Kenneth Clarke, shadow business secretary
1. Amount paid: £38,000 a year.
Nature of work carried out: Non-executive director of a company.
Number of hours worked for that payment: It varies according to events, but approximately one day per month.
Name and address of organisation/company: Independent News & Media plc, Independent House, 2,023 Bianconi Avenue, CityWest Business Campus, Naas Road, Dublin 24.
2. Amount paid: £7,500 a year.
Nature of work carried out: Member of advisory board
Number of hours worked for that payment: It varies according to demand for advice, but approximately 1/2 day per month.
Name and address of organisation/company: AgCapita Partners, 400, 2424-4th Street SW, Calgary, Alberta T2S 2T4, Canada.
3. Amount paid: £3,000.
Nature of work carried out: Presenting jazz programmes.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Two days per annum (recording 4 x 30 minute programmes).
Name and address of organisation/company: BBC Radio 4, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London W1A 1AA.
Michael Gove, shadow schools secretary
1. Amount paid: £5,000 a month.
Nature of work carried out: Journalism.
Number of hours worked for that payment: One hour a week or so.
Name and address of organisation/company: Times newspaper, News International, 1 Virginia Street, London E98 1XY.
2. Amount paid: £250 a week.
Nature of work carried out: Journalism.
Number of hours worked for that payment: One hour a week or so.
Name and address of organisation/company: Scotland on Sunday, Johnston Press, 53 Manor Place, Edinburgh EH3 7EG.
3. Amount paid: £400 an article.
Nature of work carried out: Journalism.
Number of hours worked for that payment: One hour a week every six weeks or so.
Name and address of organisation/company: Building Magazine, United Business Media Limited, Ludgate House, 245 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 9UY.
4. Amount paid: £166.67 per month.
Nature of work carried out: Assistant editor of the House magazine.
Number of hours worked for that payment: 30-45 mins per week.
Name and address of organisation/company: Dods, Westminster Tower, 3rd Floor, 3 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7SP.
5. Amount paid: £675 for each programme.
Nature of work carried out: Media appearances.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Two hours per programme for broadcast plus variable preparation time.
Name and address of organisation/company: BBC TV Centre, Wood Lane, London W12 7TS.
6. Misc: Royalties from books.
VAT registered, so charges VAT on articles.
William Hague, shadow foreign secretary
1. Amount paid: £50,000 a year.
Nature of work carried out: After 1 July remaining interests with JCB will be one more board meeting before leaving them 31 July.
Number of hours worked for that payment: n/a.
Name and address of organisation/company: JCB World Headquarters, Rocester, Staffordshire ST14 5JP.
2. Amount paid: £25,000 a year.
Nature of work carried out: Two more board meetings before leaving them 30 September.
Number of hours worked for that payment: n/a.
Name and address of organisation/company: AES Engineering, Global Technology Centre, Bradmarsh Business Park, Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
3. Misc: One remaining paid speech: £15,000.
Jeremy Hunt, shadow culture secretary
Amount paid: £12,000 a year.
Nature of work carried out: Business advice to company he founded.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Two hours each week.
Name and address of organisation/company: Hotcourses Ltd, 150-152 King Street, London, W6 0QU.
Andrew Lansley, shadow health secretary
Amount paid: £25,000 a year.
Nature of work carried out: Non-executive director of company, the functions of a director.
Number of hours worked for that payment: One day per month.
Name and address of organisation/company: Profero Ltd, Centro, 3 Mandela Street, London NW1 0DU.
Oliver Letwin, chairman of Tory policy review
Amount paid: £145 per hour.
Nature of work carried out: Corporate finance advice.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Eight hours per week out of a total 80-hour week including parliamentary and constituency duties.
Name and address of organisation/company: NM Rothschild and Son Ltd, New Court, St Swithin's Lane, London EC4P 4DU.
Francis Maude, shadow Cabinet Office minister
1. Amount paid: £21,600 per year.
Nature of work carried out: Non-executive chairman.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Chairing six board meetings a year and the AGM; 10 hours a month including evening and weekends.
Name and address of organisation/company: The Mission Marketing Group plc, Long Acre, London, WC2.
2. Amount paid: $17,000 (£10,300) per year.
Nature of work carried out: Non-executive director.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Attending two board meetings a year in the US and around nine by telephone; around 72 hours for each US board meeting, and around three hours a month in addition, mostly in the evenings and weekends.
Name and address of organisation/company: UTEK Inc, Tampa, Florida, USA.
3. Amount paid: £36,700.
Nature of work carried out: Member of Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Attending one or two meetings a year, usually overseas, and occasional additional consultation; around six days a year on average.
Name and address of organisation/company: Barclays Bank plc, London.
Andrew Mitchell, shadow international development secretary
1. Amount paid: £36,000 a year.
Nature of work carried out: Consultancy.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Between one and two hours per week.
Name and address of organisation/company: Accenture, 60 Queen Victoria Street, London EC4N 4TW.
2. Amount paid: Approx £7,500 a year plus small profit share.
Nature of work carried out: Advisory board member.
Number of hours worked for that payment: Two hours per month.
Name and address of organisation/company: The Foundation, 4th Floor, 5-7 Carnaby Street, London W1F 9PB.
Eric Pickles, Conservative chairman
Amount paid: £12,000 per year.
Nature of work carried out: Adviser to the Royal British Legion Industries, business strategy.
Number of hours worked for that payment: One day per month subject to parliamentary business.
Name and address of organisation/company: Royal British Legion Industries, Hall Road, Aylesford, Kent ME20 7NL.
David Willetts, shadow universities secretary
Amount paid: £60,000 per year, which includes £30,000 for next six months.
Nature of work carried out: Adviser on pensions.
Number of hours worked for that payment: 40 days a year.
Name and address of organisation/company: Punter Southall, 126 Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 4UJ.
Source: The Guardian
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Another List of Tory Donors (Ones That Exploit Loopholes)
The Tories really Are All In It Together!
I've concentrated on the Midlands but "rogue" elements will appear. I have researched and brought the MIC subject up again now because Cameron is right about one thing "Lobbying is the next big scandal waiting to happen" (and he should know! Apologies it is a long read, but impossible to get it all in otherwise and there is much that I was forced to leave out. I think as you read you will see a clear pattern emerging now that we have the benefit of hindsight!
David Cameron - British Prime Minister - Found guilty of Cash for Access row by sleaze watchdog
Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has ruled that David Cameron and his MPs are guilty of widespread abuse by using House of Commons and Lords dining rooms to raise cash for party funds to fight marginal seats.
Parliamentary dinners with Cameron and other MPs were offered in exchange for hefty donations to Tory Party funds - clearly against anti-sleaze rules.
As well as ruling that Cameron and other Tories flouted Palace of Westminster rules over 'cash for access' dinners, the Parliamentary watch-dog also rebuked them for producing leaflets which advertised regular meetings in Cameron’s Commons office in exchange for a political donation of £50,000 a year.
The Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges ruled that the Tory leader, had been "ill-advised" in entertaining members of £50,000 a year Tory donors' clubs.
Mr Cameron apologised "unreservedly" for breaking the MPs' code of conduct. He confirmed that he had hosted seven meetings of the Conservative "Leaders' Group" in his office suite in the House of Commons, and pledged that the lunches "will not happen again".
The dinners for wealthy donors sparked a "cash for access" row, amid claims that Mr Cameron was offering the perk of lunches at the Commons in return for major donations.
