Author Archives: davidhencke

How Ashcroft got a peerage and no tax bills

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lord ashcroft- a non dom peer for a decade-picture courtesy the Guardian

Lord Ashcroft must have been laughing all the way to the tax office for the last decade if the revelations produced by the release of Whitehall memos telling the story of the scrutiny of his peerage are anything to go by.

 They show that the ultra canny lord successfully managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the scrutiny committee, enlist the loyal support of leading Tories to keep his non dom status and befuddle and exasperate some of the country’s leading mandarins. No wonder he is a billionaire, pity any business partner negotiating over the small print with him.

 By concentrating on the semantic difference between being a “long term resident” rather than a “permanent resident” Lord Ashcroft managed to both escape paying tax and still get a peerage with all the status and influence that implies in both Parliament and the business world.

 It is totally clear from the reaction of Baroness Dean that the scrutiny committee believed that he had agreed to the terms and conditions to pay tax in order to get his peerage. But in fact under a deal negotiated by the then chief whip, James Arbuthnot, and Sir Hayden Phillips, the Whitehall mandarin in charge of the negotiations, it was nothing of the sort.

What yesterday’s hearing by the Commons Public Administration committee reveals is a question mark over Sir Hayden’s role – whether he knew that the deal he was negotiating had let Ashcroft off the hook. Certainly Sir Hayden was probably fed up to the back teeth with the issue and probably wanted it sorted out. But it is rather surprising that he insists he did not know of the tax implications.

 What I have been told by a very senior Whitehall source is that Sir Hayden happily took on the job because another figure Lord Wilson, then Cabinet Secretary, didn’t want his hands dirty over such a hot political potato. It is therefore possible that the jovial Sir Hayden got out of his depth in dealing with such a slippery customer as Lord A.

This leaves the issue of how much senior Tories knew about it all. It is crystal clear that Arbuthnot knew exactly what was going on. He seems to have been up to his eyes in securing Ashcroft the peerage. I find it hard to believe that William Hague was also  in ignorance. Ashcroft  is very close to Hague, funds his Parliamentary office and jets around the world with him as shadow foreign secretary. Even at that time his office could have had a look at Ashcroft’s chequebook- and see where the donations came from. So it is possible that Hague could have known at the time, not just in the last few months, that Ashcroft was not paying tax.

Two figures come out well in this sorry saga. Tony Wright, the Labour chairman of the committee, who stuck to his guns and held the inquiry, despite a childish boycott by Tories on the committee. The other is Gus O’Donnell, the present Cabinet secretary. By releasing the documents rather than keeping them secret, he has shed a lot of light on a very murky tale about the award of peerages. Both have done voters a great service in the run up to the election.

This blog is also on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

An own goal investment in England’s green and pleasant land

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Lower Feltham Lakes near Heathrow - Green Belt development where Profitable Group plan leisure and housing

Most people  are naturally suspicious about investing in exotic  property projects abroad promising fantastic returns for their cash.

But what about a scheme that promises mainly overseas investors huge returns of up to 1000 per cent investing in  tiny plots in the UK .

A scheme promising  such returns has been running for the last five years by a Singapore based company called Profitablegroup. The company buys land and divides it up into tiny plots to resell to investors making millions of pounds. Its promoters include the company’s commercial director, Steve MacMahon, the former England and Liverpool player, and the famous celebrity former England captain, Bryan Robson, now coach to the Thai national team. 

 Four years ago both of them did a paid commercial for  Singapore TV promising huge returns on a site near Heathrow when it is developed for housing and leisure activities. What was not clear is that site – which being near Heathrow to say investors in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore would seem a safe bet -is on Green Belt land and will require a brave planning inspector to approve any development scheme. So now four years later nothing has happened. Robson, who does not work for Profitable, said he was unaware of subsequent events. .

Similar developments ( some of which have attracted British investors) in  the Colne Valleyin Essex and in Yorkshire have got lots of investors but nothing has happened there either. One site for a hotel on  agricultural land has been turned down by a planning inspector, another in West Bergholt, promising up to 1000 per cent  returns, according to the local parish council, has no chance of ever being developed because of stringent planning controls in the area.

