Tag Archives: Interest

Rishi Sunak is causing yet another conflict-of-interest – CORRUPTION – row

Akshata Murty and her husband, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak: it seems that, days after being forced to apologise for failing to declare that she (and therefore he) will benefit from one policy of the government he leads, he is trying to ensure that they will – corruptly? – benefit from another.

The UK prime minister who came into office promising “integrity, professionalism and accountability” is embroiled in yet another corruption/conflict-of-interest row involving his wife’s father’s multinational corporation, Infosys.

Rishi Sunak is trying to negotiate a free trade deal with India, where Infosys is based, and the allegation is that this will be hugely profitable for Infosys – and therefore, by proxy, for Sunak himself.

People are asking the obvious question:

Note that it is unlikely that the people of the UK will benefit from this free trade deal, according to Jemma Forte; Sunak is negotiating a deal to benefit his family – again.

Remember: Parliament’s Commissioner for Standards has only just stated that Sunak broke the Ministerial Code – “inadvertently” – by failing to declare that a childcare firm in which his wife has shares will benefit from a change in Tory government policy. In the current instance, there can be no such excuse as we have the evidence in advance of the deal.

Infosys is also a multiple offender in terms of preferential treatment from Sunak’s government. After war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, that firm was told to stop operating in Russia or face sanctions like all the other businesses then doing business with that state, but eight months later it was found still to be doing business there, with impunity against the UK’s sanctions regime.

Sunak is expected to attend a G20 summit in India in two weeks – and to discuss the trade deal at a separate, bilateral, meeting with that nation’s prime minister Narendra Modi.

But Keir Starmer’s opposition party (still currently known as Labour, for reasons unknown) has called for Sunak to make an open declaration about his wife’s financial interests in a company that could profit immensely from his involvement in these negotiations.

One expert – Professor Alan Manning of the London School of Economics, according to The Guardian, wants the prime minister to recuse himself from any negotiations.

In response, it seems the Foreign Office has warned the Labour-chaired business and trade select committee not to visit India to examine the issues around a potential deal. The government department is refusing to help committee members set up meetings with Indian officials and businesspeople.

It seems clear, then, that Sunak has something to hide once again – otherwise, why try to cover up what will happen at the negotiations?

The deal, it seems, will allow Infosys to send teams of its Indian employees to the UK to work on outsourced IT contracts for firms in this country.

Why not employ home-grown expertise and keep the contracts – and all the profits arising from them – in the UK? Or has previous Tory government policy ensured that nobody here has the required expertise any more?

Of course, the controversy will only intensify the debate over MPs having business interests outside the House of Commons, or receiving donations and/or gifts-in-kind from businesses or corporate bosses.

The question here is: who does Rishi Sunak work for – the people of the UK or his wife’s family firm?

The answer seems obvious – with the best interests of the nation he is supposed to lead coming a distant second.

Reform is urgently required – but with so many Parliamentarian snouts firmly in the trough, there seems to be no will to put a stop to the corporate influence that is staining all of us with the filth of corruption. How do we force an end to it?

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Sunak’s ‘inadvertent’ conflict of interest shows he is not fit to govern

Childcare shareholder Akshata Murty and her husband, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak: her firm should forgo any benefit from the new Tory policy, just to rid itself of the stain of corruption with which he has tarred it. And his serial “inadvertency” means he is not fit to govern.

Rishi Sunak and his government gets away with it – yet again.

I think this comment on the latest Tory corruption saga is highly relevant:

Yes, this is the story of how a new government policy, announced in the spring Budget, was geared to give huge amounts of money to a childcare company in which Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty has shares; he and his family would have benefited – but he did not declare it.

This is a breach of the Ministerial Code and an investigation was duly requested.

Now, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has reported back – and said the failure to declare the conflict of interest was “inadvertent”. No further action will be taken.

In fairness, Sunak made a grovelling apology for failing to reveal that this government policy would make his family richer:

And the Prime Minister’s press secretary has said: “The commissioner’s investigation into the Prime Minister’s declaration of interest has been resolved by way of rectification. The Prime Minister takes seriously his responsibilities to register and declare all relevant interests.”

That’s all very well, but Sunak and his family are set to benefit from his omission to mention this interest, and that isn’t right. Nobody should use a position of power to feather their own nest.

So Ms Murty’s firm should be excluded from the list of those that are to benefit from this government policy – if only to rid itself (and the Tory government) of the stain of corruption with which Sunak has tarred it. Right?

Isn’t it odd that we don’t see that happening?

