seat from Lib Dems with a majority of 3,286 at the last election with just over 40% of voters choosing him.

http://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2017-01-04/police-chief-interviewed-over-election-expenses-scandal/

“A Conservative MP has been interviewed under caution as part of an ongoing police inquiry into whether the party overspent in its campaign for South Thanet in the 2015 general election, when they were up against Nigel Farage.

Craig Mackinlay, the MP who won the seat against the former Ukip leader, is said to have spent about six hours speaking to police about their investigation, which has been going on for about a year.

Asked about the interview, a Conservative spokesman said: “We are cooperating with the ongoing investigations.” Mackinlay did not reply to a request for comment.

There is growing panic in the Conservative party about the scale of police probes into election spending, which could affect dozens of MPs. A separate investigation by the Electoral Commission into whether the national party broke election spending limits is also under way and expected to come to a head within weeks.

The allegations, first uncovered by Channel 4 News, are that spending in marginal seats on a battlebus tour and teams of party officials was wrongly recorded as national, rather than local spending.

The penalties for wrongly declaring local elections are steep, with possible criminal charges for MPs and their election agents, and results can be declared void.

It is understood police could meet the Crown Prosecution Service as early as 21 March to discuss bringing a possible charge in relation to South Thanet, where Farage was narrowly beaten by Mackinley.

Nigel Farage says he would stand for election again in South Thanet
Farage, the former Ukip leader, has already said he may be interested in rerunning in the Kent coastal seat if it there were to be a prosecution and byelection.

Kent police said: “The investigation into this complex matter is ongoing and officers continue to follow lines of enquiry. Therefore it would not be appropriate to comment further.

“Officers from Kent police continue to work with the Electoral Commission as the investigation continues.”

Separately, a group of Conservative MPs under investigation over their election expenses are growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of support from the party’s headquarters.

One has sent an email to Tory HQ accusing the party of keeping secret a draft of the Electoral Commission report from MPs whose local spending returns are under investigation.

In an email seen by Sky News, Karl McCartney, a Tory MP [Lincoln] under investigation who is helping other MPs, accused party officials of trying to save themselves rather than help those who were elected.

He wrote that his colleagues “feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend for themselves”.

He added: “At what stage do you think you (the party) might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didn’t create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.”

“The initial cock-ups, ‘strategy’ and ineptitude with regard to this issue that has so negatively impacted our: lives, standing in our communities, standing amongst colleagues, families and our regard for particular parts of the party centrally, and were all of CCHQ’s making … need to stop.

“We are the ones who are now (and since the beginning as individuals have been) in the media spotlight and it might have been a little more reassuring and collegiate if the powers that be in our party perhaps tried to be a little bit more supportive and less interested in covering their own backsides.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/14/conservative-mp-craig-mackinlay-interviewed-under-caution-over-election-spending

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14 Mar 2017

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Crackdown on MPs employing family – will it affect Mrs Swire (salary £30,000+)?

Mr Swire has employed Mrs Swire for many years as a “Senior Researcher” and has said in the past that she helps with his press releases and website.

“MPs are to be hit with tougher restrictions on employing their wives and children amid concern of a François Fillon-style scandal in Britain, The Sunday Telegraph understands.

New stricter rules on employing relatives from the taxpayers’ purse are expected to be announced this month in the biggest expenses shake-up in six years. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), created after The Telegraph’s expenses investigation, will start contacting MPs from tomorrow.

Politicians are likely to be urged to advertise all available jobs, interview candidates not linked to them and justify any hiring of relatives to voters.

There remains some public concern about MPs’ employment of ‘connected parties’ … and any financial support provided to MPs’ families, such as by paying for their related travel and accommodation.

However, it is understood that copying a blanket ban on employing family members currently in place in the Scottish Parliament has been rejected.
Sources said the scandal in France over allegations that Mr Fillon, the presidential candidate, paid his wife hundreds of thousands of pounds for little work is being borne in mind.

The move comes as the publication of new expenses records revealed nine MPs claimed for subscriptions to the online video streaming service Amazon Prime. Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters and Jeremy Clarkson’s The Grand Tour are among thousands of shows available on the service, which costs £79 a year.

Some MPs involved said they had made the claims by mistake or were caught in a “subscription trap” after taking out a free trial.

Conclusions from a consultation into Ipsa’s rules – the first comprehensive review since 2011 – will be published as early as this week. The consultation covered a wide array of topics, from how MPs claim expenses for travel and accommodation to diversity among their employees.

The body is expected to approve a significant pay rise for MPs’ staff for the first time in years after a review of current caps. Staff have received only a 
1 per cent annual pay rise on average.

But it is changes to rules around MPs employing their wives and partners that are likely to generate headlines. Last March it was found that 139 relatives or people with a “close business connection” were working for Britain’s 650 MPs.

In total they are paid around £4.5 million a year, which has recently made up around 5 per cent of total staffing expenditure. Ipsa warned in its consultation that “controls to prevent misuse of funding on employing connected parties were limited”.

