Clegg's bid to create squeaky clean image falters as he is skewered over £90,000 expenses claims
By James Chapman, Tim Shipman and Nicola Boden (Daily Mail 20th April 2010)
Nick Clegg's bid to portray himself as an unsullied man of the people was dealt a blow today when he was challenged over his expenses claims.
The Lib Dem leader took the moral high ground during last week's live TV debate, accusing Labour and the Tories of failing to clean up Westminster.
But today he was brought up short over his own claims under the controversial second home allowance, which saw him claim for everything from a £2,600 kitchen to paper napkins worth £1.50.
The BBC's Andrew Neil ambushed the leader as he again tried to set the day's agenda with a series of banking reforms and a new attack on David Cameron.
Mr Clegg insisted the modest house in Sheffield was a 'complete eyesore' when he bought it and vowed to hand back any profits from selling it to the taxpayer.
The leader has previously been exposed for wrongly claiming for phone calls made to Colombia, Vietnam and Spain - for which he had to repay more than £80.
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Monday 19 April 2010
DANGER – LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AT WORK!
Any increase in support for the Liberal Democrats could be disastrous for our country. A hung parliament, with Lib-Dems holding the balance, would provide the most dangerous of all worlds, plunging Britain into yet worse economic recession than that exacerbated by Labour’s dire incompetence. Clegg has intimated that he is happy to collaborate with Gordon Brown. Perpetuation of Labour’s disastrous handling of the economy would be bad enough, but endless wheeling-and-dealing between confused Clegg and bewildered Brown (the economic wizard who sold our gold reserves at a loss of £7 billion to the taxpayer) would drive the national debt spiralling far beyond its present lamentable state.
Liberals traditionally enjoy being liberal with other people’s money. Fortunately for Mr. Clegg, he like Cameron is a rich man unlikely to feel the pinch. Not long ago his guru Vince Cable urged a tax on all houses worth £1 million or more. Not only does the proposal conceal the arbitrary nature of valuations on which estimates would be based (we all know how local councils fiddle these things at present), but in the rarified world Cable inhabits he appears unaware that a £1 million house is no longer a rich man’s dwelling. Nor does everyone’s work permit them to live in an area of cheap housing. Housing values, after all, are largely determined by factors beyond the householder’s control.
Alarmed at the effect this draconian proposal would have on much of the electorate, Clegg hastily raised the level of his arbitrary tax to £2 million. This proposal, however, is for the benefit of voters on the eve of a general election. There can be little doubt that, were the Liberals to gain any say in the way we are ruled, the homes tax would revert to Cable’s proposal, or a valuation lower still.
Much more alarming for our future is the consistent Lib-Dem policy of fawning subservience to the European Union. Most people, understandably bemused to know what Lib-Dem policies constitute, are unaware of the fact that they have consistently been the party most besotted of all with EU bureaucracy. Clegg himself has done well out of it, having enjoyed a lucrative post with the EU Commission. How this country benefited from his activity remains unknown.
Clegg’s understanding of the status of the EU and its alternatives may be gathered from his anguished rhetorical enquiry:
‘Do we really think that we can pull up the drawbridge, and ranting and raving at Europe from the sidelines is really going to help us be stronger or safer?’
Of course he is too young to remember an independent Britain which traded with the whole world, rather than being confined to a restricted, corrupt, incompetent, undemocratic, and inward-looking enforced union. Less easy to excuse is his ignorance of the position of Norway and Switzerland, which are spared the colossal expense and accruing loss of freedom involved in membership of the EU, while enjoying trade facilities with Brussels comparable to those of this country.
Clegg fondly expresses the belief that Britain is protected from international crime and terrorism by her membership of the EU. Has he ever looked across the Atlantic, where Mexico, the USA, and Canada have belonged since 1994 to a free trade association, without any loss of national freedom? Do those three countries feel obliged to ‘rant and rave at each other from the sidelines’? Are they racked beyond endurance by international crime and terrorism, in consequence of belonging to NAFTA, rather than the bureaucratic superstate beloved by Clegg and Cable?*
Clegg undoubtedly has much to learn, but is it proper that this country be made to suffer in consequence of his diminutive learning curve?