Days after Cameron became Tory leader, his constituency association in Witney received a £5,500 cheque from MIC. (Midlands Industrial Club)
Register of Members Interests June 2009
David Cameron listed as receiving helicopter and private plane travel from the following:
- JCB Research
- Harris Ventures Ltd
- IPGL Ltd
- Henfield Lodge Aviation Ltd, London
- William Cook Holdings, Sheffield (Andrew Cook who named himself as the largest donor to the Tories in Yorkshire, was the businessman who successfully lobbied Conservative Ministers to pull back on their promise of a Government loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, a company that Mr Cook has tried to buy several times) The Deputy PM, Nick Clegg, has since been found to have deliberately mislead the House in his explanations of why the Government chose not to go ahead with the loan, but it is still unclear what (if any) action has been taken against him.
(The details of the travel provided have been provided to the office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.)
19 May 2008, helicopter from Crewe to London provided by Bearwood Corporate Services Ltd, (Lord Ashcroft) Southampton. (Registered 16 June 2008)
In the last ten years, Bearwood Corporate Services has donated over £5 million to the Conservative Party. The Commission had to consider three issues: whether Bearwood was a permissible donor, whether Bearwood was acting as an agent for Lord Ashcroft, and whether the Conservative Party has fulfilled its duty to ensure compliance with the party funding laws.The unsurprising ruling came when the Electoral Commission ruled that the donations were legal. Yet again this commission has ruled in favour of the Tory party under dubious circumstances. If they had ruled against, it would have caused an unprecedented storm in the 2010 general election. The Commission took almost a year to rule!
16 August 2008, private plane from Farnborough to Istanbul for my wife and two children. Then from Istanbul to Santorini, and return to Dalaman, for myself, my wife and two children; provided by Matthew Freud, of London. (Registered 15 September 2008)
13 October 2008, helicopter from London to West Yorkshire and return, provided by Mr David Ross, of London. (Registered 29 October 2008)
7 November 2008, private plane from Glasgow to Gatwick, provided by Malcolm Scott, of Kirknewton, West Lothian. (Registered 2 December 2008
In my capacity as Leader of the Conservative Party, I have accepted Honorary Membership for life of the Carlton Club.
My wife and I received tickets for the Conservative Party's 'Black and White Party' on 4 February 2009,paid for by Prince Rupert Loewenstein. (Registered 3 March 2009)
Overseas visits
- 28-31 January 2009, to Davos, Switzerland, to attend and participate in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. The World Economic Forum provided my conference pass, occasional car use in Davos (including airport transfers) and some hospitality. The return part of my journey was made by private plane from Altenrhein, Switzerland, to RAF Northolt, provided by IPGL Limited, London. (My outward journey was paid for by the Conservative Party.) UBS also provided occasional car use in Davos. (Registered 13 February 2009)
- I have been given a decorative sterling silver casket by Lord and Lady Harris. (Registered 9 March 2009)
Overseas benefits and gifts
- Gift of a sterling silver tray from President George W Bush, President of the United States, (Registered 16 June 2008)
- Following my official visit to Pakistan in September 2008, I have been given a rug by former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Muhammad Nazaz Sharif, of the Pakistan Muslim League. (Registered 19 November 2008)
- Gift of a Harrods hamper from the Sultan of Brunei. (Registered 18 December 2008)
- Gift of a fountain pen and half-suite cufflinks and studs, provided by His Majesty Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, King of Bahrain. (Registered 6 May 2009)
JCB ResearchAddress of donor : Rocester, Staffordshire, ST14 5JP
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: £5,875 for helicopter flight from Rhyl to London
Date of receipt of donation: 6 November 2009
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| George Osborne British Conservative Party Chancellor Pay Your Taxes |
George Osborne employs a firm of accountants to help him wriggle out of paying £1.6 million in tax to the UK Treasury, which he himself runs.
Below are firms of accountants that George Osborne has had dealings with, they do not necessarily donate cash to him, but what they do is provide free of charge teams of top accountants which would run into the many thousands to hire.
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: in my capacity as shadow chancellor I and another Conservative Party MP receive support from Deloitte LLP in the form of services and advice provided in connection with the Eggar Report.
Deloitte LLP have provided these services and advice as part of a larger donation in kind to the Conservative Party. Deloitte LLP's work has an estimated value of £60,000 for the period October 2009-January 2010, which will be reported to the Electoral Commission by the Conservative Party.
(George Campion listed below MIC member, was once senior partner in Deloitte LLP)
The Conservatives have received hundreds of thousands of pounds of free accounting advice as they prepare for government, raising accusations that they are too close to contacts in the City of London.
Britain’s biggest consultancy firms — which include PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and KPMG — have seconded some of their staff to Tory MPs.
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| David Mowat At NHS Awards |
Won by 1,553 votes. It is the first time in 23 years a Tory has won this seat.
Heroine - "Margaret Thatcher, due to the fact she got things done"
Companies: Accenture, the technology and consulting Firm -Finally became Global Managing Partner.
David Mowat pictured right with Catherine Beardshaw outgoing Chief Executive of Warrington & Halton NHS Trust, at the NHS awards - Wonder if he Approves of the full-scale privatisation of the NHS, better still do his constituents?
David Mowat has spoke out against the "Labour" Government's proposed polyclinics which he said would result in closing small GP practices. Then what does Mr Mowat have to say about his government's GP Consortia, which for sure will close small GP practices and may end up putting whole practices out of businesses?
Mr Mowat said a main priority of his as MP is to increase NHS funding for Warrington which currently receives a lower-than-average amount, I think his constituents are entitled to know if he is going to back the Government's NHS Reforms and help vote it through parliament? It is doubtful his constituents would back the privatisation of the NHS, they should keep an eye on what he is voting for.
Mr Mowat describes his tenure at Accenture as a success, was he still there when Accenture was the company that gave up two failing NHS contracts and then tried to paper over the cracks and claimed it had all been a roaring success? Mr Mowat retired in 2006 and in 2006 after months of negotiations, Accenture handed contracts worth £2bn over to rival Computer Sciences Corporation after getting paid just £110m for spending a third of the allotted 10 years on the job. Its hand had been forced by losses of $450m it was set to make on the deal this year.
Accenture delivered nearly 800 systems of varying styles and complexity to NHS trusts in the two English regions it was accountable to under the Local Service Provider (LSP) contracts it held with Connecting for Health (CfH), the NHS IT agency. And here is a little piece (snipped from main source) I found quite interesting: Accenture had concentrated primarily on implementing GP systems! Mmm, very handy, considering how the Conservative government are now concentrating on GP Commissioning and Consortia!
Questions:
- Where does Accenture fit in with David Cameron making political mileage out of the NHS IT system?
- Where did David Cameron get his brief on the NHS IT problems from?
- Is Accenture a company that stands to benefit in the future from the Tory NHS reforms?
- Does Mr Mowat know John Glenn Conservative MP for Salisbury? Accenture/Analyst/Consultant/Senior Manager at Accenture
- 7-7-2010 - £40.000
- 1-4-2010 - £1.500
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| John Randall Conservative Dep Chief Whip |
Nothing that I can see links them with the MIC, however as the "club" is private this information is not in the public domain, only the fact that the Portcullis Club and Tory MP MR Randall appear to be exploiting the same loophole in order to remain out of public scrutiny is the only link that I can find.
