Three little pigs who are sticking their snouts in the trough to keep out the wolves
Caught out again: Grant Shapps is yet again having to justify his own shady behaviour.
Here’s a story to get you irritated and annoyed on a hot summer’s day: Your Prime Minister, his Chancellor and the chairman of their political party have all found novel property-based cheats.
According to the Daily Mirror, David Cameron and George Osborne have done a secret deal with the taxman to cut thousands of pounds off the tax they pay while they are living in their famous grace-and-favour homes on Downing Street.
Under the change, which HM Revenue and Customs has buried deep in the small print of its accounts, Cameron is saving a minimum of £1,228 a year, while Osborne’s bill has more than halved, saving him £1,560 a year.
The Mirror points out that this means Osborne is paying just £23 a week and Cameron no more than £35 to live at Britain’s most exclusive address, while the average rent in the UK is £195.
The paper quotes Alex Hilton, director of pressure group Generation Rent, who mocked the top Tories with their election slogan from 2010: “We’re blatantly not all in it together if the residents of Downing Street can wangle themselves a nice bonus while ordinary families are seeing their rent go up by more than wages.”
Meanwhile Grant Shapps, the Tory co-chairman who hid his own shady business deals behind the false names ‘Michael Green’ and ‘Sebastian Fox’ for the first four years of his Parliamentary career, has been receiving campaign funds from a Conservative club that has not submitted a tax return since 2009.
Conservative Club (Hatfield) Ltd has been fined £3,000 by the Financial Conduct Authority for its failure to produce accounts or name its officers. Despite these issues, it seems the club has been entirely able to provide £140,000 to fund Shapps as a candidate in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency.
Shapps has claimed the club is not connected to his local Conservative Association, which is odd – because not only is it based in the same building, paying rent to the association, but its members are all counted as members of the Conservative Party as well.
Was Shapps among the Conservatives who justified last year’s Gagging Act by claiming it was vital that the public had transparency from their MPs?
And didn’t Cameron say his government would be the most transparent ever, in its affairs?
Liars. Pigs with their snouts in the trough, all of them.
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did you think otherwise that we are all in it together but they aint above the law of the land even paying their taxes now is a bore for them but i wonder could we start a revolution were everybody gets paid offshore
But it IS the most transparent government ever………we see through every lie, con, scam, policy, act, agreement, sound bite, spin, promise, deal, announcement, investigation, probe, report, speech, etc. They’ve taken the joy out of spending a day or two mulling over what they release to find the real thinking or meaning behind it because it’s bleeding obvious from the moment it comes out of the think tank. I can only assume their well-paid advisers, spin drs and flunkies were part of the network from the old school because their skill and expertise for their roles is verging on the ridiculous. A third rate government advised by third rate people turning us into a third world country as they line their own and their chums pockets. I forgot, honesty is no longer acceptable. I await the knock on my door…..
This is the most blatantly corrupt government in.recent decades. Its as though they are cocking a snook at all of us. It is a disease ridden type of utterly selfish greed. They are so in their ivory towers they believe only the rich shall inhabit the earth. If all the Lowly- in their perception- were gone, who do they think would clean the street, empty the bins etc!
Watch Radical Lives, BBC2 9pm this evening. Food for thought …. and next week too. Is it in the schools curriculum?