Cameron admits Ashcroft does not pay full British Tax on New Poster

 

Thanks to Andy Barefoot for the poster tool.

Further to my earlier posting, I thought it best to force the issue of the Conservative imbroglio over Ashcroft's non-dom status by producing the above poster. Due to the immense generosity of a millionaire donor domiciled in a tax haven, we will be able to flood the country with bill boards promoting the facts of the matter. (Not). The Tories will be obliged to sue us if they believe they have a case, but their attempt is doomed to failure because the Mabinogogiblog (see blog heading) has already engaged Messers Carter-Ruck to fight our corner. If they do not sue us, they will be either admitting guilt, or exercising de minimis non curantur lex. To avoid the latter, please tweet a link to this page.

[update 14 Feb: BBC report:

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has insisted Lord Ashcroft's tax affairs are a matter for him and accused the media of bias in asking about them. He said similar questions should be asked about Labour donor Lord Paul, thought to be non-domiciled for tax.
No they should't George, because that would be a matter for them. Wouldn't it? In your estimation?

The report continues:
Tory chairman Eric Pickles told the BBC he did not know the peer's tax status but, if he did, he would say. 
So Eric is breaking omerta. Watch out for horse heads in the bed, Eric

In a forthcoming BBC Radio 4 documentary on party funding, Mr Pickles says he is "alarmed" by comments from the Information Commissioner, who accused the Conservatives of "obfuscatory" answers on Ashcroft. 
Obfuscatory is not wrong.
But he stops short of urging his deputy to be more open, telling presenter Ann McElvoy: "That's a matter for him to consider. Lord Aschcroft is entitled to his privacy." 
Eric is back singing from the Central Office hymn sheet. But it's a crap hymn, because it is not for him and the IR, there is a little matter of Electoral Law:

[Ashcroft's] donations [to the Tory Party] are the subject of an Electoral Commission investigation over claims the company through which they were made - Bearwood Corporate Services - is in breach of electoral law for not "carrying on business" in Britain.


As the poster says, it is perfectly clear to any non-politician that Ashcroft is not a British taxpayer, so the donations are illegitimate and the Tries must pay them back, as should Labour pay back the donations of Paul and Mittal, and the LibDems have a moral obligation to pay back their illegit donations from fraudster Michael Brown and arms dealer Sudir Choudhrie.

But with all 3 big parties up to their necks in nastiness, they are hoping to delay the day of reckoning until the election is in the bag for them.

There is a case for the Greens, Plaid Cymru, SNP, and any non-offensive other small parties to go twist arms at the Electoral Commission.

On Newsnight, Tories admit Lord Ashcroft does not pay full British Tax

All of this is Alledgedly:

I should be in bed, but a BBC TV Newsnight interview has got me going.  The one just now with Emily Maitland, Ben Bradshaw, Tory Sir George Young, and a nice man from the LibDems whose name may come to me in a minute.

Here is the Newsnight video. 

Anyway, they got the Sir Young to admit that "Lord" Ashchroft of Beleaze (is that how you spell it?) does not pay full British Tax.

Near as dammit. Trouble was they were doing the usual thing, all talking at once, and you couldn't hear clearly, but the Sir George would not and could say that Lord Ashcroft pays full tax.  Here is a pagefull of other Tories not admitting that he pays full tax.

So he does not pay full tax, otherwise The Tories would have said he did.

Lord Ashcroft does not pay full British tax. So under the rules the Tories have to pay back to Ashcroft the millions that he has so generously and with no strings attached, given them over the years. 5% of their total income.

So Labour have them bang to rights, and could financially cripple the Tories just before the Election, which would be a Good Thing, and save the country from mis-management by a Conservative Government who do not understand the economics of recession.

But Labour will not pull the trapdoor under the Tories, because they are standing on the self same trap door, with a similar noose around their necks because of their takings from the noble Lord, Lord Paul and also Mr Lakshmi Mittal (Why isn't Lakshmi a Lord? Surely he's given Labour enough by now).

I believe that we are going to wait until April Fools Day to find that the Tory party is bankrupt. (Financially, I mean, not philosophically or morally).

The LibDem bloke (grey hair, quite well spoken, not Nick Clegg, nor Vince) said the LibDem MPs claimed less, which is a good point, and that his party had put legislation in to stop this kind of thing, which is another good point, but quite reasonably he refrained from mentioning that the LibDems themselves had a miraculous escape from being forced to hand back £2.4m received from fraudster Michael Brown.  What I don't understand is why the Electoral Commission didn't make them give the money to th epeeps Brown had defrauded.