Mr Randall appears in Register of Members Interests:
Registrable shareholdings *Randalls of Uxbridge Ltd. Aquila Termeszetvedelmi Es Idegenforgalmi KFT (Aquila Nature Conservation and Tourist Ltd.); Hungarian eco-tourism company.
Voted YES to selling off our forests!
Midlands Industrial Council - The Yews, 3 High Street, Bassingham Village, Lincolnshire - Looks pretty inconspicuous, but out of it flows considerable financial support for the Conservative party.
The Midlands Industrial Council was formed in 1946, its goal is to lobby the Government on behalf of Midlands business interests
When Conservative Central Office needs a new computer system or the Conservative association in a crucial marginal needs campaign funds, it is to the yews they go, or more accurately Midlands Industrial Council (MIC) Helicopters are available, or money for a building survey. MIC is made up of more than 30 businessmen who make up the council, their total worth is estimated at well over £4 billion. The council members are rich, want results in return for their generosity and they like their privacy. However, it stands accused of being little more than a front organisation for rich businessmen looking to funnel large amounts of cash into the Conservative Party, without the inconvenience of their names becoming public or having to endure the attached scrutiny. *Some* of the names of the MIC have been revealed, however, the amounts they donate and where the money went and to whom and what it was used for is still shrouded in Conservative mystery.
Membership is exclusive, being invitation only. . Members meet about five times a year, go to Westminster to lobby and each year discuss with Mr Wall the amount they want to give to the Tories. The fund varies with the political cycle, but is usually in six figures.
Mr Wall confesses there is a Euro-sceptic element to the MIC group and they are not keen on what they call "Brussels bureaucracy." They are also not keen on some of the health and safety laws introduced in recent years. They also want lower taxation and they want the minimum wage set at a level "which the market can afford".
So the MIC Doesn't influence policy? - In June 2010 Prime Minister David Cameron has appointed Lord Young to review Health and Safety law David Cameron spoke of the rise in the so-called “compensation culture” and said "We need a sensible new approach that makes clear these laws are intended to protect people, not overwhelm businesses with red tape. I look forward to receiving Lord Young's recommendations on how we can best achieve that."
His comments were made despite the fact that the previous government commissioned independent research into this issue of whether a “compensation culture” has developed and found that one does not exist.
So the MIC doesn't try to influence policy? Most members of MIC are also members of the Tax Payers Alliance who "coincidentally" think along with the Tory-led government that public sector pensions need reforming. Question is why are these *private sector* companies poking their nose into *public sector pensions*? Why are they trying to "influence" government policy on public sector pay? One of the many slogans to emerge from the Taxpayers Alliance is that "Better Government, Better Services through Better Policy NOT Bigger Budgets" Now where have I heard this before? Sounds suspiciously like Cameron's "Big Society" where he wants to sack local authority workers, send them to the Job Centre, then have them sent back to the job they have been sacked from, to carry out their old job for approximately £1.60 per hour (Job Seekers Allowance) if they refuse then their JSA is stopped. I wonder if any of MIC members would consider working for less than the minimum wage? And talking about the minimum wage MIC members want it set lower. Tax Payers Alliance AKA MIC members really do have a bee in their bonnets about council executives leaving one job taking their pension and starting another! A bit like they all do in the private sector with all their "golden hellos, golden goodbyes; golden handshakes; gold plated pensions; golden bonuses etc on top of their extremely sold gold annual salaries. A bit like "don't do as we do, do as we tell you, you plebs". Another little gem from the Taxpayers Alliance is the way they really like this government's intention to privatise ALL of our public services and try to make out like it is in the public's interest all those MIC members (and others) will get to get their hands on NHS contracts, police, fire services, education etc. What is not to like for them? This Tory-led government intend to use outsourcing companies in their rush to privatise Britain and many MIC members and tax payers Alliance members are (yes you guessed) *outsourcing companies*. Who said that MIC members do not want to influence government policy?
The Taxpayers' Alliance, a campaign group that calls for tax and spending cuts and claims to represent the interests of taxpayers, has admitted one of its directors does not pay British tax.
Alexander Heath, a director of the increasingly influential free market, right wing lobby group, lives in a farmhouse in the Loire and has not paid British tax for years.
Who said that MIC members do not want to influence government policy? At the 2009 Conservative party conference in Manchester, the TPA's influence was underlined when David Cameron and George Osborne followed its recommendations for freezing public sector pay and capping civil servants' salaries at the level of the prime minister, unless approved by the chancellor. Brilliant we are being dictated to by people who do not even pay British Tax, one represents the TPA's and the other the British Conservative chancellor George Osborne who hires a firm of accountants to get him out of paying British tax!
MIC - Coleshill connection
Coleshill has financially benifited from MIC donations
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The exclusive conversation with the Politics Show in the West Midlands took place at the HQ of Coleshill Campaigning Services, a call centre operation based at Coleshill Manor in Warwickshire.
The Coleshill operation targets voters in key marginal constituencies on behalf of the Tories and has received £1.1m from the MIC in the last two years.
The Manor is owned by MIC member Robert Edmiston.
But even though this web of business links leads back to the Conservatives at every turn, Mr Wall denies that the MIC has an overt influence in candidate selection for the party.
MIC helps to fund the Conservative Party's national election nerve centre at Coleshill, Warwickshire, to the tune of about £1 million a year (which is owned by Bob Edmiston.
Political parties have been legally required since 2001 to reveal the identities of all backers who contribute more than £5,000.
Loophole the Conservatives have exploited: As an unincorporated association, the MIC does not have to publish accounts or disclose the names of its members.
MIC is an “unincorporated association” which means unlike companies or charities, it does not have to publish accounts or disclose its backers.
Businessmen who join MIC become ‘members for life’.
When in opposition most shadow ministers have attended MIC meetings and George Bridges, Cameron’s head of campaigns, is in regular contact with MIC.
MIC meets up to five times a year in hotels or at the office of Edmiston. Members are charged a subscription and many choose to make far larger donations
So who are the members of the MIC?
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| David Wall MIC Secretary |
David Wall said: "We like to have to have the voice of business heard so that MPs and candidates have a full appreciation of what impact their decisions have on the business community."
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| Anthony Bamford and David Cameron In India Coming Up Roses For Tory Donors? |
Sir Anthony is the Chairman of the world famous digger company JCB, which has its headquarters at Rochester in Staffordshire. He is President of the Midlands Industrial Council. In September David Cameron was garlanded with flowers as he joined Sir Anthony to open a new £25m JCB factory in India. The links between JCB and the Conservative party go back many years. He is also a supporter of the Tax Payers Alliance. He was knighted in 1990. He was also part of George Osborne's round Robin letter condemning Labour's proposed National Insurance Contribution increase. Since Cameron assumed power, the Tories halted the NICs rise for employers, while raising national insurance contributions for employees, again reneging on yet another election promise.
According to The Guardian, JCB Group pays the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, £50,000 a year as its parliamentary adviser. David Cameron and Francis Maude, the Tory chairman, have used its helicopters.
Sir Anthony also too part in the more recent trade delegation to India in July 2010 headed by David Cameron, where Cameron caused controversy with Pakistan when Cameron decided to infer that the Pakistanis "looked both ways" and virtually accused them all of being terrorists, completely forgetting (if he ever knew) that the Pakistani presidents wife was herself murdered by a terrorist attack, by terrorists aggrieved at the way their government allows Allied Forces to use the Pakistani Border with Afghanistan!
Incidentally in 2008, David Cameron also found time in a busy schedule of photo-opportunities to open a JCB factory in India for Sir Anthony Bamford senior member of MIC! Anthony Bamford has donated over £1 million to the Conservative party.
