Tory crime allegations: Why stop with Shapps?

Isn't this fraud? The man pictured is Grant Shapps, but his name tag claims he is Michael Green - the name he used to run How To Corp before and after he became an MP. Isn't that fraud - gaining a financial advantage under false pretences (in this case, the pretence that he wasn't Grant Shapps)?

Isn’t this fraud? The man pictured is Grant Shapps, but his name tag claims he is Michael Green – the name he used to run How To Corp before and after he became an MP. Isn’t that fraud – gaining a financial advantage by deception (in this case, the pretence that he wasn’t Grant Shapps)?

Picture David Cameron’s bemusement, as he stares around the Cabinet at its next meeting, wondering why Labour has asked him to order an investigation into criminal allegations against Grant Shapps – when George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith are in the room.

Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office minister Michael Dugher has written to Cameron, calling for Shapps to be suspended and an investigation launched under the ministerial code of conduct after the police said one of his companies may have committed “an offence of fraud”.

The official Conservative line is that the police have closed investigations into Shapps’s How To Corp, there is no case to answer, and any further allegations should be put to the Party (as Dugher has) or the police. The source added: “To suggest there are allegations left unchallenged is actionable”, implying a threat of legal action if Labour persists.

But this is to deny the result of the police inquiry. The Metropolitan Police stated in a letter that the company’s sales of TrafficPaymaster software, that ‘spins and scrapes’ content from other websites, “may constitute an offence of fraud, among others”, but that this would not be investigated further.

Why not? A crime is a crime and the police are specifically employed to prevent it.

It seems that Tory ministers really are above the law.

Look at how the Met brushed off Vox Political‘s attempt to have George Osborne investigated for fraud, after he paid mortgage interest on a paddock with taxpayers’ money, claiming it was an allowable expense on property he needed to perform his duties as an MP – and then sold it off in a package with other land and a neighbouring farmhouse for around £1 million and pocketed the cash.

Apparently it was already under investigation, according to the policewoman who called at the end of last year. Have you heard anything about it since?

Perhaps it was one of the fraud matters that got lost by computer error.

And what about Iain Duncan Smith’s habitual offence of lying to Parliament? He has done this so many times that nobody can say it is unintentional, and he has never apologised for the factual inaccuracies. This is an offence of Contempt of Parliament and according to convention he should have been ejected from the House of Commons months ago and a by-election called for his seat.

If the Conservatives can’t keep their own house clean, why isn’t Labour demanding action on these matters?

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15 Comments

  1. […] Picture David Cameron's bemusement, as he stares around the Cabinet at its next meeting, wondering why Labour has asked him to order an investigation into criminal allegations against Grant Shapps …  […]

  2. Ron November 3, 2013 at 2:35 pm - Reply

    As I see it, TrafficPaymaster was designed to enable breach of copyright and theft of intellectual property. I don’t know if its creation and sale constituted a crime (by enabling users to commit crime, perhaps it did?), but anyone who bought and used it as intended surely broke the law.

    Anybody been prosecuted? Bet I can guess.

  3. Bob Archer November 3, 2013 at 2:38 pm - Reply

    whats new?? does anybody believe the nasty evil party is full of honesty. what a laugh.God i hate the lot of them.

  4. Editor November 3, 2013 at 2:44 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on kickingthecat.

  5. Paul Jackman November 3, 2013 at 2:46 pm - Reply

    Cameron corrupted government and the police is corrupted too

  6. earlbramleyhoward November 3, 2013 at 2:55 pm - Reply

    “why isn’t Labour demanding action on these matters?”
    Because they’re “All in it together”.

    • Mike Sivier November 3, 2013 at 3:12 pm - Reply

      But then they wouldn’t be demanding action on Shapps.

  7. jaypot2012 November 3, 2013 at 3:02 pm - Reply

    We know that all parties have their “frauds and crimes” in them, but never so much as this Tory party!
    I would like to see the Labour party start on these matters asap, there’s no reason why they can’t and I don’t understand why they haven’t already. Unless they are waiting until things are beginning to unravel even more than at the moment?

  8. Samwise Gamgee November 3, 2013 at 6:44 pm - Reply

    If Labour went for these Tories, I mean really went after them, they could nail them. It isn’t a question of ability, it seems to be more a question of will.

    Go on Ed Milliband, show us some steel and go after the government!

  9. Gavin MacMillan November 4, 2013 at 12:27 am - Reply

    This bunch of incompetents is truly mind f***ing bogglingly bad. I watch with sheer amazement, bemusement and contempt. But the sad reality is that, like during the recent “summer of discontent”, Miliband has no intention of challenging what the Tories are doing for the precise reason that if he gets into power, he will mirror a huge part of their neoliberal agenda and policies. So for him, don’t shoot himself in the foot before he gets started!

    • Mike Sivier November 4, 2013 at 9:43 am - Reply

      He’s coming around (slowly). The impression I get is that he’s trying to steer the rest of the Parliamentary Labour Party back towards real Labour values, but it’s taking a while because of the neoliberal elements you mention. Maybe I’m an optimist.

  10. Pete Hodge November 4, 2013 at 7:38 am - Reply

    If the Conservatives can’t keep their own house clean, why isn’t Labour demanding action on these matters?

    Probably because they are as guilty, as is the case of Gordon Brown,and his 315,000+ pay and exes, whilst only attending the house three times.

    • Mike Sivier November 4, 2013 at 9:57 am - Reply

      He hasn’t been there very often. But Gordon Brown is an example of neoliberal New Labour, and the current party is (at least in theory) trying to get away from that. There is therefore no reason not to take a stand.

  11. […] Isn’t this fraud? The man pictured is Grant Shapps, but his name tag claims he is Michael Green – the name he used to run How To Corp before and after he became an MP.  […]

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