In case you miss a comment posted below, it is repeated here:

In Hugo Swire’s Register of Interests, you can see that he, and his wife whom he employs at our expense, has declared benefits in the form of free tickets to several Black and White Balls paid for by IPLG Ltd. IPLG Ltd is connected to Michael Spencer.

A report dated June 2011,Conservative Party Interests Relating to the Insurance Industry* says this of Mr Swire and other IPLG beneficiaries:

IPGL – IPGL is a private holding company controlled by businessman Michael Spencer and it appears several times in this report. Among a diverse and changing investment portfolio it wholly owns the insurance company Insurance Capital Partners and partly owns an insurance brokerage called Oxygen.

Since 2005 IPGL and Micheal Spencer’s donations to the Central Conservative Party and constituencies have totaled £3,929,892.52. IPGL has also given
hospitality in the form of private helicopter and plane journeys,international visits and tickets to Conservative Party social functions to several Members of Parliament since 2007. The following Members of Parliament have received such hospitality:

MP David Cameron
MP Mark Francis
MP Andrew Mitchell
MP George Osborne
MP Hugo Swire

Mr Spencer’s other financial interests are reported to have included a spread betting concern. Wonder what odds they are giving Hugo now?

*leftfootforward.org

“The only blessing was that this offered distraction from the truly toxic Afzal Amin, who may well have cost the Tories a crucial seat in the Midlands after he was accused of a deal with the far-Right English Defence League so improbable, stupid and cynical that it sounded like the plot of a satirical television drama.

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/anne-mcelvoy-politicians-suffering-serious-footinmouth-have-become-the-norm-10132626.html

Martyn Oates ‏@bbcmartynoates 3m3 minutes ago:

Hugo Swire: “This was an off the cuff dig to raise money for the party. It was not an attack on the Welfare State”.

Didn’t sound like that to us (on less than the salary he pays his wife (£30-35,000) who doesn’t seem to answer the phone in his office when our contacts have rung).

And the joke about expensive cars: not an attack on MPs curtailed expenses that saw him pay hundreds of pounds for an iPad cover when some of us only have that – or less – to pay for a second-hand car? Originally claimed on expenses but later repaid when the purchase hit the headlines.

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Swire-claimed-range-camera-laptops-sat-nav/story-11803858-detail/story.html

And the joke about buying Greece for “another £5,000″ for a case of wine: not an attack on the price of wine, perhaps? Bet the Greeks struggling to survive laughed at that one.

Isn’t it odd that Hugo only chooses to attack the poor and defend the rich? Well, maybe not.

The biggest problem here is that we have an MP that says one thing in public and another thing when amongst his rich friends. That is the sort of error of judgment you just don’t want in your MP. Though to be fair, he rarely has time to visit us to make his gaffes.

Shall we see him at a food bank or second- hand car showroom in East Devon to show his solidarity with us – all being ” in it” together?

And what jokes does he tell about his constituency to his rich pals behind those oft-closed doors?

“On Tuesday 24 March, Rt Hon Hugo Swire MP, Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, will give the keynote speech on a policy summit that will explore recent developments in policy and generate new ideas for the new Parliament to come. Graham Cole, Chair of the independent Cole Commission, will speak along with experts in business support, high tech exporting and the opportunities and realities of the Asian economies.”

http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/swire_aims_to_end_the_war_on_drivers_1_4005573

Unless, of course, EDDC chooses to auction parking spaces from now on … given our (current) MPs special talents!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/sirajdatoo/watch-a-tory-mp-joke-about-people-on-benefits-at-the-partys

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-3007029/Leaders-drawn-fundraising-row.html

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tory-minister-jokes-benefits-claimants-can-afford-55000-donation-to-party-at-fundraising-ball-10128991.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-minister-mocks-poor-jokes-5387934