Chris Huhne! That's his name.

So basically, all 3 big parties have huge financial skeletons in their cupboards struggling to get out, and all have been fiddling the rules of party political donations.

[update more here from the Guardian: Tories are saying Sir Young "mis-spoke" (= was an idiot) when he said "Ashcroft is in the same position as a number of Labour peers who are non-domiciled".  So he is domiciled. Perhaps this means that he does not live in a cardboard box.]
[More here]

So Ashcroft is a non-dom: what happens next?

Just over two weeks ago, I took the bold step of forcing the issue of Lord Ashcroft's tax status, by issuing a potentially libellous allegation.  Today, he coughs up the truth. He is a non-dom.   He does not pay full British tax. His company does not conduct his business in the UK.

What happens next?

Page 10 of the Electoral Commission's Guidance to political parties states,
3.6 Parties can only accept a donation or loan (as defined in Chapter 2, ‘Defining
parties, donations and regulated transactions’) with a value of more than £200 if the
donor or lender is in the following categories:
• an individual registered in a UK electoral register (including bequests)
• a UK registered company which is incorporated within the EU and carries on
business in the UK

So Lord Ashcroft is not a "permissible donor". The Tories are now obliged to report the donations:
5.2 Parties are required to report details of any of the following relevant donations: [...]
• any donation of more than £200 received from an impermissible or unidentified
donor

The Electoral Commission will require the Conservative Party to return Ashcroft's gifts.
Failure by a party to return a donation from an impermissible or unidentifiable source
Section 56(3) and (4) On summary conviction: statutory maximum fine or six months’
imprisonment.

O dear. That would make Dave the first PM to govern the country from a cell in Wormwood Scrubs. He will have to return the donations. I believe he needs to write a cheque for a sum in the region of £3,000,000, which should not be too much of a problem.

Unless the Electoral Commission somehow loses the paperwork or lets the trail go cold.



The Electoral Commission can be reached at:
Trevelyan House
Great Peter Street
London SW1P 2HW
Tel: 020 7271 0500 (switchboard)
Jenny Watson is the chair of the Commissioners.

Their stated aim is "integrity and public confidence in the democratic process."

Be polite but firm in your communications with Jenny.
[update: sadly, the Electoral Commission is doing an impersonation of an ashtray on a motorbike, functionality-wise]

The Electoral Commission Fails to Inspire Public Confidence

The Electoral Commission (EC) has given the thumbs up to "Lord" non-dom Ashcroft's company, Bearwood Corporate Services*. It was a "permissible donor".

Bearwood Corporate Finance, advises on acquisitions and mergers, minimum fee £10,000.

I will just whizz us through the result of 18 months of Electoral Commission (EC) deliberations.

BCS, ...is not a regulated entity,
Which means what exactly? EC does not develop this thought.
Lord Ashcroft ...provided some information on a voluntary basis, although in response to requests for documents regarding BCS and its parent companies (including ownership, control, beneficial interests or provision of funding to those companies), his solicitors indicated that Lord Ashcroft did not have in his possession any such documents, and that his policy was to destroy documents unless retaining them was a requirement for an auditing, tax, or regulatory reason and any documents not within this category were not retained once their purpose had been served.Great policy. Free tip on How to Succeed in Business. Saves on space. Who wants to keep stuff about clients, outcomes &c?
The first reported donation by BCS to the party was on 28 February 2003. Between then and 31 December 2009 the party reported £5,137,785 of donations from BCS.
The EC gives no data on when BCS was founded, what its turnover was, what its profits were. Nada.
IN the absence of any data, let us assume that a company might choose to donate 5% of its total profits to the excellent Conservative Party. I make that an annual profit of £14,285,700. Nice work if you can get it. Inland Revenue please take note.

On the other hand, the EC says
There is no definition in PPERA** of “carrying on business”. However, in other areas of the law, the term has been interpreted broadly. It is not necessary for a company to generate profit. A company need not be actively trading, provided that the company continues to engage in business transactions, such as employing staff or paying for business facilities. Additionally, even if a company has not yet traded, provided that it is preparing to do so, it is likely to be within the scope of “carrying on business”.