And it seems Sunak leads a government that is guilty of serial inadvertency:

That’s a lot of forgetfulness.

It encourages me to believe that none of these Tories are likely to remember important facts when they are needed – and this could cause serious harm to the UK and its people, given the seriousness of the crises we are currently being forced to endure.

By their own admission, Sunak and his party are not fit to govern.

People of Chipping Barnet: Theresa Villiers is the kind of MP you DON’T want

Theresa Villiers: she says her failure to declare £70,000 worth of shares in Shell was an “oversight”. Was it really, though? What else has she failed to share?

This is shocking: when she was the government member charged with caring for our environment, Theresa Villiers had £70,000 worth of shares in mass-polluter Shell oil.

She is the MP for Chipping Barnet, where constituents should be outraged that she has been working for the enrichment of that firm (and therefore increased profits for herself) rather than in their interests.

That firm recently announced profits of $5 billion (US), which is admittedly down from the £7.7 billion (UK) it made in the first quarter of 2023. Of that, £6 billion found its way into the bank accounts of shareholders like Ms Villiers.

Shell stock is currently worth around £24 – higher than the £19.41 when Ms Villiers left office as Environment Secretary, so she’s making a bit of a killing.

She says her failure to declare this enormous conflict of interest was an oversight that won’t happen again:

The only reason it won’t happen again is that she has been caught red-handed and knows she can’t hide this any more.

What else has she been hiding, though?

It seems clear that there is only one way to keep this woman from lying – call it what it is – about business interests that create conflicts with her duty to the nation.

That is to ensure that she cannot have a job in which such conflicts arise.

If Ms Villiers is more interested in making money for herself than in safeguarding the interests and well-being of the United Kingdom as a whole, then she should be forced back into the private sector.

No doubt she’ll quickly find work with a firm that has profited from UK government policy.

She might do well by sending her CV to Shell.

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Outrage as banks announce huge profits

The Bank of England: it raised interest rates, supposedly to combat inflation – and now the banks have made a fortune in profits and inflation hasn’t fallen significantly.

After the energy firms, the banks.

Interesting how it goes, isn’t it?

The energy firms put up their prices for no very good reason (remember: the actual cost of gas and electricity is much, much lower than the amount you’re paying for it. The corporations say they keep the price up to smooth out any sudden shocks as the price comes down but they never refund the extra amount that you pay after the final costs are known).

This causes inflation.

The Bank of England then acts to reduce inflation – by increasing interest rates.

This creates a huge profit for the banks.

This profit is also never refunded.

Inflation has remained high.

Cue outrage:

Logically the answer is a windfall tax and curbs on profiteering and executive pay.

I wonder if Rishi Sunak’s new Business Council will recommend that to him?

Who’s on it, again?

SSE, Shell – they’re energy companies; Barclays is a bank…

That’ll be a “no”, then.

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Corporate profits proved to be driving inflation. Why are Tories attacking your wages?

Rishi Sunak: the sign behind him says his government’s priorities are “your priorities”. This would only be true if “you” referred to corporate bosses and shareholders, and there was only one priority listed: bloating profits by robbing customers with increased prices.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published information that proves inflation in the UK and other European countries is being driven by the greed of corporations that have been pushing their profits up for no good reason.

Here’s the evidence:

(Some might say this applies only to countries in continental Europe but the question then is, why should it not apply to the UK too?)

So the answer to inflation is not to cut wages, and is not to increase interest rates; it is to force corporations to cut their bloated profit margins and pay for a rise in labour costs (increase wages).

This is the opposite of what Rishi Sunak and his corporate stooges in government have been saying since the crisis began. It seems clear that they have been lying to you all along.

And what’s he doing about it now?

His latest plan is to renege on all his promises about following the advice of pay review bodies:

“Workers need to recognise the economic context we are in.” Okay; well, this worker recognises that major corporations, many of which are probably donors to the Conservative Party and individual Tory MPs, have caused inflation by artificially increasing their prices. Now they’ve been caught doing it, they should cut their prices and increase wage to at least match the current inflation rate or be penalised for it.

This is what I expect my government to enforce.

(I don’t think it will happen for a single moment, but I do think that the longer Sunak refuses to do it, the more people will realise that he, his government and the corps funding them are all crooks and vampires, sucking out the lifeblood of the UK.)

Sunak is talking utter bollocks about it, of course:

People won’t accept that it’s right – or even acceptable – because we all now know it isn’t.

Here’s a doctor, responding to Sunak’s attack on the public sector workforce:

Would you like more proof of what’s going on?