So step in Chelgate, a lobbying company whose deputy chairman is Nick Wood-Dow,  founder of the Tory Green initiative and  an adviser to David Cameron on environmental issues. His company along with  a Sheffield planning firm, are now desperately trying to convince sceptical local people  councils of the need for development there. So far pretty unsuccessfully.

 This is perhaps not surprising since the recent Tory green paper on planning looks certain to ensure that if Cameron is elected that the Green Belt will remain sacrosanct and developers will face more objections at a local level to additional building schemes.

So what chance have those who put somewhere over £50m into schemes of making  a fortune. At the very least  they face years before they get any money back. At worst they will get nowhere.

Chelgate say no one has wanted their money back and promised on behalf of Profitable that anyone who does will get their cash. We shall see what happens but at the moment these developments look like an own gaol.

An article on the issue is in the Sunday Telegraph http://bit.ly/dtiv3h.

Miner’s Strike: A raw and bitter issue 25 years on

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March 3rd at  the Forum Theatre in The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery , Stoke on Trent marked a  raw and bloody rematch of the one of the most traumatic events of the last century – the 1984 miner’s strike.

The dispute still bitterly divided people 25 years after the event with an emotional audience still resenting  the outcome that marked the defining moment when capitalism triumphed over labour in British society.

Then Arthur  Scargill was pitched against Margaret Thatcher – and neither side was willing to give any quarter. But the defeat of the miners gave the green light for the Conservatives to turn the screw on the trade unions and laid open the opportunity for unbridled capitalism then ended in the credit crunch collapse in 2009..

This month  former Tory MP and Thatcher government minister Edwina Currie  fought with Respect MP George Galloway and neither gave any quarter over the dispute or its legacy. Quietly spoken Ken Loach, one of the country’s foremost film directors, also weighed on the side of the miners and their leaders and alongside Galloway was sharply critical of the failure of other unions and Labour to back Arthur Scargill .

 As joint author of a new book on the miner’s strike, Marching to the Fault Line, I found myself a bit of a ” piggy in the middle” trying to point out some facts – against Galloway and Currie. Galloway portrayed me as  some of sort of revisionist historian. Sadly again Arthur Scargill was not present as he has not replied to the organisers – a similar experience I had when I wrote the book with co-author Francis Beckett when he would not co-operate or be interviewed.

A DVD will be produced soon.

The organisers Alan Gerrard and Cheryl Artbay deserve to be congratulated for staging it.- they had to turn people away it was so popular. Pity it was not more widely picked up but that is sadly a fact in ther instant 24/7 news round.. Other events are on http://www.creativestoke.co.uk/80430/info.php?p=3.

Conservative Home: Asset or Tory trojan horse

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tim montgomerie -Con Home success could be Cameron's dilemma

If David Cameron wins the next general election, will Conservative Home be an asset or a Trojan horse that could wreck the first Tory government in 13 years?

Like its right wing counterparts in America the website is one of the great success stories in giving a lively voice to free market and Conservative views. It reflects the wide gamut of party opinions on Europe, crime, benefits and taxation. It is to the embarrassment of Tory spin doctors at Central Office singularly unafraid of carrying blogs criticising the Cameron leadership.  Witness the recent public debate on the site over whether Cameron was out of touch and living in a protected bubble from the rest of the party as he roamed round Parliament. Something you might expect more on Labour Home than Conservative Home.

Despite being funded by billionaire Tory donor Lord Ashcroft there appears to be no heavy hand of censorship and some Tory stars like Eurosceptics David Davis and John Redwood are more popular on Conservative Home than members of the present Shadow Cabinet.

Much of its success is due to the personality of Tim Montgomerie, a Christian Tory who is less abrasive than his anarchic right wing counterparts, Tory Bear and Guido Fawkes. He appears to have taken the view that a well read website should not have to toe the party line and can produce uncomfortable facts for the leadership. None more embarrassing recently than the low priority many of a new generation of Tory prospective MPs give to the environment and climate change – despite the Cameron leadership emphasising the “ Blue  Green “ nature of modern Conservatism. It is almost a Christian view of ensuring the leadership have to turn the other cheek when they face a problem.