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
Liberals traditionally enjoy being liberal with other people’s money. Fortunately for Mr. Clegg, he like Cameron is a rich man unlikely to feel the pinch. Not long ago his guru Vince Cable urged a tax on all houses worth £1 million or more. Not only does the proposal conceal the arbitrary nature of valuations on which estimates would be based (we all know how local councils fiddle these things at present), but in the rarified world Cable inhabits he appears unaware that a £1 million house is no longer a rich man’s dwelling. Nor does everyone’s work permit them to live in an area of cheap housing. Housing values, after all, are largely determined by factors beyond the householder’s control.
Alarmed at the effect this draconian proposal would have on much of the electorate, Clegg hastily raised the level of his arbitrary tax to £2 million. This proposal, however, is for the benefit of voters on the eve of a general election. There can be little doubt that, were the Liberals to gain any say in the way we are ruled, the homes tax would revert to Cable’s proposal, or a valuation lower still.
Much more alarming for our future is the consistent Lib-Dem policy of fawning subservience to the European Union. Most people, understandably bemused to know what Lib-Dem policies constitute, are unaware of the fact that they have consistently been the party most besotted of all with EU bureaucracy. Clegg himself has done well out of it, having enjoyed a lucrative post with the EU Commission. How this country benefited from his activity remains unknown.
Clegg’s understanding of the status of the EU and its alternatives may be gathered from his anguished rhetorical enquiry:
‘Do we really think that we can pull up the drawbridge, and ranting and raving at Europe from the sidelines is really going to help us be stronger or safer?’
Of course he is too young to remember an independent Britain which traded with the whole world, rather than being confined to a restricted, corrupt, incompetent, undemocratic, and inward-looking enforced union. Less easy to excuse is his ignorance of the position of Norway and Switzerland, which are spared the colossal expense and accruing loss of freedom involved in membership of the EU, while enjoying trade facilities with Brussels comparable to those of this country.
Clegg fondly expresses the belief that Britain is protected from international crime and terrorism by her membership of the EU. Has he ever looked across the Atlantic, where Mexico, the USA, and Canada have belonged since 1994 to a free trade association, without any loss of national freedom? Do those three countries feel obliged to ‘rant and rave at each other from the sidelines’? Are they racked beyond endurance by international crime and terrorism, in consequence of belonging to NAFTA, rather than the bureaucratic superstate beloved by Clegg and Cable?*
Clegg undoubtedly has much to learn, but is it proper that this country be made to suffer in consequence of his diminutive learning curve?
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
Monday 12 April 2010
THE REAL STORY BEHIND THE TURBINE RACKET (for which we all have to pay)
From The Sunday Times April 11, 2010 (by Chris Hastings and Jonathan Leake)
Sir John Chilcot in MoD lobbying row
Sir John Chilcot, who is heading the Iraq war inquiry, successfully lobbied the MoD to drop its opposition to a planned wind farm in Scotland that will be run by a company of which he is a director
SIR John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq war inquiry, successfully lobbied the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to drop its opposition to a lucrative £150m wind farm project of which he is a director.
Chilcot was among a group of three of the company’s directors who met MoD officials in a private home in London in January 2009. The MoD was blocking the whole scheme because it said the 410ft high turbines would interfere with military radar.
Chilcot, who is a non-executive director of the company, was appointed chairman of the Iraq inquiry on June 15, 2009. Two weeks later, on July 1, the MoD formally dropped its opposition. A public inquiry is due to reopen on Tuesday in Duns in the Scottish Borders.
The disclosure that Chilcot — who has a 1.1% shareholding in the company — has benefited from a policy U-turn by the MoD leaves him vulnerable to accusations of a potential conflict of interest. He has not declared his business links.
An MoD spokesman said: “The MoD has withdrawn its planning objection on the condition that North British Windpower provides a technical solution to interference affecting local air defence radar.”
Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said he would write to the cabinet secretary, asking him if Chilcot should have flagged up his connection with the firm at the start of the inquiry.
As head of the inquiry, Chilcot is responsible for investigating the conduct of senior military and political leaders in the run-up to the war, as well as during the conflict and its aftermath.
