Dominic Cummings: Boris Johnson’s right hand man . Pic credit: Sky News
Halloween or October 31 may be more of a dramatic day this year than just the date set for a ” no deal ” Brexit.
It could also be the day of the next general election – if
the ruthless approach by Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s chief executive to
get Brexit done is a top priority.
I have no inside information but logic points to this
possibility now the political scene in Whitehall has changed beyond all
recognition with the election of Boris Johnson as PM and surrounding himself
with a Vote Leave government.
With a majority of one it is quite clear that Johnson cannot continue as PM until 2022 and hope to get anything through Parliament. But he needs to choose a general election date with considerable care. Too early and he risks a more resurgent Remain Parliament since the Liberal Democrats ,SNP and Labour will campaign against a “ No deal” and move to revoke Article 50. Too late and he could face a backlash if “Project Fear” turns into “Project Reality” and the experience of Brexit goes sour on the British people.
The EU British Driving Licence that will disappear. and no longer be valid in the EU and EEA.Pic credit: gov uk
Britain’s 43,000 citizens living in Holland will have to
retake their driving test if they do not apply for a Dutch driving licence by
31 October, according to new No Deal Brexit advice from the Department of
Transport.
In Spain any of the 300,000 British citizens who have not
exchanged their licence by October 31 will have to pass a medical test to
continue driving to get a new licence.
These are just two of a whole plethora of confusing and
chaotic rules that will vary from country to country when the British driving
licence is no longer recognised by the EU.
UK’s 1.3 million citizens living in the 27 countries will face different
rules, time deadlines for applications and compulsory medical checks before
they can drive again in some countries.
Whitehall Brexit redeployment boosts tax credit fraud at revenue and Customs. Pic credit: gov.uk
The Revenue and Customs agency has sacrificed the monitoring
of fraud and error in paying out £22.9 billion a year in tax credits to
millions of people so it can meet deadlines for Brexit.
The switching of 270 civil servants to prepare for Brexit from
checking error and fraud among people claiming tax credits has cost Revenue and
Customs up to £1.46 billion in overpayments, the National Audit Office has
revealed.
The losses are the highest since 2011 and has led to the NAO
qualifying the accounts of Revenue and Customs as inaccurate for the 15th
year running since former Labour chancellor Gordon Brown first introduced tax
credits in 2003.
The losses come on top of figures from the Department for Work and Pensions which disclosed that in the last financial year benefit error and fraud is running at record levels. Altogether the level of known error and fraud in both departments has now been revealed to total a record £7.5 billion.
DVLA’s advertising campaign to stop the tripling of untaxed cars and vans Pic credit: DVLA & RAC
The abolition of
every car and van in the UK needing to display a car tax disc has led to the
tripling of the number of untaxed cars and soaring prosecutions and fines for
drivers, according to the latest annual report of the DVLA, the Driver and
Vehicle Licensing Agency.
The scale of the problem led to a report from the new auditor
general, Gareth Davies, to be attached to its annual accounts this year after
the agency’s previous unblemished record in collecting car tax became tarnished.
Up to 2014 when the car tax disc was abolished the agency collected up to 99.6 per cent of revenue. Since then the figure has fallen to 98.2 per cent – which might seem small – but is equivalent to an additional 500,000 vehicles evading tax. It is happening because people are telling the DVLA their vehicle is stored off the road but are continuing to use it.
Chris Grayling: Transport Secretary faces fresh contract debacle
Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is facing a fresh
fiasco over new ferry contracts to bring in goods if Britain leaves the EU on
Oct 31.
The minister known as “Failing Grayling” has already cost
some £3.5 billion in lost revenue and overspending in his three ministerial
jobs since 2010.
A report from the Commons public accounts committee today reveals he just 21 days left to re-order contracts to bring in supplies if either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt sticks to the Oct 31 deadline – deal or no deal.
The annual report that reveals the damning failures of the ministry to keep a grip on benefit and error fraud and the high pay and pensions of the people running the Universal Credit programme
Benefit error and fraud has reached record levels at the
Department for Work and Pensions and it is going to get worse, according to its
own figures released in its annual report for the last financial year.
