Tag Archives: George Osborne

Why is the field Starmer bought for his parent’s rescue donkeys a scandal, but Osborne’s paddock wasn’t?

Keir Starmer: at least this time he has reason to look relaxed – he hasn’t done anything wrong.

Let’s get one thing clear: Keir Starmer has been a disaster (so far) as leader of the Labour Party.

It comes as a relief, therefore, to learn that he is at least a good son.

Using his own money, Starmer bought a field near his parents’ home, so his mother could look after rescued donkeys. This was before he was a member of Parliament, when he was working in the legal profession.

Apparently the land is now worth “up to £10 million”, but he bought it in 1996 when it is likely to have been worth a considerable amount less.

And reporters in the Mail on Sunday want us to believe that Starmer is set to sell this Green Belt land to the local council – for housing:

The claim is false. Even the MoS article features a quote from a Labour spokesperson, saying that the field is not for sale – but a strip of land next to his late parents’ house is being sold, in accordance with his father’s will.

Contrast this with George Osborne and his paddock.

Remember that?

I wrote about it in 2012, as follows:

“Osborne – who is, let’s remember, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and therefore should know the rules extremely well – included the mortgage for a paddock in his taxpayer-funded expenses.

“He bought a farmhouse in Cheshire, along with the neighbouring land, for £455,000 in 2000, before he became an MP – but then, between 2003 and 2009, he claimed up to £100,000 in expenses to cover mortgage interest payments on both the land and the building. The mortgages were interest-only. After 2003, he never paid a penny himself.

“When he re-mortgaged in 2005, he increased the amount to £480,000 – again on an interest-only basis – to cover the intial purchase costs and £10,000 for repairs. He was using public money to claw back his outlay on the property, so from then on, none of the money paid on that building or land was paid by Mr Osborne. It all came from the taxpayer.

“During the MPs’ expenses scandal of 2009 we learned that he had “flipped” his second home allowance onto the property and increased the mortgage. What we didn’t know was that the expenses payments were not just for the house, but for the paddock as well; it is registered separately with the Land Registry.

“Osborne sold the house and the land – both of which are now firmly established as having been funded with your money, not his – last year, for £1 million. That’s more than double the original price. He has pocketed that money; the taxpayer won’t get any of it back.”

Osborne did not need this building or the adjoining land to discharge his Parliamentary duties, nor did he pay back anything like the amount he claimed, when he was found to have overclaimed for mortgage interest on the farmhouse (and only the farmhouse).

The difference is clear.

Osborne used public funds to pocket hundreds of thousands of pounds. Starmer used his own money to help his mother.

And the Mail on Sunday attacked Starmer!

Perhaps this is because Osborne is a Conservative and could therefore do no wrong, as far as the Tory rags are concerned. Starmer, on the other hand, despite being practically a Red Tory, is Labour and therefore a target.

Fortunately the Twitterati feel otherwise:

That’s the truth of it; this is just a prelude.

Who knows what they’ll throw at him after the Covid-19 crisis finally subsides?

That’s likely to be a long way off yet (because the Tories are busily turning coronavirus into the biggest massacre of UK citizens ever to happen in peacetime).

But Starmer’s record as Labour leader suggests that this merely means they will have plenty of ammunition by then.

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While Starmer bends backwards for right-wing Jewish groups, the Tories are making anti-Semitic jokes

Gross anti-Semitism: but because it was commissioned by a Conservative, it gets a free pass from the right-wing Jewish establishment.

Reality check, people.

Labour leader Keir Starmer has humiliatingly genuflected before leaders of right-wing Jewish groups that support the Israeli government, promising to enact all their demands to turn him into their sockpuppet, in a video conference.

In response, he was told he has done more in four days of leadership than former leader Jeremy Corbyn had managed in four years (even though he hasn’t actually done anything yet).

The leaders of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, the Community Security Trust and the Jewish Labour Movement managed to conveniently forget that Starmer has appointed a supporter of a genuine anti-Semite into his shadow cabinet (Rachel Reeves).

It all keeps the focus on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, you see.

Meanwhile, Tory George Osborne, who now edits the Evening Standard, has commissioned and published a genuinely anti-Semitic cartoon – and nobody in the organisations mentioned above has had anything to say about it.

And the silence in the mass media has been deafening too.