Chilcot’s inquiry was intended to settle controversies surrounding the conduct of the Iraq war after previous inquiries were bedevilled by acrimony. The Hutton inquiry, which reported in 2004 on the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, the biological weapons expert, was dismissed as an “Establishment whitewash” after its findings exonerated the government.
In July of that year, the Butler inquiry, whose members included Chilcot, found there were serious flaws in the way the government used intelligence to justify its case for war.
Chilcot’s company, North British Windpower, wants to erect 48 turbines up to 410ft tall on a grouse moor belonging to the Duke of Roxburghe’s estate in the Lammermuir hills, southeast of Edinburgh. It would generate revenues of about £30m per year.
It would be one of the biggest such developments in Britain, but the changing stance of the MoD could be decisive in whether it goes ahead or not.
The scheme was recommended for rejection by a planning inspector in February 2008 because of MoD concerns that many of the turbines would interfere with radar systems at nearby Brizlee Wood air defence radar.
The report was not made public at this stage, but the results were given to the company, which then began lobbying the MoD to change its stance.
In 2009 there were “around half a dozen” meetings between North British Windpower and the MoD, according to Andrew Shaw, the firm’s managing director.
In January 2009, Chilcot, Shaw and Christopher Wilkins, its chairman, met with three officials at Wilkins’s London home.
Shaw confirmed Chilcot was present but said: “Sir John acted largely as an observer at the meeting he attended. He raised one or two points for the sake of clarification, but as far as the company was concerned I was the driving force at the meeting.”
“I had previously found the stance of the MoD bewildering and I wanted someone at the meeting like John who had not been involved in our previous dealings with them and who could provide a fresh perspective.”
The meetings achieved their goal. On July 22, 2009, it emerged that the MoD had formally withdrawn its opposition to the proposal.
The disclosure of Chilcot’s outside business dealings is the second potential embarrassment for the inquiry. In January it emerged that the military historian, Sir Lawrence Freedman, who sits on the Iraq war inquiry with Chilcot, had helped Tony Blair write a speech justifying military interventions.
Freedman wrote to Chilcot to make him aware of the potential conflict of interest on the day Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff, was due to give evidence.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office, which oversees the inquiry, said: “When appointed, panel members were required to disclose any conflict of interest with their appointment to the cabinet secretary. No such conflicts were reported.” He confirmed Chilcot had not declared his links with North British Windpower to his fellow committee members.
Chilcot declined to comment. His wife, Rosalind, said her husband was a sleeping member of the board, who had been in wind farms since they were “a very small egg”.
“John doesn’t use influence. He will not pull strings for anybody, not even me or his mother.” [BUT OF COURSE - NT)
Sir John Chilcot in MoD lobbying row
Sir John Chilcot, who is heading the Iraq war inquiry, successfully lobbied the MoD to drop its opposition to a planned wind farm in Scotland that will be run by a company of which he is a director
SIR John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq war inquiry, successfully lobbied the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to drop its opposition to a lucrative £150m wind farm project of which he is a director.
Chilcot was among a group of three of the company’s directors who met MoD officials in a private home in London in January 2009. The MoD was blocking the whole scheme because it said the 410ft high turbines would interfere with military radar.
Chilcot, who is a non-executive director of the company, was appointed chairman of the Iraq inquiry on June 15, 2009. Two weeks later, on July 1, the MoD formally dropped its opposition. A public inquiry is due to reopen on Tuesday in Duns in the Scottish Borders.
The disclosure that Chilcot — who has a 1.1% shareholding in the company — has benefited from a policy U-turn by the MoD leaves him vulnerable to accusations of a potential conflict of interest. He has not declared his business links.
An MoD spokesman said: “The MoD has withdrawn its planning objection on the condition that North British Windpower provides a technical solution to interference affecting local air defence radar.”
Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said he would write to the cabinet secretary, asking him if Chilcot should have flagged up his connection with the firm at the start of the inquiry.
As head of the inquiry, Chilcot is responsible for investigating the conduct of senior military and political leaders in the run-up to the war, as well as during the conflict and its aftermath.