This is fine while the party remains in opposition but what would happen if it came to power. Now most of the criticism of Cameron is hidden in a deluge of comment attacking New Labour or as many Tory bloggers call it, Nu Labour. It is very easy to take pop shots at Brown over bullying, or slam Ed Balls for his ruthlessness. Attacking Harman and the Milibands is no doubt very helpful to the Tory leadership. They can be blamed for broken Britain.

  But in power it would be different and the signs are that the real Tory party is nothing like the one the Cameron leadership presents to the electorate. It would be extraordinary if the right wing blogosphere that has none of the old guard deference to the leadership did not organise against it with same ferocity it attacks Nu Labour.

I know this is already happening. Before Cameron even has a chance of putting a foot inside Number Ten, Tory right wing rivals, UKIP, have spotted that Cameron appears to have foolishly pledged to hold a debate in Parliament on whether the UK should stay in the EU. Provided, of course, one million people sign a petition.

Organising a million strong petition on the net is child’s play with Facebook, Guido Fawkes and of course Conservative Home, only too happy to play a part. And UKIP has said to me that with many of their friends on Conservative Home sympathising with their views on Europe, they think that debate would have to take place soon. No wonder Cameron is despatching the old pro European bruiser Kenneth Clarke to Brussels to reassure our partners in the EU.

And why stop at Europe? Big tax cuts, bringing back hanging, demanding the right to kill a burglar, abolishing trade unions, opposing action on climate change, none of which are on Cameron’s immediate         agenda, could  become the new  on line demands.

Lord A could pull the plug on Con Home after a Tory victory. But the genie is out of the bottle and the Tory leadership is in for a rough ride from the grass roots cyber fighters on the right.

This post is also on the Progress website under Tory Tracker at  http://www.progressives.org.uk/columns/column.asp?c=361

How Chilcot cheated the public: A tale of two Iraq inquiries

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Chilcot " pact with the devil" picture courtesy Daily Telegraph

In all the  media hype, hubris and drama  which reached fever pitch with Tony Blair’s evidence to the Iraq inquiry, there is one big  group in this high profile event that has been cheated of getting access to the facts,  the British public.

While all the main witnesses  and the inquiry team under Sir John Chilcot have  unfettered access to the key classified information inside the 40,000 documents so far made available, the public is being rationed with limited fare released only with the agreement of the main Whitehall departments involved.

The situation has arisen because Sir John, foolishly in my view, has signed a protocol with the Cabinet Office which effectively gives Whitehall the last word on what documents the public are allowed to see. The document on the Cabinet Office website was signed I believe with honourable intentions  to give a framework, based on the government’s own interpretation of the freedom of information act, to which documents should be released.

 But in doing this Chilcot has given away his independence by allowing the Cabinet Secretariat the final say in any dispute between the inquiry and the foreign office, ministry of defence, attorney general’s department and the Cabinet Office itself over which documents can be released.

This pact with the devil is actually highlighted by an entirely different route  being taken by a  less publicised, official inquiry into Iraq running in tandem with Chilcot, the Baha Mousa inquiry taking place in a venue in the City of London.

This official inquiry set up by former defence secretery and Chilcot witness, Des Browne, is trying to get to the bottom of the savage death of Iraqi citizen, Baha Mousa, in Basra while in the custody of British troops. This inquiry is headed by Sir William Gage, a retired appeal judge.

Both inquiries are independent, official,and exempt from the freedom of information act. Both state that they are not trying to assign blame and are not putting their witnesses on trial. But there the similarity ends. Faced with same dilemma over documents, Sir William, has  taken two ground breaking decisions. He has waived his government exemption from FOI and said his inquiry will run as though it is subject to the Act, allowing the public to put in requests  for information that will answered in 20 working days. His website states: ” we will operate in as transparent and open a manner as possible in keeping with the interests of justice.” There is no such provision for the Chilcot inquiry.

Second, Sir William has made no pact with the devil. The protocol  he signed with the government gives him, not Whitehall, the final say in whether documents can be published.  I am told he has said if there is a dispute between his inquiry and the ministry of defence over the publication of documents, the MOD will have to go to court to stop him releasing the information.