• throughout the period under consideration BCS conducted a management consultancy business

• up to July 2006 it also conducted a merger broking business 

(Still is, according to its website).

• from December 2007 it carried on business as a holding company

BCS’ accounts indicate that the funds used for BCS’ donations were not generated wholly from BCS’ own trading activities.
(Money shifted to and fro from Besleaze)

Anyway,
The Commission concluded that BCS met the permissibility requirements for making political donations.
So that's all right then.

I'm bored already. This is like reading a New Age book entitled "Faeries are Real, Faeries are Good, Come Meet the Faeries in My Wood".

Read it yourself, if you think it is worth your time, it's only 7 pages long, with big type.

The point that I take home is that the Electoral Commission should be scrapped as part of the Governments' Debt Reduction Programme, and political party funding should be laid wide open to the free market. Anyone who wants to buy a politician, go right ahead. Be our guest.
Welcome to Britain, the land of unregulated political donations.

Remember this is the same EC that ruled that the Fraudster Michael Brown's company was OK to give a donation to the LibDems on the very day it was set up.

The aim of the Electoral Commission  is "integrity and public confidence in the democratic process".

My humble opinion is that they have utterly and completely failed. I could go on, but it would just be a rant, so I will close with just one final word: 


Bolleaux!!


*Funny name. Whatever would a bear be doing in a wood? I would have thought CathPope would be a more upmarket moniker. Never mind.
** The Law that covers this matter.

Blogspot working again; Green Party Conference; time to mend the Broken Society

Hooray! I'm back in to Blogspot again. For the last 7 days I have been unable to open any URL with "blogspot" in it - including the blogspot help. I got some advice from a .blogger site, and it seems to be a known issue (not a Government hack on my site because it is so subversive, sadly); I cleared my cookie list as advised, but that did not help immediately. Anyway I'm back to being able to consume vast amounts of my time and yours in writing.

Main event last week was Green Party Conference. I put an account on my Facebook while the blog was down. 

The highlight of  Conference was the panel on Equality with Johan Hari and Kate Pickett. Kate works with Richard Wilkinson. Their book The Spirit Level should be required reading for all politicians and commentators, because it shows that the RPG (Rich-Poor Gap) lies at the root of our "Broken Society". So if Dave "I'm not Gordon" Cameron is really sincere about mending said Broken Society, he will aim to do what NuLabour has failed to do, i.e. reduce the RPG.
It would be churlish to add "Pigs might Fly".

The RPG is a lethal weapon aimed at the heart of society. There is good scientific evidence, chiefly from Richard Wilkinson et al.  to show that inequality causes unhappiness, ill-health, social breakdown, crime and stuff.

So what do we do about it? Here's what:

1 Citizen's Income, introduced by means of the Green Wage Subsidy.
2 Community spaces and community workers.
3 Government issued QE grants, zero- or low-interest loans to sound investment projects for the Green New Deal.
4 Progressive taxation
5 Robin Hood Transaction Taxes
6 Close tax loopholes used by rich individuals and corporations
7 Internalise all environmental and social costs caused by multinationals (that is, make them pay for the damage they cause)
8 End the monopoly of banks on money creation
I am probably going to blog obsessively on this over the next few weeks.

The other Green Party Conference highlight for me was getting an Emergency Motion on the
Dodgy Donations Disgrace.
Tories: "Lord" Ashcroft:
Labour: "Lord" Paul and Lakshmi Mittal;
LibDems: Convicted fraudster Michael Brown.

All 3 main Westminster Parties are up to their ears in doggy-doo, in terms of massive political donations. So it's up to the Green Party to kick up about the issue. Spent yesterday researching it.

Jackie Ashley gets it - FPTP is a heap of electoral dingoes' kidneys

Jackie Ashley in today's Guardian says "The obsession with swing voters is strangling politics". Both "Lord" Ashcroft and the Unite unions are concentrating their fire power, with impeccable logic, on the swing voters in key marginals. Forget what's best for the nation, what will attract these swingers (whose numbers reputedly amount to 0.16% of the electorate).

Jackie concludes "If, out of a hung parliament and a certain period of political confusion, we got real change in the voting system – goodbye to sugar daddies and sweetheart union deals – that would be the best outcome of all."

Right on. The voting system is the precondition for the radical political and economic change that this country desperately needs. So - we must gird up our loins for pro-democracy demonstrations, and spread the word about an audible protest in the polling stations. It would be naive to suppose that MPs alone might give us electoral reform.