It also said staff with links to MPs had “salaries significantly higher than the average [employee] across all MPs’ staff”, although only because they tended to work in more senior roles. “There remains some public concern about MPs’ employment of ‘connected parties’ … and any financial support provided to MPs’ families, such as by paying for their related travel and accommodation,” the consultation said.

This newspaper has learnt that the watchdog is planning to do more to reassure the public the system of employing spouses and relatives is not being abused. A source said the focus would be on MPs “providing a justification for what they are doing” and “having a recruitment process that is more like the rest of the world”.”

Source: Daily Telegraph via news feed

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14 Mar 2017

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Austerity cuts, DCC, Democracy, Education (local)

DCC and 37 other councils oppose school funding cuts

Owl say: but if you voted Tory you voted for continuing austerity and cuts to public services, including schools, health and social care. Did you honestly think the cuts would be limited to libraries and lollipop ladies and gents:

http://www.devonlive.com/devon-is-among-38-english-council-s-who-have-joined-forced-to-oppose-school-funding-changes/story-30202588-detail/story.html

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14 Mar 2017

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Democracy, Hugo Swire

Swire: still rearranging East Devon’s deckchairs on the Titanic

Written Answers – Ministry of Justice: Vehicle Number Plates: Prosecutions (13 Mar 2017)
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2017-03-06.66639.h&s=speaker%3A11265#g66639.q0

Hugo Swire: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions there have been in each of the last 10 years for improperly displayed vehicle number plates.

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11 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Cornwall, DCC, Democracy, Devolution, Dorset, East Devon Growth Point, EDDC, Exeter City Council, Golden Triangle LEP, Greater Exeter, Local Enterprise Partnership

Some questions about the Heart of the South West LEP

If the Heart of the South West LEP is “dead in the water” and “there is no money left”

https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/03/11/local-enterprise-partnership-version-2-devon-cornwall-and-dorset/

Where is the £25,000-plus coming from to pay someone to encourage a new threesome of Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, Devon and Dorset?

What’s happening about the divorce from Somerset and are we paying that county’s expenses still?

HOTSW LEP is the vehicle for taking business rates from Enterprise Zones such as the East Devon Growth Point – if it’s defunct what happens to that money?

Who pays Mr Garcia’s salary and those of the 3 or 4 other employees who presumably now have no jobs? Somerset or Devon?

What’s happening about the “Golden Triangle LEP”?

Where does “Greater Exeter” fit in and with whom?

East Devon – where do we fit in? Our Leader is a HOTSW board member and is responsible for HOTSW housing. Is he still responsible for housing in Somerset, Greater Exeter and/or the “Golden Triangle”?

What is DCC’s/EDDC’s role in this – where was it discussed, when and by whom?

Where are the minutes of the meeting where the current deal was dropped and a new deal thought up?

What does Somerset think about all this?

Do YOU recall being consulted on any of this?

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11 Mar 2017

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Accountability, Democracy, Scrutiny, Sleaze

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Daily Mail tells Tories to stop playing politics with public trust!!!

Owl says now I’ve heard everything! This could be straight out of Socialist Worker (Middle Class Branch)!

“… It was less than two years ago that the Conservatives went to the polls on a promise, spelled out four times in their manifesto: ‘We will not raise VAT, National Insurance contributions or Income Tax.’

In that now discredited, apparently worthless document, there was no suggestion the pledge referred only to Class 1 NICs (how many voters even knew there were four classes?)

Yet this was the devious excuse offered after the Chancellor increased the rate for Class 4, costing 2.4million self-employed workers some £240 a year each – almost eight times the 60p-a-week ‘average’ he so disingenuously cited.

Not content with this betrayal of his party’s core supporters, he slashed the tax-free allowance on dividends from £5,000 to £2,000. Thus, he hammered family-owned businesses, freelance workers and every saver with stock market investments of more than £50,000.

Meanwhile, tax rises and changes to compensation payments are likely to add £75 a year to car insurance premiums.

But still Mr Hammond hadn’t finished. Having joked he would not exhume Labour’s death tax, he is now pushing through… a huge increase in death tax! …

… And now it emerges the Chancellor has another £700million trick up his sleeve. Complex changes in already baffling tax rules mean some shops and newsagents will see their VAT more than quadruple, while self-employed service-providers will also be hard hit.

So bang goes another pledge that helped sweep the Tories to power in 2015. Indeed, all parties seem to see manifestos merely as vote-winning exercises, to be forgotten once an election is won.

David Cameron is right about one thing. It is indeed ‘stupidity’ to break manifesto pledges. But then look who’s talking! He was the PM who shredded almost every core promise he made in 2010, from cutting migration to below 100,000 to scrapping the Human Rights Act.

Meanwhile, his shameless sidekick George Osborne is becoming a veritable Tony Blair, stuffing his boots with banknotes on the strength of contacts and experience gained in public office.

He even tried to bury news of his one-day-a-week, £650,000 job for a US investment company by sneaking it out on Budget day. No wonder politicians are held in growing contempt. …”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4303252/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Stop-playing-politics-public-trust.html