So we have two very different approaches. One process is secret – as the Chilcot inquiry will not say what documents they  are in dispute over their release. The other process will become very public -because the ministry of defence will have to apply to the courts to keep documents out of the public domain.

There is also an extraordinary by-product of this decision. The Iraqi family of the dead  man are rightly  getting real  British justice  that is being seen to be done.

The families of dead soldiers who fought  for Queen and country in Iraq  and the general public are getting inferior treatment – no right to ask for information under FOI and allowing a cosy  secret Whitehall club to decide what they should be allowed to see.

 The only conclusion is that the independent judiciary are a  better champion of the public’s right to know than eminent senior civil servants.  Sir John is an  honourable man but he has sold the British public a pup in his subservience to  Whitehall.

This post is also on Comment is Free on the http://guardian.co.uk  website.

Ghost Ticket from Berkhamsted

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A Ghost ticket

A real London Midland train: Picture courtesy Daily Mail

You will all know about ghost trains – those services that run but do not appear to exist on the timetable.

London Midland  have gone one step further – they may be the first railway in Britain to sell ghost tickets.

For the last five months the company has offered us oldies an extraordinary deal if we want to travel in peak times and have the freedom to travel round London.

If you purchase a ticket from the company’s two ticket machines at Berkhamsted station  for a London travel card – you have been able to get a £7.20 reduction on a £22 peak time rail journey.

 But don’t ask for such a ticket at the booking office – because until January they will tell you that no such fare exists and they can’t sell you such a  ticket. As a result by word of mouth hundreds of oldies have been getting a secret third off rail fares to London before 9.30 am.  Up to January tickets were legal, issued by the company and they work all the  entry gates to the tube in London. No one  published the deal in case the foolish London Midland changed its mind and withdrew the ticket.

 London Midland obviously decided they did not want to spend the money altering the ticket machines so  ghost tickets continue to be spewed out of the machine .

Now with the new fare rises the reason has become clear. London Midland had programmed Berkhamsted to accept the a new Anytime £14.80 peak travel card five months before it existed.  It was to be linked with higher fares for those using evening peak trains. No wonder they weren’t going to remove them from the machines.

The extraordinary thing  is this  the now £7.60 reduction is still  available after the fare rise and before 9.30 am from the ticket machines – though the booking office insist it  is now an illegal ticket if you travel before 9.30 am. 

 I don’t know what trading standards would make of it. According to Passenger Focus, the independent consumer group, rail companies are not allowed to issue differently priced tickets to the same place from booking offices and machines at the same station.

The company is recouping any savings for early travellers by charging 30 per cent more if a passenger  goes in after 9.30 but needs to return from London between 4.45pm and 6.45pm. In this case for oldies the fare rises from £11.15 to £14.80.

But if you do travel before 9.30 am on the ticket – the booking office say they will get you.

They say travellers will be stopped at the barrier at Euston – if caught using it -as it won’t work the machines there . However many of the rush hour trains do not use platform 8 to 11 and there not a barrier in sight on other platforms to stop you.

 This is going to make an interesting test case if they do pursue people – for the name on the ticket is Anytime – which if there is any restrictions on travel is a breach of the Trades Description  Act.

Berkhamsted

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The aim of this  section will be to highlight issues affecting my home town Berkhamsted. It will be a mixture of citizen journalism and a resource for people looking for local campaigning organisations.

The decline of an active local press means that a lot of  events go unscrutinised. This gives more power to those in authority to take  decisions affecting people’s lives without being challenged.

This is not healthy for a local community or democracy so expect issues to be raised here that might not get coverage elsewhere or are now ignored by official media.

Eventually if I  can  grapple with all the possibities of  new technology I would like this pcategoty to become  more of an inter active forum for local debate.

In the meantime watch this space.

Nice Try, Guido. Or Not Really.

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Stone and Clegg campaigning together outside Newcastle police station

An extraordinary attempt was made  just before Christmas to kill off a story of mine to spare the blushes of a rather hapless Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate  caught out for living a dual life in cyberspace.