Chilcot’s inquiry was intended to settle controversies surrounding the conduct of the Iraq war after previous inquiries were bedevilled by acrimony. The Hutton inquiry, which reported in 2004 on the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, the biological weapons expert, was dismissed as an “Establishment whitewash” after its findings exonerated the government.
In July of that year, the Butler inquiry, whose members included Chilcot, found there were serious flaws in the way the government used intelligence to justify its case for war.
Chilcot’s company, North British Windpower, wants to erect 48 turbines up to 410ft tall on a grouse moor belonging to the Duke of Roxburghe’s estate in the Lammermuir hills, southeast of Edinburgh. It would generate revenues of about £30m per year.
It would be one of the biggest such developments in Britain, but the changing stance of the MoD could be decisive in whether it goes ahead or not.
The scheme was recommended for rejection by a planning inspector in February 2008 because of MoD concerns that many of the turbines would interfere with radar systems at nearby Brizlee Wood air defence radar.
The report was not made public at this stage, but the results were given to the company, which then began lobbying the MoD to change its stance.
In 2009 there were “around half a dozen” meetings between North British Windpower and the MoD, according to Andrew Shaw, the firm’s managing director.
In January 2009, Chilcot, Shaw and Christopher Wilkins, its chairman, met with three officials at Wilkins’s London home.
Shaw confirmed Chilcot was present but said: “Sir John acted largely as an observer at the meeting he attended. He raised one or two points for the sake of clarification, but as far as the company was concerned I was the driving force at the meeting.”
“I had previously found the stance of the MoD bewildering and I wanted someone at the meeting like John who had not been involved in our previous dealings with them and who could provide a fresh perspective.”
The meetings achieved their goal. On July 22, 2009, it emerged that the MoD had formally withdrawn its opposition to the proposal.
The disclosure of Chilcot’s outside business dealings is the second potential embarrassment for the inquiry. In January it emerged that the military historian, Sir Lawrence Freedman, who sits on the Iraq war inquiry with Chilcot, had helped Tony Blair write a speech justifying military interventions.
Freedman wrote to Chilcot to make him aware of the potential conflict of interest on the day Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff, was due to give evidence.
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office, which oversees the inquiry, said: “When appointed, panel members were required to disclose any conflict of interest with their appointment to the cabinet secretary. No such conflicts were reported.” He confirmed Chilcot had not declared his links with North British Windpower to his fellow committee members.
Chilcot declined to comment. His wife, Rosalind, said her husband was a sleeping member of the board, who had been in wind farms since they were “a very small egg”.
“John doesn’t use influence. He will not pull strings for anybody, not even me or his mother.” [BUT OF COURSE - NT)
Sunday 11 April 2010
QUANGO CORRUPTION REIGNS TRIUMPHANT
Charlie Brooks in the "Daily Telegraph" (2 April 2010).
The Government has been accused of promising billions of pounds over the past couple of months to vote-winning projects in marginal constituencies. These pledges, adding up to £7 billion, mostly involved transport, defence and industry. Yet if you want a real illustration of how public spending can have everything to do with the Government buying votes, and nothing to do with improving our lives, than you should take a look at the rural sector.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a classic example of jobs for the boys and girls. It spends £3,157,000,000 per annum, spreading our largesse over 67 quangos, which employ 28,000 officials (in addition to the department's 8,000 core staff). And there has been no recession at the largest of its quangos, the Environment Agency: its funding has swollen by 37 per cent in the past five years, to more than half a billion pounds.
The degree to which the key appointments to these quangos has been politicised is shameful. For instance, did Pamela Warhurst recently become chairman of the Forestry Commission because she was the most knowledgeable applicant when it came to trees, or because she was a former Labour council leader? In 2009, Lord Rooker was handed the role of chairman of the Food Standards Agency, for a consideration of £54,000 per annum for a two-day week. As luck would have it, Lord Rooker had himself created this quango when he was a minister of state. The FSA has now bloated to include 37 committees, 11 of which are devoted to enforcement, which means sending tinpot tyrants scurrying across the countryside, hassling people who are trying to create jobs.