In case you missed it in the post below, here is the Guardian’s take on tonight’s Channel Four “How to get a meeting with a Minister” with our own (current) MP, Hugo Swire, in a starring role giving his views on those on benefits and (allegedly, of course) how it used to be so easy to buy fast Italian cars on MPs expenses.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/23/tory-minister-benefits-claimants-joke-channel-4-dispatches-hugo-swire

Missing from the article was this joke filmed by Channel 4 at the £15,000 per table Tory fund raising ball in January 2015:

“It’s quite naff to have Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Ferraris because anyone could have them in the good old days of MPs expenses, we could have them too but we don’t any more”.

and:

“That was the gentleman from Lycamobile. We all like a mobile and we like your mobiles”

Lycamobile avoids tax and is a large Tory donor:

“The Tories have come under fire for accepting just over £105,000 from telecoms giant Lycamobile, which has not paid corporation tax in Britain since 2007, despite making millions each year….”

… Lycamobile’s latest donation, accepted this March, means they have given the party well over £500,000 since 2011, making them one of the party’s biggest corporate donors. The firm gave £102,620 to the party, and a further £2,400 to the party’s branch in the Cities of London and Westminster. …

“… According to its latest accounts, Lycamobile posted a turnover of £142 million over the financial year 2012 to 2013, declaring a profit of just over £4 million. This marked an increase in turnover from £120 million the previous year. …”

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/29/lycamobile-donations-tories-tax_n_5409793.html

Watching the Channel 4 investigation “How to buy a meeting with a Minister”. Shocking just isn’t a good enough word for the disgusting reality that all it takes is money – and the more money you are prepared to pay the higher up the filthy Ministerial ladder you climb. Heck, enough money and it seems you can buy yourself a peerage according to yesterday’s newspapers.

The investigator gets to meet Vince Cable just by promising to donate money – really one thinks he should have been paying the investigator for the privilege!

The “Tory Donor Club” asks only £50,000 to meet the Prime Minister – a bargain. £25,000 to have a private lunch with Health Minister and a Russian businessman (donator of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party and individual MPs) at the height of the the A and E crisis when he should have been at his desk sorting it out.the

Hunt gave his thoughts on the NHS at lunch, and deferred in a friendly way to the Russian businessman on several points.

The Treasurer of the Donor Club says that £50,000 gets you direct access to many Ministers. The Russian businessman went to the £15,000 a table Tory fundraising ball – where the more you donated the higher the level of Minister who would be on your table.

The Prime Minister had a hedge fund manager as a guest on his table, a big donor. Mobile phone companies avoiding tax also had places at tables with Ministers.

Our dear MP Hugo Swire was there auctioning in fine style with several off-colour jokes about having been able to buy Lamborghinis on expenses in the good old days as detailed here:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/23/tory-minister-benefits-claimants-joke-channel-4-dispatches-hugo-swire

No-one was told who was the highest bidder for each item (was the cost deducted from attendees expenses one wonders?)

Labour: Fund raising gala (free admission because he had said he would probably donate) – table with 2 shadow ministers, though they did say donations over £7,500 would have his name published. Meets a shadow minister (still no payment for access requested) but the feeling that the meeting happened more quickly because he was a potential donor.

Final part: Tories and Labour both said undercover reporter donations over £7,500 would be publicised.

However, Lib Dem peer Lord Strasburger meets him after the lunch with Vince Cable and discusses how his donations can be concealed: via a business or his wife or later he asks if another family member can donate on his behalf: his stepfather i.e. a group of people donating individually each under that figure . The investigator then gets to meet Nick Clegg who has already been briefed about him. The peer explains the donors wish to be anonymous – Clegg appears to suggest donations in two different financial years.

He goes to another Lib Dem Party bunfight with a cheque for £10,000 in his stepfather’s name, telling the peer it is really from him as a first instalment. The peer accepts the money and shares a table with him at dinner and later thanks him for the donation.

On being told about the donation, the peer resigned from fundraising and reported himself to Parliament and it also went to the Electoral Commission.

£15,000 bought the investigator meetings with four Cabinet ministers and two Shadow Cabinet ministers.