The cartoon shows Starmer welcoming Ed Miliband back into the shadow cabinet. Miliband is portrayed with a hook nose (that he hasn’t got), holding a bacon sandwich dripping with a red substance that could be ketchup, but may more likely be representative of blood (some have seen this to be indicative of the “blood libel” anti-Semitic trope.

Osborne is proud of it:

Martin Odoni in The Critique Archives has been less than silent.

He wrote: “Come on, BoD, come on, David Collier, come on, Jonathan Hoffman, and all you other self-righteous Zionist squealers cheaply using Jewish identity as a cover story for Israeli political gain. We know that the Evening Standard is a Tory newspaper, and therefore an ally of yours. But if you ever want to retain the slightest remnant of credibility, you need to protest this more loudly than any deed by anyone you have attacked in the Labour Party over the last five years.

“Because unlike almost all of the deeds you have attacked, this is absolutely explicit. It is an outrageous racial caricature, by the very standards you have insisted on imposing. You cannot apply them selectively.”

He’s not alone:

(The mural reference refers to a piece of work that Jeremy Corbyn once defended, before seeing it. After seeing it, he retracted his comment. Some of the saga is recounted here.)

We’ll be waiting a long time for the Bod, JLC, JLM, CST and all the named champions of the fight against (Labour)(alleged) anti-Semitism to say anything, I reckon!

But what do you think?

Source: George Osborne publishes and promotes anti-Semitic cartoon. Deathly silence from BoD and the media | TheCritique Archives

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The Tories could end austerity now – but you can bet they’ll use Brexit fears as an excuse not to

“End austerity? Me? But Brexit!” That’s what Philip Hammond would say.

The Conservative government could use £15 billion to end austerity policies after a surprise boost to the public finances – but you’d be a fool to think that will happen.

That’s the view of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, whose director Paul Johnson urged Philip Hammond to make good on the promises the Tories have been making for the past few months.

You see, it’s all very well saying austerity is over, but if the services the Tories have destroyed haven’t been restored, then it isn’t.

But even Mr Johnson admitted the Tories would be in a better position to boost public services if not for uncertainty over Brexit.

“There is a consensus that the economy would have been about 2 per cent bigger had the Brexit vote not occurred,” he said.

“In those circumstances the deficit would have been smaller still and the fiscal room for manoeuvre greater. The end of austerity could already have been rather more decisively with us.”

The IFS warned that the chancellor’s Spring Statement deferred crucial spending decisions in areas such as social care, public service funding and benefits which will put him under pressure to raise taxes further down the line.

The Treasury said on Wednesday that the “headroom” built up by the chancellor could go towards government priorities such as keeping tax low, reducing debt, public service spending and capital investment, so long as it is not soaked up coping with a no-deal Brexit.

Of course we should remember that George Osborne (remember him?) said on becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2010 that the public finances would be restored to health by 2015 – nearly four years ago.

We may reasonably conclude only one thing:

Tories will use any excuse to continue squeezing public spending – they’ve used a fictitious crisis in the public finances; they’re currently using Brexit. It will be something else in the future.

Source: Government has enough money to end austerity if it wants to, IFS report concludes | The Independent

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Osborne admits: Labour did NOT cause the Great Recession

George Osborne.

Took him long enough, didn’t it?

He also admits that the Tories had promised to match Labour’s spending plans, in an interview with Andrew Neil for The Spectator‘s Coffee House Shots on October 12 (they went back on that promise when they took office in 2010).

Here’s the relevant clip:

If you’d prefer the full interview, it’s here:

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Osborne admits: Labour did NOT cause the Great Recession

George Osborne.

Took him long enough, didn’t it?

He also admits that the Tories had promised to match Labour’s spending plans, in an interview with Andrew Neil for The Spectator‘s Coffee House Shots on October 12 (they went back on that promise when they took office in 2010).

Here’s the relevant clip:

If you’d prefer the full interview, it’s here:

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Latest Grenfell revelations are shocking – especially relating to George Osborne

[Image from Political Scrapbook.]

The headline news here is that George Osborne, as the newly-appointed editor of the Evening Standard, ordered the paper’s reporters not to take a hard line when reporting the fire at Grenfell Tower in Kensington.