The roll call of these committees reads like a sketch from Yes Minister. The Advisory Body for the Delivery of Official Controls, for example, has – as of the time of writing – been unable to control or deliver minutes of its meetings from either October last year or March this year. And how much, one wonders, does the Food Standards Sampling Co-ordination Working Group cost us? In case you were not aware, "this joint working group was set up to help encourage better co-ordination of food standards sampling across local authorities and the FSA and to promote focused sampling programmes". Now if they went on strike, we'd be in real trouble.
What is especially scandalous is the duplication involved. Independent, non-joined-up reviews of the future of our upland areas have been undertaken by Defra, the Commission for Rural Communities, and Natural England – which didn't even bother to consult the Moorlands Association. If they'd all just gone to the pub together, they could have saved the taxpayer tens of thousands.
And right up to the wire, Labour is making appointments which will keep its placemen in power even if they lose the election. Former Labour council leader Ken Bodfish [can this be a real person? NT], for instance, has been given a comfortable seat by Hilary Benn on the newly created South Downs National Park Authority, even though the area seems to have survived quite well to date without having to be called a National Park.
It would be bad enough if the only downside to this was that we had to pay the wages and pensions of a public sector which this Government has expanded by approximately a million people. But the damage is much worse than that. If you ask any farmer or fisherman what single factor stops them being financially successful and creating more jobs, they will give you the same answer: the clipboard-wielding bureaucrats crawling all over them...
The Government has been accused of promising billions of pounds over the past couple of months to vote-winning projects in marginal constituencies. These pledges, adding up to £7 billion, mostly involved transport, defence and industry. Yet if you want a real illustration of how public spending can have everything to do with the Government buying votes, and nothing to do with improving our lives, than you should take a look at the rural sector.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a classic example of jobs for the boys and girls. It spends £3,157,000,000 per annum, spreading our largesse over 67 quangos, which employ 28,000 officials (in addition to the department's 8,000 core staff). And there has been no recession at the largest of its quangos, the Environment Agency: its funding has swollen by 37 per cent in the past five years, to more than half a billion pounds.
The degree to which the key appointments to these quangos has been politicised is shameful. For instance, did Pamela Warhurst recently become chairman of the Forestry Commission because she was the most knowledgeable applicant when it came to trees, or because she was a former Labour council leader? In 2009, Lord Rooker was handed the role of chairman of the Food Standards Agency, for a consideration of £54,000 per annum for a two-day week. As luck would have it, Lord Rooker had himself created this quango when he was a minister of state. The FSA has now bloated to include 37 committees, 11 of which are devoted to enforcement, which means sending tinpot tyrants scurrying across the countryside, hassling people who are trying to create jobs.
The roll call of these committees reads like a sketch from Yes Minister. The Advisory Body for the Delivery of Official Controls, for example, has – as of the time of writing – been unable to control or deliver minutes of its meetings from either October last year or March this year. And how much, one wonders, does the Food Standards Sampling Co-ordination Working Group cost us? In case you were not aware, "this joint working group was set up to help encourage better co-ordination of food standards sampling across local authorities and the FSA and to promote focused sampling programmes". Now if they went on strike, we'd be in real trouble.
What is especially scandalous is the duplication involved. Independent, non-joined-up reviews of the future of our upland areas have been undertaken by Defra, the Commission for Rural Communities, and Natural England – which didn't even bother to consult the Moorlands Association. If they'd all just gone to the pub together, they could have saved the taxpayer tens of thousands.
And right up to the wire, Labour is making appointments which will keep its placemen in power even if they lose the election. Former Labour council leader Ken Bodfish [can this be a real person? NT], for instance, has been given a comfortable seat by Hilary Benn on the newly created South Downs National Park Authority, even though the area seems to have survived quite well to date without having to be called a National Park.
It would be bad enough if the only downside to this was that we had to pay the wages and pensions of a public sector which this Government has expanded by approximately a million people. But the damage is much worse than that. If you ask any farmer or fisherman what single factor stops them being financially successful and creating more jobs, they will give you the same answer: the clipboard-wielding bureaucrats crawling all over them...
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