Democracy needs Proportional Representation, which needs inter-party cooperation

My decision to withdraw from the General election in Weston has been contentious, although a modest majority of the feedback I have received has been supportive. For me, and I am sure for the local party, it has been incredibly painful, especially the loss of the power to take part in the local electoral debate. Such as it is - three or four hustings, which would cost about £250 apiece for the privilege of participation, hardly a bargain.


There are some who would prefer quietly to bury this story, but this I cannot do. There is a debate to be had, about the iniquity of the archaic First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral scheme. FPTP forces people into tactical voting, and now, in my case, tactical withdrawal.

There is a fear within the Green Party that the LibDems will say to other GP candidates, "Why don't you do like Richard and stand down, to let us defeat the Tory?" The obvious answer to this is is, "No, it's your turn to pull a candidate to our advantage. That way we get a better probability of two MPs who support Proportional Representation (PR)".

If the LDs do try to spin my withdrawal, using it against the GP, I am prepared to reverse the decision. They know this, and so far I have not seen any reports of this. LibDem blogs have mainly just reproduced the Weston Mercury editorial (see the post below).

This decision, painful though it is, might raise the profile of PR in the election.

The "Safe Seat Argument" runs thus: "This is a safe seat, so you are free to use your vote to show support for the Green political principles, which are for Radical Reform of politics, economy and international affairs. It is a very powerful argument, though in the past it has carried a drawback, the corollary of what happens in marginal seats. This has stopped us using it before. Now though we have the above "Your Turn" argument which disposes of that problem.

There is a whole discussion to be had of party politics, and co-operation. We want PR: that necessarily involves inter-party co-operation in Government. It is difficult and dangerous, as we see in Germany and Ireland; so we may as well start practising now. Voters are fed up with party bickering; they should be interested in cooperation.

I am well aware of the deficiencies of LibDems, and their manifold shortcomings in local Government. Not to mention Michael Brown. They also have a list of apparently perverse votes by Green Councillors. We could go for a mudslinging battle? Or would the cooperation story be more positive?

Yes, the LDs are often obnoxious, particularly vicious around elections (is it a kind of PMT?) but that's politics. We chose to get into this game, we have to learn how to play it. Yes, they are growthist &c. We have big policy differences, but we also have common interests, notably PR. And it must be accepted that they are more environment-friendly that the LabCon axis.

There is a history to what happened in Weston. I was elected to Woodspring DC with an arrangement with the libDems. I withdrew from the Parliamentaries in 1997 in favour of the LibDem Brian Cotter, and he won with a margin of votes equivalent to what I used to get. Not all Green votes, but they helped.

Mike Bell the LD will have a tough job on his hands to get a 2% swing, but thngs are volatile, and the FPTP debate, when it opens up here, can help to swing it.  Who knows what damage the Ashcroft affair will do to the Tories? (not a lot, probably, due to the power of the Tory media to suppress information).

This posting may create wrath in some parts of the Green Party, for which I am duly regretful.
I'm going to invoke free speech here. The Green Party does not subscribe to the whip system, even less to the on-message control freakery of NuLabour.

As someone said in a comment, there is more to politics than party politics. Democracy transcends party interests, and let there be no doubt about it: FPTP is a travesty of democracy, and FPTP must go. And to get that, we need inter-party cooperation.  Either that or a General Pause.

What is wrong with the First Past the Post Electoral System?

First Past the Post (FPTP) is the electoral system used in the UK, and a rump of its former colonies, namely Canada, India and the USA.

It is a deeply flawed system, because: 

1 It is not democratic.
Democracy is the political system where the Government represents the will of the people. There never has been a perfect democracy, there are only degrees of approximation, and democracy goes far beyond discussion of the voting system. Nevertheless, the voting system is an important element in shaping a democracy, and FPTP is woefully inadequate in expressing the will of the people, because the vote never gets beyond the constituency boundary. The only people whose will is represented in Parliament are those who back the local winner. All other votes are lost, or "wasted". They are no more. They are annihilated. They have no representation in Parliament.
In the UK 2005 general election, 70% of votes cast, 19 million, where invalidated in this way.