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| MIC Chairman Bob Edmiston Gets His Peerage At last! |
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| Steve Hollis KPMG & MIC and Tory Donor |
Mr Hollis is head of UK and Europe, Middle East and Africa markets at the accountancy firm KPMG and is a member of the firm's UK board. Accountancy Age describe him as "one of 22 senior figures who advise chief executive John Griffith-Jones on the firm's strategy".
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| George Campion (right) MIC Member . When he wroked for Deloitte Currently Employed By Lodders |
George Campion was a senior tax partner in Deloitte's Birmingham office. According to the company website he worked "extensively in the area of real estate transactions analysing both the corporation tax and commercial implications. His clients included large multinational groups".
J Brian Pettifer - MIC Member (Mr Pettifer is camera shy - no images of him in public domain)
J Brian Pettifer is Chairman and Chief Executive of the Pettifer Group. This organisation was formed in 1955 and, still in private ownership, is a major force in property development, construction, consultancy and web based applications. It employs in the region of 300 staff, operating throughout the UK. Subsidiary companies operate from London (Mayfair and Clerkenwell), Solihull, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow. Pettifer Group is a Warwickshire based property development company with an office in Mayfair and develops edge of town retail parks.
Pettifer's company ran into trouble over a Welsh Sign which translated to "gibberish""The safety notice by developers Pettifer Construction was put up outside a new store being built near Morrisons in the Anglesey port town.
It is meant to warn passersby about the dangers on the site, in order to protect the public from accidents. In English the sign’s overriding message: “You are now entering a safety zone”, in fact reads in Welsh: “Act hourly noting a comfortable belt.”
Mr Pettifer is a supporter of Tax Payers Alliance.
Tony Gallagher - MIC Member
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| Tony Gallagher |
Estimated personal wealth put at around £500 million.
Roy Richardson, with his late twin brother Don, is the man behind the highly successful Richardson Developments real estate company. Proud of their Black Country roots they developed the Merry Hill hopping centre in the 1980s and Birmingham's Star City leisure complex. His brother and he have made no secret of making loans, and in April told the BBC he made donations to Labour and the Conservatives "to give the region a stronger voice with those in power".
The Sunday Times reports: ‘(Roy) Richardson has also been linked to Labour. In 1997, the Richardson twins, worth £350m, met Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, at the House of Lords. The pair discussed donating £1m to Labour and are alleged to have asked for help with planning decisions, according to senior Labour sources. Levy is understood to have stopped the meeting immediately. The brothers deny raising the issue.’
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| Keith Bradshaw Formerly Takare Sold To BUPA |
Keith Bradshaw is an accountant and non-executive chairman of the Wolverhampton-based property group Nurton Developments. Established a number of private companies, the foremost of which, BP Nursing Homes Ltd, became Takare PLC/Care First Group PLC, which was sold to BUPA in January 1998 for approximately £300m. Other business interests include Listers of Coventry and Urbancube.
Personal wealth estimated £150 million
1997 - Mr Bradshaw, has had a turbulent history. Mr Bradshaw was criticised for growing the company, initially called Takare before it merged with Mr Patel's Court Cavendish company last year, too quickly.
The company has also been criticised for overspending on building low- quality homes, without, for example, ensuite toilets. Care First's overexpansion hit occupancy levels at the homes when funding pressures on local authorities increased in the mid 1990's, forcing the company to reverse its strategy.
R.E.L Smith - MIC Member (Another shy one, no photo available)Richard Smith is the Managing Director of H.R.Smith Group, which is based at Leominster in Herefordshire. The group includes the company Techtest. Products include a range of hi-tech radio and electrical equipment used in search and rescue. Is below the kind of business that HRSmith group will be bidding for?
Member of the Taxpayers Alliance.
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| Chris Kelly With David Cameron |
Chris Kelly is based in West Bromwich. He formed Scania Keltruck Limited in 1983. The company employs around 500 people. He is one of three Vice Chairmen of the MIC. He is also open about his political views. He is on the list of business supporters of Open Europe and is on the Business Council of the TaxPayers Alliance. Mr Kelly was a member of the Conservative Party's Midlands Regional Finance Board, the West Midlands Council of Business for Sterling
David Cameron is being accused of rewarding Tory donors with free publicity.The charge came after he went to the training centre for trucking firm Scania to publicise an announcement on new apprenticeships.
Scania’s UK distributor is businessman Chris Kelly, the deputy chairman of a donors group called the Midlands Industrial Council, which has given £561,780 to the Conservatives since Mr Cameron became leader. (This amount may have increased since this was reported) Who said that MIC members do not want to influence government policy?
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| Chris Kelly With Margaret Thatcher |
Leavesley Group MIC Members (no picture available)
James and John Leavesley, are based at Alrewas in Staffordshire. The family-run Leavesley Group dates back to 1919. The group has grown and diversified into a number of sectors. These include property and agricultural activities, surplus equipment, machinery and vehicle sales, shipping containers, petrol retailing and farm quality assurance and inspection. John Leavesley is also a supporter of the TaxPayers Alliance, which lobbies the Government to reduce taxes.
Lowe & Fletcher Ltd - Corporate member of the MIC
Lowe & Fletcher Ltd is a corporate member of the MIC. From a small locksmith's shop founded in Willenhall, in the Black Country in 1889, the Lowe and Fletcher and Euro-locks Group has grown into a world-leading specialist in the design and manufacture of locking, says the company website. Now based in Wednesbury it also has factories in Europe and the United States.
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| Peter Shirley and Wife |
Peter Shirley is the owner and Managing Director of Midland Chilled Foods. The company began in 1976 at Willenhall in the Black Country. It now comprises three companies, Midland Chilled Foods Ltd., Midland Pie Products Ltd. and Midland Food Group Ltd, has a turnover well in excess of £35m and employs nearly 200 people. When the Midland Food Group, opened a new chilled foods factory in Basingstoke, Hampshire it was opened by David Cameron, then leader of the opposition. Peter Shirley said:
'I’m a member of the MIC. I was absolutely amazed that it was David Cameron who came to the (factory) opening... We tell (Tory Ministers) that if they’re
going to have policies, we would like to know what the heck they are.'
Most "shadow ministers" have attended MIC meetings and George Bridges,Peter Shirley also supports the TaxPayers Alliance.
Cameron’s head of campaigns, is in regular contact with it...
R. Robinson - MIC Member
Robert Robinson, founder of the Warwickshire firm of Robinsons
Kambiz Jaberi - MIC Member
Kambiz Jaberi is chairman and Managing Director of Karins Catering Group of Bilston. They supply food to 14 airports. Clients include British Airways CitiExpress, Flybe, Alpha Catering Services, Gate Gourmet International, Citynet Catering, First Choice Airways & West Midlands Police. Most popular sandwich: Roast Chicken on Poppy bread. Mr Jaberi was involved in the Vote No campaign against the UK signing the European Constitution and supports TaxPayers Alliance.
Kim Jaberi told the Sunday Times:
“I was invited to join about [five] years ago. We are self-made people who can tell politicians about transport, about climate change, about tax – about what real life is about.”
Tessa Miller & Michael Miller - MIC Members
Michael Miller is Chairman of the Harris & Sheldon Group Ltd which has wide-ranging interests including automotive component manufacturing and fishing tackle manufacturing. The company is based at Packington Park, Meriden, near Coventry. Michael Miller has been involved with both the TaxPayers Alliance and Vote No to the EU Constitution campaigns.
