clawsfour

Cameron doesn't sack Osbourne shock.

According to the Times, George Osbourne 'flipped' his second home.

The Shadow Chancellor bought the Cheshire farmhouse close to his constituency ten months before winning the Tatton seat in June 2001.

Instead of taking out a mortgage on the property he funded the purchase by increasing his borrowing on the London home where he and his wife had lived since 1998.

After his election he designated the London house his “second home” with the Commons authorities, even though it was his main residence, so that he could claim the mortgage interest payments on his expenses.

Two years later Mr Osborne took out his first mortgage on the house in Cheshire and made that his official second home. He has since claimed up to £100,000 of taxpayers’ money to cover interest payments on the farmhouse, which is situated on the edge of Peak District National Park.

The arrangement also enabled Mr Osborne to reduce the loan on his London home, which he later sold for £1.45 million, to less than £200,000.

Tory Leader Cameron, of course, wouldn't dream of sacking a Bullingdon Club colleague.

The Times also carried an informative piece about the Bullingdon Club.

The Bullingdon Club of 1992: pictured are (1) George Osborne, (2) Harry Mount, (3) Chris Coleridge, (4) Lupus von Maltzahn, (5) Mark Petre (6) Peter Holmes a Court, (7) Nat Rothschild, (8) Jason Gissing

The Bullingdon Club - immortalised in Evelyn Waugh's 1928 novel Decline and Fall - projects an image far from the classless, centrist Conservative Party that Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron have so painstakingly developed.
Famous for trashing restaurants and other riotous behaviour, the society was described in a 2005 article by the Oxford Student, the university's official student newspaper, as drawing "its membership from Oxford's super-rich, enticing them to a life of secrecy, champagne drinking and ritualised violence".
Its habit for rioting, although toned down from its notorious past, reemerged again in December 2004 when police arrested all 17 of the club's members for wrecking the cellar of a 15th Century pub by smashing more than a dozen bottles of wine into its walls. Four members - including Princess Diana's nephew Alexander Fellowes - spent the night in prison.
While many of the society's rituals remain secret, joining the Bullingdon Club is known to involve putting up with having your room trashed beyond recognition and seeing your drinking tested beyond all sane boundaries. And there is also the small matter (and indeed, for its wealthy members, it is only a small matter) of buying the uniform, which costs around £3,000 in total.

Mr Ten Per Cent

Back from a couple of days off (very nice thank you) to find that in one bound the Tories have revealed the truth behind the mask.  

I've been saying for some time that as soon as the microscope turned toward Tory policy, the real choice at the next general election would become clear.

Well the Tories have helpfuly set out the choice for themselves. Andrew Lansley, who has form in terms of opening up the Tory secret agenda, has blown the gaffe. And Alan Johnson, Labour's new Home Secretary, has kindly written to me (along with one or two others I imagine) to make sure I didn't miss the news.

Bella

Today the Tories finally admitted just how much they want to cut from our public services. I’m writing so that you have all the facts because we need to get this message out there in our communities up and down the country.

I think a lot of people listening to the BBC this morning will have been shocked when they heard David Cameron’s health spokesman Andrew Lansley stating that the Tories would make 10 per cent spending cuts in the vast majority of government departments. It wasn’t a gaffe – even though Mr Lansley seems to have gone to ground at the minute, he hasn’t been sacked for revealing the truth about the Tories’ plans.

I’ve only been Home Secretary for a few days, but I can already see what an impact a 10 per cent cut in that budget would have. Looking at the figures in my department, it would mean front line police officers would be subject to real cuts next year, leaving our streets much less safe. And I’m sure there would be similar risks when those kinds of cuts hit public transport or the skills and science budgets.

Labour’s investment in police officers and community support officers is vital to making our streets safer. Since 1997 there are over 14,000 more police officers and nearly 16,000 community support officers. We now have 3,600 neighbourhood policing teams across the country - one for every community. We know that there is no appetite in this country for cuts that would undermine the fight against crime.

It’s up to everyone in our party – MPs, ministers, activists and trade unionists – to make sure that we get this message out to the country. It's time to tell David Cameron - Mr 10 Per Cent - that no one wants his Tory cuts.

Best wishes

Alan

Now look under the stone that is Lord Ashcroft's donations

18 months after the Electoral Commission called in the Metropolitan Police to investigate the donation made by David Abrahams to the Labour Party by proxy, the Crown Prosecution Service has delivered its judgement on the investigation. Unfortunately not on their own web-site but let's assume Sky have got it right. It is now - CPS Press Release.

They point out the rules have been broken - constituting a criminal offence - but that the people investigated, including Peter Watt who was forced to resign as Labour General Secretary over the issue, did exercise due diligence.

This issue revolved around the fact that David Abrahams - a permissible donor - gave money to other permissible donors, who then gave money to the Labour party. This was done by Abrahams to protect his identity - failed. There is no doubt that donors must make full disclosure of the fact that they are using third parties to make a donation. David Abrahams did not. However, it was his money. He was a legitimately allowed to make a donation. The people he gave the money to were legitimately able to make a donation.