2 FPTP distorts the results
In the 1974 Election, the votes were as follows:

1st - Conservative - 37.9%
2nd - Labour - 37.2%
3rd - Liberal - 19.3%
The Parliament elected from this vote was as follows:
1st - Labour - 52% of MPs
2nd - Conservative - 47% of MPs
3rd - Liberal - 2% of MPs.
This is outrageous.
Just to prove this was not a fluke, in 1954 Labour got 48.8% of the vote, and 295 MPs, while the Conservatives got 44.3% and 302 MPs.
Anyone who thinks FPTP is a good idea is clearly not fit to be an MP.

Worse still, a Government can be elected on the basis of 33% of votes cast, but considering turnout, this falls to 22% of those entitled to vote. 22%! One in five!! Yet idiot conservatives of right and left still defend FPTP. Words fail.


MPs are elected on a minority of votes
The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) page on FPTP states: Representatives can get elected on tiny amounts of public support. In 2005, for example, George Galloway polled the votes of only 18.4 per cent of his constituents, yet ended up in the House of Commons. Only three MPs elected in 2005 secured the votes of more than 40 per cent of their constituents.

3 FPTP encourages Tactical Voting
Voters are frequently forced to vote for a party that they do not back, in an effort to keep out a party that they most dislike. So Labour voters might vote LibDem if the LibDem has the best chance of beating the Tory.


4 FPTP penalises parties whose support is spread widely,
and rewards parties whose support is concentrated in one area.
ERS again: at the 2005 general election, the DUP won nine seats on 0.9 per cent of the vote, yet the Greens won no seats, despite polling almost 16,000 more votes than the DUP.

5 FPTP encourages gerrymandering
ERS: With relatively small constituency sizes, the way boundaries are drawn can have important effects on the election result, which encourages attempts at gerrymandering.

6 FPTP encourages Safe Seats

MPs in safe seats are more or less guaranteed to win every election. They are not motivated to compete for votes, and their party in not motivated to frame policy that will benefit the people in that constituency. Since 1970, only 50% of seats have changed hands. The other seats are a sinecure; like the old Rotten Boroughs.

Politicians pretend that they are concerned about turnout, but ignore the fact that turnout is lower in safe seats.


7 FPTP delivers power to marginal seats
Parties lust after the vote in key marginal seats, where two parties stand neck and neck. Within those marginal seats, there are a few uncommitted voters who must be won over. The politicians pile in with money to campaign in those seats (this was Lord "non-dom" Ashcroft's tactic), and trim their policies and pronouncements to please the swing voters in  key marginals, who constitute about 0.16% of the electorate.


8 FPTP is the first step to full radical reform in the UK
The scandals of the MP expenses, the unelected House of Lords and non-dom donors demonstrate the need for radical, root-and-branch overhaul of the British Parliamentary system. Voting reform is the first step.

So that is the case against FPTP. What is the case for it?


1 Proportional Representation (PR) breaks the constituency link
This is a lie. Some forms of PR maintain the link.


2 The British electorate is too thick to understand PR
The British electorate may take a different view


3 FPTP delivers Strong Government
So the One Party State produces even stronger Government. Is that the way to go?
PR produces mixed Governments, composed of more than one party. It seems to work in all democratic the countries with the exception of the UK colonies mentioned at the top.


4 FPTP is quick and easy to count
So? Do the count on the next day, not during the middle of the night. Idiots

5 FPTP keeps the BNP out of Parliament
That's true, but repression is not the answer to the BNP. They thrive on that sort of thing. The answer to the BNP is housing, jobs, and a more equal society. Here is an expansion of this argument.

6 PR gives too much power to Party chiefs
Some forms of PR rely on lists of candidates chosen by the party, who are used to "top up" representation in Parliament, to make it proportional to the vote. It is possible to dilute the party's choice by letting voters pick and choose from the party list. But it is rich for FPTP stooges to criticise PR for delivering too much power to the party politicians, when the effect of FPTP is to delever all power to one party, even if it is delivered by a minority of the electorate.


In conclusion, there are 8 forceful arguments against FPTP, and 4 weak and specious arguments, + 2 interesting arguments in its favour.

It is time to change the system. We have to recognise that this will take civil action, demonstrations and civil disobedience, since most MPs elected by FPTP are bound to regard it as an excellent way to elect people. However, those parties who do want change should clearly look to finding ways of co-operation to beat the system and get more pro-democracy MPs into the chamber.

Tell the polling clerk that FPTP has got to go.