It seems he was worried that the budget cuts he imposed as Chancellor of the Exchequer might be linked to the deaths of mostly-poor Londoners.

So his line was to call on people to show “unity in grief” and to raise funds for victims, according to a profile of him in Esquire magazine, reported in Political Scrapbook.

As a professional news reporter, This Writer finds his behaviour utterly unacceptable if this is true. It is the news reporter’s job to be impartial; to report the facts as they are known.

That is what Osborne himself said he would do when he took over as the Standard‘s editor:

Instead it seems he has been doing himself just as many favours as he could.

Incidentally, the line taken by Osborne and the Standard – that everybody should express their unity and not go anywhere near discussing the causes of the fire – was adopted by many right-wing reporters, commentators and members of the public, who then tried to shame the rest of us for bothering to point out that there were political reasons for the disaster.

I think I’m still correct in saying This Site was the first to make these connections. It would be nice to see those who criticised me for doing so admit that it was their vitriol that was inappropriate – but I shan’t hold my breath waiting for it.

In other news, fire chiefs have called for sprinklers to be retrofitted into tower blocks in response to the Grenfell disaster:

In fact, residents had been campaigning for sprinklers to be fitted for years before the fire happened. But London fire commissioner Dany Cotton is absolutely right to use the disaster to press for action now.

The BBC has revealed that a series of tower block blazes in at least the last eight years meant it was known in the construction industry that polyethylene cladding panels were unsafe – so why were they still used on Grenfell Tower after this became common knowledge? Here’s the report:

The report also suggested that, knowing the risks, someone made a decision to swap non-combustible cladding for cheaper – but flammable – cladding instead, in order to save just £60,000:

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George Osborne reveals murderous tendencies – but the responses to his words are the killers

George Osborne: His words are increasingly like those of a serial killer.

What a joy to be discussing Conservatives at war.

It seems George Osborne has told Esquire magazine he will not rest until Theresa May is “chopped up in bags in my freezer”.

This comes after he previously described her as a “dead woman walking”.

It would be frightening indeed, if there was any fear to be had from the man This Writer once described in his former job as the “Chancer of the Exchequer”.

Now? He’s just a figure of fun. Check out some of the responses on Twitter:

Most of us weren’t. But of those of us who voted Conservative in 2010 and 2015 – especially in the Tatton constituency – perhaps questions should be asked!

If any remark was a killer, though, it was this:

Nice one, Rachael – definitely a comment that’s not to be sniffed at.

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Cameron and Osborne have fleeced us all – and are talking about it on the after-dinner circuit

The last laugh: David Cameron and George Osborne failed the UK bitterly – but succeeded in making a fortune for themselves.

This Writer agrees with Jeremy Corbyn: “The Tories have spent 6 years lining the pockets of their friends & as soon as they can they line their own pockets.”

Also, isn’t it interesting that George Osborne’s speech is at an event by HSBC – the bank of tax avoidance – while David Cameron’s is at an event by PwC – the accountants of tax avoidance?

David Cameron and George Osborne are being paid tens of thousands of pounds each to make speeches for leading financial institutions at the World Economic Forum.

The former Prime Minister and Chancellor, who this time last year were leading figures at the forum, will this year only attend the fringes of the event held in Davos, including a number of parties and private dinners.

Mr Cameron is to give a speech at a dinner held by accounting firm PwC, while Mr Osborne will appear at an HSBC event for 20 clients.

The fees charged by them are understood to be “in the high five figures”, plus travel and accommodation expenses.

Source: David Cameron and George Osborne cash in with big-money Davos visit

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Labour research shows how deep the cuts to Universal Credit will be for working families

Look at that smug grin: Osborne knows he got away with misleading the public [Image: Reuters].

Look at that smug grin: Osborne knows he got away with misleading the public [Image: Reuters].

Gideon – that is, George Osborne – really is a creepy little liar, isn’t he?

He told everybody, in his Autumn Statement, that he was scrapping his cuts to working people’s incomes. In fact he offered only a partial reversal.

The headlines went out, people heard him say “the simplest thing to do is not to phase these changes in but to avoid them altogether”, and that’s what they believed.

In fact, it turns out Gideon didn’t do “the simplest thing”. He just mentioned it in passing.

And everybody was wrong-footed, including the mainstream media (not that they’d have complained, being a gang of Tory-supporting lickspittles).