Greg Stone is now toast and has had to stand down as Liberal Democrat candidate for Newcastle-upon Tyne East and Wallsend as a result but the shennaghins surrounding the attempt to make sure this did not get into print is worth recalling.

Guido Fawkes tried to come to the rescue of  Greg Stone aka Inamicus by using one of the oldest tricks of ye olde print media -a spoiler before the tale could be published by a rival.

 Taking advantage of the internet’s speed over print he published a  blog defending Stone for making  some pretty nasty and rude comments about female MPs-both Labour and Tory – by releasing details of the tale and saying that calling someone a ” sour faced bitch” was ” tame”. Accompanying the tale was a copy of document which stood up the allegations and had been sent to the Liberal Democrats following a request from Nick Clegg’s office. Can’t think how Guido got it.

Guido proceeded to spin the tale by blaming Stone’s opponent, incumbent Labour MP and chief whip, Nick Brown claiming it was part of a Labour smear campaign and that the MPs researchers had been touting it around left wing journos.

While some spoilers repel, others attract. The Guido spoiler enhanced the chances of the tale being published – not in the leftie press but in the Sunday Telegraph. So I thank him for increasing my income.

But there were some bizarre side effects. Guido himself claimed not to know the real identity of Inamicus  which was  rather disingenuous – given Greg Stone’s regular references to him on Twitter.

Nor do either them get the main point.  If Greg Stone wants to be an MP he should not use Guido Fawkes to make crude and lewd comments about his future colleagues under an assumed name. And none of this fits with Stone’s other claim to be Mr Transparancy on his official council website.  Stone continued his double standards afterwards- issuing an apology in the official print media while not hinting at any apology in the blogosphere.

Finally lets take this early morning exchange between Greg and Guido showing how close they are. Read it for yourself.

http://twitter.com/Greg4MP
@guidofawkes where’s my space agency hat tip?! 2:57 AM Dec 11th  
From Guido to Greg – 11 December 2009 3:34 AM
http://twitter.com/guidofawkes/status/6563965408
@greg4mp consider yourself hat-tipped. Thought you were an anonymous source… 3:34 AM

MY NEW SITE

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This site is to become the centre  for all my journalistic activity since I left my job as Westminster Correspondent on the Guardian on 30 June 2009.

It aims to link together my past work -principally for The Guardian and Guardian Unlimited with my new work for newspapers, magazines, TV, Blogs and media consultancy.

I am currently working for Raw Cut Tv as head of current affairs on commissioning a number of programmes covering a wide field from scandals in football to local government corruption and political stories covering Whitehall and Westminster.

 I write regularly for  the left of centre magazine Tribune where I have been appointed their Westminster Correspondent.

Previous articles have appeared in the Guardian  and there is a longer version of a recent critical article on the Parliamentary lobby system  published in The Guardian in the British Journalism Review.(www.bjr.org.uk).

I  have a recent article on MPs expenses in the IPPR Journal on MPs expenses (http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/?id=2385) outlining how Parliament came to be in this sorry state and suggesting some ways forward.

I have also written a number of stories for the Sundays in the national press,since leaving the Guardian, notably the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph.

Latest are:(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1200670/Audit-chiefs-refuse-pass-accounts-5-Government-departments.html)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/6235186/MPs-expenses-You-pay-for-MPs-to-take-their-wives-on-luxury-hotel-break.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/liberaldemocrats/6845129/Hazel-Blears-on-Botox-says-Lib-Dem.html

I also write on Whitehall matters for Public Servant. Two recent articles appeared on the web covering public spending cuts and a gag on ministers issuing strong comments about National Audit Office and House of Commons Public Accounts Committee reports. (http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=13019) and (http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=11259).

My media consultancy in the last six months included advising the National Audit Office on making their reports more newsworthy. I have also given  a talk to Parli Training on Lobbying the Tories and being on a panel at last year’s Civil Service Live national conference.

Finally with Francis Beckett I am the co-author of two books,The Blairs and Their Court, renamed The Survivor: Tony Blair in Peace and War , and Marching to the Fault Line, a history of the 1984 miners’ strike. Both are available on Amazon.

The site also links to bloggers of all political persuasions and has direct media links to the Guardian, BBC, Telegraph and Tribune websites.