Involved with Taxpayers Alliance
Graham Hampson Silk - MIC Member
Graham Hampson Silk sold his stake in Wolverhampton and Blackpool airports for £15m. He was previously involved in the film industry and was credited as executive producer of children's fantasy movie Rainbow and British comedies The Sea Change and Shooting Fish. He was named as the "one to watch", in a business industry profile in 2001 which added: "his day job is at Hampson Industries, a group of aerospace engineering businesses with annual turnover approaching £100m". 'Mr Silk said... the organisation was simply a group that existed to lobby for a better deal for Midland businesses.' (He forgot to mention that they are strongly Eurosceptic and nearly all are members of the Taxpayers Alliance, that want our public sector reduced, our National insurance contributions to go up and our taxes to rise, while theirs fall)
Constantine Folkes
Constantine Folkes
Constantine Folkes is the Chairman and Chief Executive of Folkes Holdings. Folkes Holdings has engineering and real estate interests. His company is one of the largest commercial landlords in the Black Country and also has real estate interests in South Africa. The company's engineering operations are conducted at Somers Forge in Halesowen. Folkes Holdings went private in 2003 and is now 91% owned by Constantine Folkes. The company traces its origins to an 18th Century blacksmith shop in Lye. Mr Folkes supports the TaxPayers Alliance.
In addition I found three other people as *previous members* of the Midlands Industrial Council.
Sir Eric Pountain
He died at the age of 70 in 2003. He built Tarmac into one of the UK's biggest house builders. Born in Cannock Chase he went to school in Walsall. He is credited with coming up with the idea of the "show home" to sell properties on new estates. In the 1980s Tarmac was a prominent donor to the Conservative party. Was also chairman later of IMI Metals. He was knighted in 1985.
Gareth Davies
Former chairman of Glynwed International, which is most famous for its Aga kitchen products. Mr Davies retired after 40 years service with the company in the late 1990s. Glowing tributes by colleagues described his contribution to the business as "immense".
Gary Allen
Mr Allen succeeded Sir Eric Pountain as the chairman of IMI Metals. He joined the company in 1965, became Chief Exec in 1986 and Chairman in 2001. He was awarded the CBE in 1991. He retired from IMI in 2004.
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| Disgraced Former Tory MP Julie Kirkbride |
The former Bromsgrove MP has been revealed as an "ex-officio" member of the secretive Midlands Industrial Council (MIC) after an investigation by the Politics Show in the West Midlands.
There is no published record of Ms Kirkbride's connections to the organisation, even though she has now confirmed she is the "link person" between the MIC and the Conservative party in parliament.
Ms Kirkbride's name emerged after the MIC said it was going to continue to conceal the identity of its members in future, unless there is a change in the law.
Other MPs have gone to prison for a lot less than Julie Kirkbrid and her husand have doen over their expense claims, yet the shamed former Tory MP has landed a lucrative job in the lobbying industry days after being forced to quit the Commons because of public anger over her expenses.
Miss Kirkbride, 49, was appointed as a consultant to the Westminster-based lobbying firm Tetra Strategy on a salary rumoured to be approaching £100,000.
Last year her former MP husband Andrew Mackay, who was also embroiled in the expenses scandal, landed a six-figure salary post as ‘international consultant’ to the lobbying giant Burston-Marsteller.
The MIC was accused of being a clearing house for donations to the Tory party, and possibly open to challenge under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
Between April 16, 2003, and March 14, 2006, the Conservative Party received 52 donations from the MIC totalling £968,690. This amount has increased massively in the recent years leading up to and beyond the may 2010 general election.
This list begs almost as many questions as it answers. How much did each of them give exactly?
Where did that money go? Was it used to buy influence over Conservative policy? Remember Stuart Wheeler the Conservative millionaire donor spreadbetter, now UKIP member? He says it is perfectly reasonable to expect that business leaders donating large sums to the Tory party do so with the view of influencing policy. Mr Wheeler has himself donated over £3 million to the Conservative party.
And what about the people who have given money in the past - or may do so in the future who will still be able to slip quietly behind the veil of anonymity?
Currently despite David Cameron's promise of "new and transparent politics" the laws as it stands, does not require a breakdown of figures from the MIC as it is an unincorporated association - effectively, a private club, or any other association like it. *Just like the Portcullis club* this is how the Conservative party is managing to protect so many of their big financial donors from scrutiny.
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| Cameron Photo Opportunity |
Nothing unusual there. Apart from the fact the chief executives of all these firms have publicly backed the Tories’ cynical attempt to win votes by promising to halt a scheduled rise in National Insurance.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has also got in on the act by visiting the headquarters of easyJet, whose founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou also supports Mr Cameron’s NI policy.
Cameron even mentioned Mothercare in the House of Commons and his wife Sam wore a Marks and Spencer frock during campaigning, but it turned out the frock had been made to measure for her. Sir Stuart Rose was then the MD of Marks and a Cameron supporter, who signed the NICs letter.
"The Conservative party have exploited a loophole in the law that allows unincorporated associations, such as the Midlands Industrial Council and the Uxbridge Portcullis Club, to give many thousands of pounds to local constituency associations without the latter accounting for that or providing any details about who was behind those shady organisations until it was forced out of them."
Big business is behind this Tory-led government without a shadow of a doubt, just a cursory look through all the information I have provided you will see a clear pattern emerging which has been taking shape since David Cameron became the Conservative leader.
It almost blatant, big business do not donate millions of pounds to a political party without expecting some influence over policy and the information I have provided you can actually see it very clearly. The Tories will point straight away to the unions and the Labour party but one this does not excuse what they are doing and d two, the unions are very regulated bodies made up out of thousands of members, they are not close unregulated uncorporated bodies made up out of secret members donating obscene amounts to the Tory party hoping to change policy and influence policy in favour of their own companies.
In return for their huge financial donations David Cameron has been opening their new companies, both here and abroad and during the 2010 election campaign Cameron managed to have photo opportunities in front of a row of JCBs, in front of trays of Warburton's bread, Jewson trucks in the background, B&Q, Mothercare, Marks and Spencers, it just goes on and on and Cameron even mentions his friends companies during prime minister's question time.
In a speech in February 2010 David Cameron warned that lobbying was ‘the next big scandal waiting to happen’. Well he should know!
Lobbying is the next big scandal waiting to happen... an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money... And we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way…"
He also said: “I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics.”.
Yet, as the Observer reveals , some of his party’s current crop of prospective MPs aren't being fully transparent with voters about their links to the lobbying industry!
Cameron promised us transparent politics, but all we have had from him is the shadiest dirty corrupt looking behaviour, far worse than anything seen in parliament since the last time the Tories were in power, at least it took those successive Tory governments 18 years to get to the point where they were mired in sleaze, it has taken this Tory government less than 8 months and the lies, broken promises and deliberate misleading of parliament and the British people almost on a daily basis from this Tory government is astonishing!
I have omitted from this post about arms dealers and oil companies, as the post is too long already, as for the links to lobbying of the NHS for contracts, well that is a book waiting to be written! However, have no fear these subjects will be covered at some point in the near future.
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The Tories - Privatisation - Who Is Governing Britain? Tory Donors or Our elected Government?