Here’s Howard Beckett:

Sadly, there is no pressure from the Labour Party – the UK’s official Opposition to the government – to make Sunak and his bandits do the right thing. Labour is on their side and helping to rob us all.

Proof:

This Writer will be writing to all those in government or able to influence it, calling for a change of policy to demand responsibility from the corporations, and I urge you to do the same.

But this time I think we’re all going to have to get out of our armchairs and onto the streets – possibly with blazing old-style torches and pitchforks – to demand action “or else”.

You know what I mean: French-style.

Or would you rather just lie back like a weakling and let these fat cats carry on robbing you?

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Thornberry squirms when asked if Bank of England’s anti-inflation ideas are any good

Emily Thornberry: in this image, she’s making a gesture that, no doubt, she would like to make to whoever asked her to defend the Bank of England, its governor, and its interest rate rise.

Don’t have any sympathy for Emily Thornberry while you watch the clip below; she knows the situation very well and she could always quit if she had the required principles.

She knows that raising interest rates won’t bring inflation down – in fact, it is likely to prop inflation up instead.

She knows raising interest rates won’t ease the bureaucratic costs caused by Brexit, or stop profiteering by energy companies or firms in food supply chains.

And she knows that all businesses will just add the extra costs of higher interest rates into their bills, making consumers – you and me – foot the bill.

Some of them will go bust as a result, because people will decide not to pay their inflated prices, and this is likely to tip the UK into recession.

That, of course, is the last thing the UK needs right now.

All of this is known by Emily Thornberry, but she also knows that Labour policy is to agree that the neoliberal Tories and the neoliberal Bank of England are doing the right thing, even though she also knows that they really aren’t.

So we get to see performances like this:

Cracks are starting to show in the Labour Party’s right-wing facade.

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Up goes the interest rate – down goes the economy

The Bank of England: its interest rate rise will not reduce inflation but increase it.

The Bank of England has raised the UK’s base rate of interest on money lent by financial organisations to five per cent, in line with expectations after the government failed to bring down inflation.

The inflation rate remained at 8.7 per cent in May, due to Brexit, profiteering by firms including energy companies and businesses in food supply chains, and… interest rate rises that have pushed up the cost of money.

The higher interest rate is intended to give mortgage-holders less to spend – but in fact it means we all have less because businesses now factor interest rate rises into the prices they charge us.

It means that, in order to stop prices from rising, the Bank of England has pushed prices even further up.

The very rich will be able to cope with it, of course; they have more money in the first place. And they must have become rich somehow, meaning they’ll be able to make more money anyway.

(They’re probably the people who’ve factored the interest rate rise into their prices and will therefore take more money from us, especially if they have a share in energy firms, water companies or mortgage lenders).

Smaller businesses will go to the wall, of course. They aren’t selling items that are absolutely essential and in a country where wages have been artificially restricted to 2005 (or even turn-of-the-century) levels, people will cut non-essentials out of their spending.

The result: recession. And it’s a recession that could have been avoided if we didn’t have a gang of lunatic idiots running the nation’s finances.

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Hey, kids! Oldies in suits just made everything you want more expensive!

Rishi Sunak: the richest man in the UK is the UK’s prime minister. He isn’t affected by inflation or interest rate rises – but he, his government, the Bank of England and businesses are all determined to make sure that you are. How long are you going to sit there and let them mess with you, because you’re “not interested in politics”?

Now do you get why politics should matter to you?

Today (June 21, 2023), we’re all being told that inflation has remained high despite promises from the rich old folk in suits that it would plummet down to more manageable levels.

The reason for this is being touted as high food prices, according to mainstream news outlets like the BBC (UK inflation shock as food costs keep cost of living high) – but this isn’t true. The real reasons are corporate greed and Brexit.

(I know it doesn’t help that the mainstream media keep misleading you. Their job is to distract you away from what’s really happening, of course.)

So the utility firms (energy and water) and the supermarkets are fleecing you by charging whatever they want for goods that they’re actually buying far more cheaply, and this is offsetting the increased costs of importing goods that was caused by Brexit (and the war in Ukraine, although that is a secondary issue now).

The response from the government and the Bank of England is to make everything even more expensive by increasing the cost of money. If you don’t understand how they do this, it’s by raising interest rates on borrowing.

Businesses borrow habitually – for investment, or to finance temporary deficits during hard times, or (as we have learned about the privatised water firms recently) because they are diverting all the money they make into dividends for their shareholders and top executives.