So having spent an extraordinary amount of tax-payers money to discover that an offence has been committed for which no-one was to blame, perhaps the powers that be could now get on with the investigation into Lord Ashcroft who it is alleged is an impermissible donor using overseas money to find the Tory Party.

As the Daily Mirror first revealed, the Electoral Commission started an investigation into the peer last year.

It followed claims £4.76million had been transferred from the Central American tax haven of Belize to Lord Ashcroft's UK-based company Bearwood Corporate Services.

The firm is one of the biggest donors to the Tory party, giving £4.74million since 2003.

Electoral law says donations can only come from UK-based companies. Tory vice-chairman Lord Ashcroft, said to be worth more than £1billion, has used the money to bankroll Tory candidates in marginal seats.

And no doubt those who accused the thoroughly decent Peter Watt of acting criminally will now be queueing up to apologise. (update - statement form Peter Watt reported here)

Grayling handbagged by Livingstone

As my regular readers will know, I'm not a great fan of Ken Livingstone.

However he has probably delivered a knockout blow to Tory Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling on a Newsnight discussion about the inadvertent leak of sensitive information by the Assistant Commissioner, and head of counter terrorism, Bob Quick.

It is a joy to watch. So get to iPlayer and watch it again (as soon as it appears there). And someone with more technical know-how than me put it on YouTube so everyone can see it.

The killing blow was leaving Grayling spluttering and unable to answer the charge that only Al-Quaida would be happy with his position on the the leak. 

This isn't cheap jibes about second home allowances. This went to the heart of who do you trust to run the country.

Future Home Secretary? Not any more.

Let's shoot their fox

I'm not against cruel and barbaric activities per se.

I would be a hypocrite to say if the lives of family, friends, or anyone really were threatened I'd call for Amnesty International rather than Jack Bauer. Watching Saints play at home has only been good for the soul. Probably. And sometimes the natural world, red in tooth and claw, seems close to the mark - leopard seals tossing penguins, cats playing with mice and so on.

But it takes the Conservatives to suggest a return to the both pointless and barbaric activity of hunting to exhaustion and butchery wild animals. For blood lust pleasure alone.

The Labour manifesto of 92 had some sanctimonious stuff in it about the nature of a country's people being judged by the way they treat their animals. It was poorly expressed but at its heart, correct.

The media is begining slowly but surely to take an interest in what the Tories stand for. In the last few days, three things of note. Confirmatipn of a tax-give-away to the richest 3,000 people in the country. A clampdown on pay for nurses, doctors and police. And barbarism returniing to the country.

The Conservatives remain the nasty party. It's time to shoot their fox once and for all.

Money for nothing

In today's Times. 

Sir, Rather than query what is or is not allowed in terms of MPs' expenses, the pertinent question may be to ask whether there are any aspects of day-to-day life that MPs actually pay for themselves.

I won't embarrass this fuckwit by naming him (obviously) here. Look it up yourself.

However, the point is that MPs have fallen so far in public esteem that people can get away with this low humour. You can tell it's meant to be humorous by the gratuitous use of the word 'pertinent' - never used in this way outside the broadsheet letter pages.

There is not a single person in the country - or anywhere come to that - who 'actually pays for themselves' in the fatuous sense of this letter. Whether your money is earned, claimed, inherited, won or found under a rock it always comes from someone else. Exactly like MPs' salaries and expenses.

The target here should not be the claimants - a very right wing view, always blame the claimants - but a system which has grown like Topsy. And that is where parliamentarians are justly criticised.

It shouldn't have taken them so long to start to reform a system which, even if it is right, doesn't smell right.

Commenting on the necessary reform would be a better use of the letter writer's ink than the impertinent use of misplaced outrage.

Although it wouldn't be his ink if someone hadn't given him the money which came out of the price I paid for something.

And for those of you want a slightly more thoughful positon than my little rant try Luke Akehurst's piece here.

Boris bigs up the economy

The London economy continues to show very interesting signs of what can only be described as credit crunch denial in certain important sectors. And it is worth stressing this and getting this across, particularly in view of the newspapers which are providing an unremitting diet of gloom. 
Some parts of our economy really are thriving and I single out obviously the theatres, the tourism sector, but across the board there are amazing pockets of resistance to the problem.

Boris Johnson

Conservative Mayor of London

Looks like Boris has been taking lessons from Ken Livingstone about how to be several paces out of step with his own party.

However it is encouraging, even from this unlikely source, to hear some positive messages about the economy. Governor of the Bank of England - take note.

Hat tip to Paul Waugh for the link.

Cameron on the rocks.

I am terribly sad but I cannot watch my country head for the rocks, which it will do if Cameron becomes Prime Minister and has no allies in the major governments of the European Union.

Christopher Beazley MEP
Conservative

Could have finished his sentence a dozen words earlier, but sentiment is spot on.

Don't mention the economy. Stupid.

Hat tip to RecessMonkey.

And to Labour the point..

A new viral from the Labour Party. 

I suspect that this particular storm in a beer mug from Ken Clarke may not have lots of legs, but probably enough to last until the next Tory gaffe. Sometime next week probably.