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| They Didn't Win But we Are Still NOT Laughing! |
Venture capitalist Jon Moulton who is a major Conservative donor is demanding even more drastic cuts in Government spending, apparently he is not too upset to see firms go bust and jobs lost as a result. Mr Moulton has given the Conservatives more than a quarter of a million pounds helping to swell their coffers making them the richest political party in the history of Britain. He claims that increasing the austerity measures is both economically and morally correct. The arrogance of it, just who is Jon Moulton to preach morals and economics to us? If he stood for parliament and was democratically elected then I must have missed it!
It is all too easy to see why he makes his claims though as the more companies that get into financial difficulties as a result of people's inability to fork out and spend more of their ever dwindling incomes, the better for Moulton, more for him to pick over the bones for spare meat. It is also easy for obscenely rich people to inflict financial distress and pain on others that they themselves will not feel in a month of Sundays. Their nauseating arrogance and condescending natures is something they all seem to have in common with the MPs that form the political party they throw obscene amounts of cash at.
These business people who donate to the Tories with their secret handshakes and rolled up trouser legs are as predictable as they are greedy. There is only one reason they donate to the Tories and this is solely because they are buying an input into policy - they are purchasing lobbying rights, ask Andrew Cook. Mr Cook is the Yorkshire businessman who has tried several times to take-over Sheffield Forgemasters and failed, and then thought he saw another chance, if only he could prevent the promised £80 million Government loan to the company. He then successfully lobbied David Cameron and had the promised Sheffield Forgemasters loan cancelled on ridiculous and spurious grounds. It certainly is a strange way to behave for a government that is supposed to be helping business export to help grow us out of recession. Nick Clegg was found to have deliberately misled parliament over the explanation as to why the loan promised by the previous government was stopped, although we are still waiting for his apology and to see what action has been taken against him! However, I am pleased to say that Sheffield Forgemasters managed to prevent Cook from obtaining their company, although as a direct result of the cancellation of this loan the company is now in a weaker position and this in turn is affecting the local economy in Sheffield Hallam (Clegg’s seat). Cook used the fact that he was the Tories biggest donor in the North, in fact he deemed to mention it in his lobbying letter, he has donated over £750.000 to the Tories and he also funded flying Mr Cameron around Britain on 27 separate private plane journeys at a cost of £54,000. Who says money doesn't influence the Tory party? I wonder if Mr Cook was ever present on any of those 27 freebie private plane journeys that Cameron took, and did they discuss the weather or did they discuss Sheffield Forgemasters? Or perhaps they discussed how the Tories were going to sell off public services to private companies?
Jon Moulton freely admits that his ideas of increased austerity would lead to a greater corporate failure and that joblessness would also increase. Moulton also says transferring more resources from the public to the private sector should also provide a much better base for future growth, although there is precious little that backs his theory, what does he say to the fact that growth contracted by 0.5%, despite the chancellors austerity measures?
It must be said however that Moulton appears in sync with David Cameron's latest blase` announcement that without consultation; without a mandate; without a parliamentary majority; he (Cameron), and Osborne and Clegg are going to sell off every single public service, except for MI5 and the judiciary. So who is calling the tune here Cameron or Jon Moulton? Or the plethora of bankers, financiers, oil barons and private companies who all donate to the Tory party?
On this blog at various times I have revealed the staggering number of big business, hedge fund bosses, bankers, financiers, outsourcing companies and oil companies that donate to the Tory party in a major way and in this latest announcement where a could not care less David Cameron the Arrogant coolly announced that the Tories are going to sell off all of our public services. Just like that, no debate, no discussion, no consultation, NO mandate and no parliamentary majority, yet this arrogant prime minister’s going to do this without a care in the world about how we may feel about this.
I think we are entitled to ask:
Who is governing Britain the Tories or their major donors?
__________________________________________________Conservative "Corruption" This Time "Oilgate" More Tory Oil Donors Revealed
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| King Cameron the Arrogant Has Friends In Oily Places! |
"William Hague and another Conservative minister “lobbied strongly” on behalf of Tullow Oil who were embroiled in a dispute over a £175 million unpaid tax bill in Uganda.
Mr Hague personally telephoned the country’s President and the issue was given a high priority within the Foreign Office, the documents reveal.
Helped by the intervention of the British Foreign Secretary, Tullow Oil will not now have to pay Uganda the Heritage unpaid tax bill.The chief executive of Tullow Oil, Aidan Heavey, donated £10,000 to the Conservatives shortly before the general election last year and was among businessmen who signed a letter attacking Labour Party policy.
Tony Buckingham, the chief executive of Heritage Oil, also donated £50,000 shortly before the general election. In total, they have donated over £70,000 between them" to the Tory party!
This is surely a conflict of interests and must be wholly unethical.
"Last year, it emerged that Andrew Mitchell, the International Development minister, had intervened in a dispute in Ghana over commodity traders Armajaro Holdings, which was co-founded by Tory donor Anthony Ward. Mr Hague was not involved in those negotiations."
Andrew Mitchell is the Tory cabinet minister who also keeps his money in off shore tax havens to avoid paying UK tax,
"a spokesman for Mr Hague said that neither Mr Hague nor Mr Bellingham knew that Mr Buckingham and Mr Heavey were Conservative donors. "
"Pull the other one!" How could Hague possibly not know that these two men were Tory party donors? If this is what Hague maintains then Mr Hague is either a liar or incredibly stupid. Mr Hague refused to answer questions over his "friend" Lord Ashcroft, another Tory donor who has donated millions to the Tory party, who is a Tory member of the Lords but until recently was also a non dom, which meant he too was avoiding paying UK tax. Mr Hague either has appalling judgement like his boss David Cameron of he is arrogant just like his boss Cameron.
Tony Buckingham - Heritage Oil Corporation. Wealth is estimated at £475m.
Records published by the Electoral Commission show that Mr Buckingham gave £50,000 to Conservative Central Office on May 14 – a week after the election.
Mr Buckingham’s direct and indirect share-holding is estimated to represent 33% of Heritage.
On June 1 he made a donation of £5,000 to Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire Conservative Association
Mr Buckinham was once a partner in Executive Outcomes, until the firm’s dissolution in 1998, the company provided mercenary soldiers who fought in a succession of African conflicts.
Mr Buckingham is now an oil industry executive with a significant share-holding in Heritage Oil Corporation. Heritage has been listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange since 1999, and more recently became listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Why would Tony Buckingham donate to a Welsh constituency rather than any other constituency? I wonder what the big and sudden interest is? Two names to watch for the future or future connections, Simon Hart Tory MP and Tony Buckingham, what a strange combination!
Lady Getty, widow of Sir Paul Getty, the oil tycoon has also donated an undisclosed sum to the Conservative party at a Tory party fund raising event.
Vitol Oil Company - When Alan Duncan Conservative MP was shadow business secretary his office accepted donations from Ian Taylor, president and chief executive of the Netherlands-based Vitol oil company, whose main business is in energy trading.
*Back in 2008* Alan Duncan faced renewed questions about donations to the Tories from an oil tycoon that critics said had not been adequately declared.
Ian Taylor has handed over a £50,000 donation. Taylor was convicted of "grand larceny in the first degree" in 2008 after paying Saddam Hussein's regime $13m in kickbacks for oil deals.
Petrofac - Ayman Adfari - Records from Electoral Commission show that the Tories have taken £50,000 from Syrian born Ayman Adfari who is chief executive of the oil firm Petrofac which has just completed a $265 billion oil terminal.