Raising interest rates means the amount they will have to pay back to their lender of choice increases, meaning they have less spending money. Normally this creates a knock-on effect in which they stop buying the goods they need (because they can’t afford them), forcing the suppliers to reduce their prices in order to make sales. As inflation is all about price rises, this means inflation falls.

But that’s not happening at the moment because businesses are simply factoring the interest rate hikes into their pricing structures – they’re passing those rises on to you, the customer.

The result is that prices continue to rise, so inflation remains high.

The economist Richard Murphy explains what has happened in a useful Twitter thread. First, he tells us that the reasons we are being given for inflation are not true:

So inflation is not being caused by influences outside the control of the UK’s politicians and businesspeople. Mr Murphy continues:

Trade unionist Howard Beckett agrees with this, and adds to it usefully:

They’re allowed to do this because our politicians let them. The government could cap prices, but doesn’t want to. Is it because our MPs and their political parties are receiving weighty donations from the businesspeople?

Here’s Mr Murphy again:

So he agrees with This Writer (or more accurately, I agree with him – he’s the expert).

If you’re asking how this has anything to do with you, here comes the bombshell:

But…

The bottom line is that not only have you been deprived of the cash to buy the things that make life worth living (due to cuts that mean your pay is at 2005 – or even 2000 – levels while prices have surged) but you are also now expected to cover the increased prices demanded by the profiteers and the interest rate-setting banks from what is left.

Those are political choices.

Politicians whose own salaries (plus the afore-mentioned corporate donations) mean they aren’t affected by these decisions have used high inflation to take your money away from you.

The reason is simple:

They don’t want you to have any money.

Money provides security, and the lack of it means the lack of security. And an insecure person is controllable; you’ll do whatever you think you must, in order to survive. Right?

The ultimate aim – as This Site and others warned more than 10 years ago – is to put you in a permanent cycle of debt. This provides the fatcats with a population who will work like dogs for peanuts while they reap massive profits. Happy days – for them. Misery for you.

The only way to prevent this is to get rid of the people who are inflicting it on you – and that means using your vote to shift the rot out of Parliament.

Ah, but you don’t vote, do you? You can’t be bothered with politics because it doesn’t affect you.

Take a look in your wallet. Take a look at your bank account. Do you have as much in either as you did last year?

No?

Then politics does affect you. It doesn’t matter if you’re not interested in them; the oldies in the suits are definitely interested in you.

How badly are you going to let them mess up your life before you actually do something about it?

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Is there really no alternative to Jeremy Hunt?

Jeremy Hunt: he’s so smug about the economic disaster his government has dropped on us.

Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has been merrily telling us there’s no alternative to the latest round of interest rate rises that are making rich people richer and making poor people struggle to meet their mortgage payments.

And what’s he saying? “There is no alternative.”

Should we believe him? What’s behind his bluster?

Here’s Gary Stevenson:

So now you know.

When Jeremy Hunt says “there is no alternative”, he means we have no choice but to watch him and his oily city chums sucking all the life out of the economy, sapping your spending power in a feeding frenzy that can only end in disaster.

Still, it’s good that Boris Johnson has gone, isn’t it?

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Tory conflict-of-interest watch: health minister’s wife gets NHS health contracts

Neil O’Brien: why has he been allowed to work in a government department that hands out contracts to his wife’s firm?

Here’s another Tory conflict of interest – and it’s nepotism again, too.

Like prime minister Rishi Sunak, the Conservative minister for Primary Health Care – Neil O’Brien – is married to a woman with an interest in a private firm that receives government contracts.

His wife Jemma is GP engagement lead at Circle Health, which receives public money from the Tories to perform operations at its 54 private hospitals (Circle was the first private health firm to take over an NHS hospital).

 

What is this man doing in a government department that may hand contracts to a company where his wife works?

It’s a clear conflict of interest.

And it’s actually a miracle that we’ve found out about it from the new MPs’ register of interests, that has attracted ridicule for failing to list all of the businesses that are at least part-owned by Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty.

From the Mirror article:

Mr Sunak has been accused of a “complete lack of transparency” over his own wife’s investments.

The list of interests did not include details of the shareholdings owned by his heiress wife, Akshata Murty.

Under the section for relevant interests held by a spouse or close relative, Mr Sunak’s entry included his wife’s venture capital company Catamaran Ventures and unnamed “direct shareholdings”.

A footnote adds that these include her “minority shareholding” in Koru Kids, but no details were given for any of her other shareholdings.

Farcically, the list did not include her £468million stake in Infosys, the Indian IT firm founded by her billionaire father.

And Infosys get government contracts, of course.

Corrupt?

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