Now we’re all rushing to rectify the record.

But will the general public even notice?

Labour has released research showing how new claimant families will get lower in-work benefit entitlements when tax credits are replaced by the universal credit benefit system.

Owen Smith, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said research commissioned from the House of Commons library shows that next year, thousands of working families will be up to £2,500 a year worse off as a result of the government’s cuts to universal credit.

“It is now quite apparent that the chancellor only offered a partial reversal of his cuts to working people’s incomes in last week’s statement. Next year, half a million families may be hit by cuts to tax credit’s successor, universal credit,” said Smith.

“This newly commissioned research shows that working families on universal credit still face devastating losses next year. A 23-year-old single parent with two children, working 30 hours a week on the minimum wage, is set to lose £2,500.”

Both the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Resolution Foundation thinktanks last week said they believe millions of working families will be worse off by 2020 because of welfare changes than they would have been under the current system.

There are 2.6 million working families who stand to lose an average £1,600 as a result of benefit changes due to come into force under universal credit, while 1.9 million would be £1,400 better off, the IFS noted.

It stressed that no family will take an immediate cash hit, but the “long-term generosity of the welfare system will be cut just as much as was ever intended, as new claimants will receive significantly lower benefits than they would have done before the July changes.”

The Resolution Foundation said the changes will cost working households £1,000 on average in 2020 and the losses could rise to £3,000 for some families.

However, the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions hit back at the independent studies, saying it was “completely misleading” to suggest families would lose money, because the universal credit rates will only apply to new claimants.

Source: Household bills targeted by chancellor as Labour raises fears over benefit cuts

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Five things George Osborne doesn’t want you to mention about his spending review


Let’s mention them:

Tory backbenchers cheered, but plenty of people will be hit. As experts look for the devil in the detail, here are five changes already causing alarm.

1. Grants abolished for nurses

Student nurses are to have their grants cut and will instead have to take out loans to pay for their tuition fees. A saving of up to £800m a year for the Government, some would-be nurses have already been put off. Katie, who planned to enrol on a postgraduate diploma in adult nursing next year, told HuffPost UK: “The NHS are crying out for nurses, more so those who have a bit of life experience behind them. But these cuts look to have more than out priced many of us.”

2. Tax credits protected – for now

The reversal of cuts to tax credits will avoid almost all the immediate losses next April, on average a £1,300 hit per family on the top-up benefit for workers. But as the Chancellor said: “Tax credits are being phased out anyway as we introduce Universal Credit.” So the Universal Credit – all welfare payments rolled into one – is likely to contain the cut when implemented in 2020. The Resolution Foundation says that by 2020 more than 3 million households are still set to lose an average of £1,000 from the £3.5bn cut. “Pain tomorrow is better than pain today – but it is still pain,” said Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation.

3. Free childcare limited

A flagship pledge of 30 hours of free childcare for three and four year olds has been scaled-back, meaning it will only available to parents working more than 16 hours a week when it launches in 2017. It will also no longer apply to families with incomes of more than £100,000. The biggest victims? Single parents working part-time. The Family and Childcare Trust warned of a “new barrier to work for those parents”. “We urge the Government to re-examine these criteria so that all working families can benefit from this generous offer,” said chief executive Julia Margo.

4. Housing benefit crackdown

A cap on housing benefit for new tenants in the social rented sector was announced. The reform will mean that housing benefit will “no longer fully subsidise families to live in social houses that many working families cannot afford”, official documents said as it bring rules in line with the private sector. The disability charity Mencap warned: “This could seriously impact on people with a learning disability living in social housing and specialist supported housing, jeopardising their ability to live independently in their communities.”

5. “£56 added to the tank”
Tucked away in the Autumn Statement “scorecard” is a saving of around a quarter of a billion pounds every year by retaining the diesel supplement in the company car tax until 2021, when new cars will have to be cleaner. This will cost the average BMW 3 Series driver in a company car £182 if they are the basic rate taxpayer, and £365 for higher rate taxpayers. Treasury sources said that £126 would be deducted by employers via National Insurance – but that is still a fuel tax hike of £56. Not a great message to send “hard-working families”.

Source: 5 Things George Osborne Doesn’t Want You To Mention About His Spending Review

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