Huseyin Gun Turkish businessman- also handed over £50,000 donation to the Tories from, among other earnings, sitting on the advisory board of Global Strategy forum which invests in oil and gas in Iraq.
CC Property Company - donated £50.000 to the Conservatives which is a subsidiary of the Athens based Consolidated Contractors. The main director of CC Property Company is Marwan Salloum, who is also oil and gas vice-president of Consolidated Contractors.
Scythian Limited - (? Connected to Russian Oil & Gas) senior Tory, the former armed services minister Nicholas Soames, also declares on the register that he receives an undisclosed sum as a strategic adviser to Scythian Limited, which has had listed assets of no more than £2 since 2006 and has given a total of more than £27,000 to Conservative Central Office.
Burhan al-Chalabi, - 56, an Iraqi-born. Described as experienced in oil trading and a London property tycoon donor to the Conservative Party and respected intimate of senior diplomatic figures is the latest unlikely name to emerge from Saddam Hussein’s alleged intelligence dossier. Dr al-Chalabi was the joint largest donor to Michael Portillo’s Tory leadership campaign, with £5,000 when Portillo was still active in politics.
OCI UK Ltd of St Albans - Donated a further £50,000 which has the sole job of providing advertising for its parent company Orascom Construction - which again turns out to be an overseas oil firm: this time run by the billionaire Egyptian Sawiris family.
Libya' Vast Oilfields
The Conservative Party has received a six-figure donation from a company owned by Palestinian millionaires who were developing Libya’s vast offshore oilfields
(redacted)
The money was donated by a small British firm owned by one of their Middle Eastern holding companies.
(redacted)
(redacted)
The disclosure that the Conservatives received more than £100,000 from CC Property Company is likely to lead to further criticism of Mr Cameron and government links to Libya.
Mr Cameron did not stand up for Britain against America when America were blaming this country for the BP oil spill, now we know why, he was too afraid of upsetting big Tory financial donors!
The Electoral Commission records show that the Tories received a total of £5,269,186 between July and September 2009.
The Tories received £3,236,828 from individual donors, £1,635,127 from companies. Isn't it odd that as the election neared the Tories managed to raise over £5 million in just 2 months and a large proportion of that suddenly coming in from companies, Oil companies, Hedge Funds, Banks and Healthcare companies. I wonder what the Healthcare companies donating to the Tory party knew that we the electorate were NOT privy to? It did not stop there either, these large donations have continued to flood in from companies with financial interests in healthcare and finance. Also many executives connected with these companies have ALSO made personal donations to the Tory party.
Today's Conservative party is the richest political party in the entire history of the UK, at a time of great fear, austerity, uncertainty, when people are losing their homes and jobs and seeing their benefits cut, the Conservative party's coffers are stuffed full of obscene wealth, from billion and millionaires. The Tory led government cabinet is also stuffed to bursting with landed millionaires who all pay little or no UK tax, have money in off-shore tax havens, live rent free in mansions, what do they care if their local leisure centres are shut down because of Tory cuts? They all have indoor hi-tech personal gyms, tennis courts and swimming pools. Iain Duncan Smith, the man everyone says is "nice", the man responsible for cutting benefits and forcing people into NON existent jobs or face having their benefit cut, the man responsible for cutting welfare and housing benefits, lives rent free in a family owned mansion, complete in huge grounds with a tennis court and swimming pool!
Does anyone really believe that these oil companies are donating in altruistic fashion to the Conservative party, "out of the goodness of their black oil hearts"?
Does anyone really believe that these Hedge Fund companies are donating altruistically to the Conservative party, out of the goodness of their big banker hearts?
Does anyone really believe that these Healthcare companies are donating altruistically to the Conservative party, out of the goodness of their big hearts for the citizens of the UK?
Mix together a couple of big oil refiners and conservative supporting oil tycoons and then start asking questions about how close the ties are with British Conservatives and American Republicans. How close are the ties between the two parties? What links them? Oil? healthcare? Hedge Funds? Finance? It is almost impossible to separate how many different pies the American Republicans (Conservatives) and the British Conservative party have their fingers in, the lines are blurred, the boundaries mixed and the raw stench of crude oil is beginning to give off the whiff of corruption as it seeps into virtually every aspect of Conservative politics. Who is running the UK? Murdoch? Tory oil barons? Both?
Before the may 2010 general election lobbyists had been desperately seeking well-connected Tories in the belief that they will be able to open doors with the incoming Government, in the event the Tories did not win the general election outright, but this does not seem to have dented their enthusiasm for lobbying and lobbyists!
UK based firms being owned by parent companies based in the Middle East and trading in oil, look to be buying influence over policy making in the UK through huge financial donations to the Tory party. Former Tory and hedge fund spread better Stuart Wheeler who has donated millions to the Tory party, says it would be illogical to think that these huge donations are not buying influence in Government.
When digging and researching and amalgamating information like this, suddenly "Dave of India's" attacks on Israel from Turkey, and Pakistan from India, suddenly start to make a whole lot of sense. Cameron is appallingly ignorant and cash blinded in his knowledge of international affairs, either that or he is a liar and is corrupt, whatever he is, he is certainly no statesman and he is doing this country's reputation abroad great harm and in these very uncertain times, the UK needs all the friends it can get!
Mr Cameron did not stand up for Britain against America when America were blaming this country for the BP oil spill, now we know why, he was too afraid of upsetting big Tory financial donors!
The Electoral Commission records show that the Tories received a total of £5,269,186 between July and September 2009.
The Tories received £3,236,828 from individual donors, £1,635,127 from companies. Isn't it odd that as the election neared the Tories managed to raise over £5 million in just 2 months and a large proportion of that suddenly coming in from companies, Oil companies, Hedge Funds, Banks and Healthcare companies. I wonder what the Healthcare companies donating to the Tory party knew that we the electorate were NOT privy to? It did not stop there either, these large donations have continued to flood in from companies with financial interests in healthcare and finance. Also many executives connected with these companies have ALSO made personal donations to the Tory party.
Today's Conservative party is the richest political party in the entire history of the UK, at a time of great fear, austerity, uncertainty, when people are losing their homes and jobs and seeing their benefits cut, the Conservative party's coffers are stuffed full of obscene wealth, from billion and millionaires. The Tory led government cabinet is also stuffed to bursting with landed millionaires who all pay little or no UK tax, have money in off-shore tax havens, live rent free in mansions, what do they care if their local leisure centres are shut down because of Tory cuts? They all have indoor hi-tech personal gyms, tennis courts and swimming pools. Iain Duncan Smith, the man everyone says is "nice", the man responsible for cutting benefits and forcing people into NON existent jobs or face having their benefit cut, the man responsible for cutting welfare and housing benefits, lives rent free in a family owned mansion, complete in huge grounds with a tennis court and swimming pool!
Does anyone really believe that these oil companies are donating in altruistic fashion to the Conservative party, "out of the goodness of their black oil hearts"?
Does anyone really believe that these Hedge Fund companies are donating altruistically to the Conservative party, out of the goodness of their big banker hearts?
Does anyone really believe that these Healthcare companies are donating altruistically to the Conservative party, out of the goodness of their big hearts for the citizens of the UK?
Mix together a couple of big oil refiners and conservative supporting oil tycoons and then start asking questions about how close the ties are with British Conservatives and American Republicans. How close are the ties between the two parties? What links them? Oil? healthcare? Hedge Funds? Finance? It is almost impossible to separate how many different pies the American Republicans (Conservatives) and the British Conservative party have their fingers in, the lines are blurred, the boundaries mixed and the raw stench of crude oil is beginning to give off the whiff of corruption as it seeps into virtually every aspect of Conservative politics. Who is running the UK? Murdoch? Tory oil barons? Both?