For the 30th year
running the National Audit Office has qualified the ministry’s £86.6 billion
benefit accounts because it considers them to be inaccurate
The most damning section of the report is on Universal Credit – whose current and previous directors – have just received bonus payments up to £15,000 each for their work.
Peter Lilley, the Tory Secretary of State who decided not to spend money in 1997 telling the 3.8 million women born in the 1950s that their pension age was going up. Pic credit: Policy Exchange
Secret ministry documents reveal that successive government
ministers and Whitehall officials failed over two decades to tell over 3.8
million women born in the 1950s that they would lose their pensions for up to six
years.
The documents – made public in last month’s judicial review – call into question whether the ministry was up to the job to properly inform millions of people of such a drastic change to their retirement plans.
For those who are not yet following me on Byline there is now a two part investigation by me into the cost – both financial and personally damaging – to British taxpayers of cabinet minister Chris Grayling. His nine years in office – from Employment Minister to Lord Chancellor and now Transport secretary – have brought misery to millions of people whether they are rail commuters, prisoners, victims of criminal attacks or faced discrimination at work. Some people have even had to plead guilty to criminal offences they did not commit to save money. Others have become victimised twice because of the debacle of his probation privatisation programme.You read the two part series in bylinehereand here.
Department for Work and Pensions – still misleading the facts on 50swomen pensioners.
The Department for Work and Pensions has produced statistics to frighten the public into believing that compensating 3.8 million women born in the 1950s who lost out through the rise in the pension age from 60 to 66 will cost more than double the real price.
A new DWP research report issued a day after judicial review hearing on June 5 and 6 and given widespread coverage in mainstream media put the cost at an eye watering £188 billion and £212 billion instead of a previous figure of £77.2 billion. The directly comparable figure hidden in a footnote is £91.1 billion at today’s prices.
Now I am back in the UK after going around the world and visiting 22 countries I am introducing some changes to my blog.
I have a number of major projects for the current year and a backlog of challenging investigations following a number of you contacting me on this site to ask me to write about issues which are not being reported or ignored in mainstream media.
I am currently employed as a consultant to a national newspaper and an independent television production company scoping a long term investigation which hopefully will appear later this year.
BYLINE
I will also be regularly writing for byline.com on their new project bylinetimes – a print and on line paper that specialises in reporting issues not covered by the mainstream press. This will mean that my coverage of Whitehall mismanagement and political scandals will first appear on their site but every article will be highlighted on this site so you can link to it and read it.
This site has run a number of articles on the plight of the 3.8 million women born in the 1950s who have been hit by the raising of the pension age from 60 to 66. I decided to back the campaign by BackTo60 after seeing the poverty, stress and misery caused to so many people by this mismanaged policy. Apart from the Guardian and the Press Association, this site and bylinetimes were the only people to cover a judicial review hearing which could affect the lives of 3.8 million people.
Coverage of this issue will be intensified over the next few weeks as I have a string of exclusive stories and analysis in the pipeline.
This site has also covered very challenging child sex abuse stories in the past and some very controversial investigations through Exaro News . I am still planning to cover issues raised in this area and will come back to it shortly.
YOU DECIDE
The rest of the news agenda on this site will depend partly on you, the reader, when you ask me to either investigate something that has manifestly gone wrong or expose mismanagement and corruption wherever it might be. I have had a number of you contacting me about local government scandals, housing and business scandals, racism, mental health issues to name but a few. Please bear with me as it takes time to do a proper investigation.
Finally I have made one change. My figures from WordPress show though this a UK site some 10 per cent of the traffic is from overseas – notably Spain, France, the US, Canada, Australia, Cyprus and Turkey. It also has had sizable hits from the United Arab Emirates, Croatia, Mexico, Bulgaria and Thailand to name a few. Many of these could be migrants or expats but I have added a Google translate button so the blogs can be read in other languages.
In the meantime I am very gratified by the huge increase in the number of hits on this site – mainly as the result of my support for the 50s born women. The site is running at record levels, so thank you all.
Westminster Confidential 