Before the may 2010 general election lobbyists had been desperately seeking well-connected Tories in the belief that they will be able to open doors with the incoming Government, in the event the Tories did not win the general election outright, but this does not seem to have dented their enthusiasm for lobbying and lobbyists!
UK based firms being owned by parent companies based in the Middle East and trading in oil, look to be buying influence over policy making in the UK through huge financial donations to the Tory party. Former Tory and hedge fund spread better Stuart Wheeler who has donated millions to the Tory party, says it would be illogical to think that these huge donations are not buying influence in Government.
When digging and researching and amalgamating information like this, suddenly "Dave of India's" attacks on Israel from Turkey, and Pakistan from India, suddenly start to make a whole lot of sense. Cameron is appallingly ignorant and cash blinded in his knowledge of international affairs, either that or he is a liar and is corrupt, whatever he is, he is certainly no statesman and he is doing this country's reputation abroad great harm and in these very uncertain times, the UK needs all the friends it can get!
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Friday 4th Feb 2011
Tory "Donorgate" - NHS Reforms - KMPG - Conflict of Interests
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| Hands Off Our NHS! |
NHS London has awarded a contract to the KPMG Partnership for Commissioning to support the development of pathfinders across the capital.
NHS London is the strategic health authority (SHA) for London. All 10 SHAs are soon to be abolished by the Government/Department of Health.
The KPMG partnership for commissioning has "apparently" only recently been formed!
The NHS budget for 2010-2011 is £110bn and there are around 40,000 GPs working in England and Wales. At present, the budget is divided among the ten strategic health authorities, which devolve it down to primary care trusts (PCTs). The strategic authorities set strategy and hold local delivery agents to account. The PCTs commission services from hospitals, GPs, opticians and primary services. Trusts have increasingly been forging strong links with local authorities to provide social care to the elderly and people with disabilities or other needs. Cuts to these services in particular is being reported along with massive cuts to local authority budgets. This is one of the main worries with consortia, who will fund these patients health care? GPs will be working to a finite budget, so taking on to already heavy lists, patients who have increased and expensive healthcare needs is going to be a massive problem and will probably prove to much for most consortia.
In what I believe was one of the first steps to "decommissioning the NHS" (amongst other services like education) the British Conservative led government recently and controversially closed down the Audit Commission, (a public quango). The closure of the Audit Commission directly benefits a number of companies that have donated large sums of cash (and "free" services) to the British Conservative party, namely one such company it benefits is a company called KPMG an accounting giant.
KPMG has donated at least £500.000 directly into the coffers of the Conservative party.
Recently the KPMG Partnership for Commissioning has won one of the first contracts to support the development of the early waves of pathfinders across NHS London and help them to become commissioners of services in the future.
The partnership, claimed to be the first of its kind, sees KPMG teaming up with UnitedHealth UK, the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), Healthskills, NHS Primary Care Commissioning and legal firm Morgan Cole.
The NAPC maintains it is not political, but it is political it is almost sycophantic in its adoration of the Tories, read it for yourself, it "warmly" backs the Conservatives. NAPC stands to gain from winning contracts from the Tories radical reforms, how can it be non political and non biased when it has placed itself in a compromising position? One of its *PRIVATE* GPs Dr Johnny Marshall has publicly backed David Cameron, fair enough, but then we should also know that Dr Johnny Marshall of NAPC has also helped UnitedHealthcare a controversial *PRIVATE* US company, win NHS contracts !
Question 1: - Why specifically, was the contracted awarded to KPMG?
Question 2: - Did NHS London run an open tender for this contract *BEFORE* awarding it to KMPG? (This is required by competition law) If they didn't, then this contract is most likely illegal.
Question 3: - Was the problem of conflict of interests with the Conservatives and KMPG taken into account when the contract was awarded? There is an obviously conflict of interests here and if awarding these contracts stands any chance at all of working then the procedure *MUST* be above reproach.
Derby City Primary Care Trust has already been put out to tender and has had three expressions of interest;
1. BUPA; 2. Boots and 3. AN-other. (The deadline for tenders apparently passed a few weeks ago.)
Andrew Lansley has said that GP Commissioners will have to honour present contracts. However, I am informed that there appears to be a lot of contracts being signed in a "hurry" but with absolutely no clear evidence of tendering. Who is overseeing what is going on now?
Is anyone looking into the many breaches of competition law that could possibly be occurring? Who is responsible for looking into such matters? This is but one clear example of what breaking up and fragmenting the NHS will cause, no one will know who is responsible for what, who and when! This may possibly leave GPs in a very vulnerable position of possible litigation and accusations of bias, cronyism, insider dealing etc etc etc.
Any future contracts will be awarded under Lansley's preferred "Any Willing Provider" scheme. The Department of Health under the previous Labour government were going to use the "preferred provider" system, meaning that the NHS would win the bulk of the contracts.
In what amounted to a non-legal "class action", the then Labour government's competition commission agreed to look at a complaint brought by hundreds of charities and private sector companies angered by a decision, made by the then health secretary Andy Burnham, that the NHS would be the "preferred provider" of NHS care.
This means failing or under performing NHS trusts would be allowed to keep an NHS contract to allow them to improve, rather than allowing charities and private companies a chance to take over provision of that service.So who are these "hundreds of charities and private sector companies"? Well some may turn out to be not for profit organisations like NAPC and private companies that operate like Care UK, Healthcare UK, UnitedHealth UK. Not hard to see why they have a vested interest in this government NOT having the preferred provider system is it? With the any willing provider system now employed by the Tory government akin with the radical reforms and GP commissioning and the abolition of SHAs and PCTs, the NHS is for certain going to be squeezed out of providing our health care and privatisation will not be arriving by the back door, but will be galloping down every single street and road and charging through the front door of our hospitals and surgeries and completely taking over our NHS. At this rate we will see full-scale privatisation of the NHS by 2013. This government hope to stay in power until 2015, clearly they hope the fury aimed at what they are doing will have been forgotten by the next general election. (Again we see manipulation of the electorate by this Tory led government.)
However, by using the "any willing provider" system means the NHS will have to compete for every single contract and they will be competing against private companies who could very well offer a "Loss leader" of such tremendous value, that the NHS will be priced out of the market. In my opinion this is another step towards complete privatisation and we could be witnessing the "Tesco-isation" of our NHS! Already some GPs are setting up surgeries in supermarkets, where they have been given highly valuable commercial floor space "free" of charge! Why? What is in it for the supermarkets? Footfall? If rolled out across the country it is not hard to see that supermarkets will benefit greatly from vastly increased sales in over the counter medications and this year, we see the return of pharmacies to some Tesco supermarkets, who had previously been taken out, it all slowly begins to snap into place!
KMPG are now the ones providing commissioning support for the pathfinder consortia which Cameron has now said totals 140 covering half of the country, the next step will be for them to provide the commissioning support for all *actual consortia* after 2013, when it is expected that the main bulk of the reforms will have taken place.
The Department of Health/Government is very keen on getting rid of any health services they possibly can and off of central government's hands and of course these services will ultimately land up in the laps of private corporations. One of the first steps is to allow social enterprises, or Arms Length Trading Organisations (ALTOs) to take over various services. Social enterprises are not for profit organisations and although some are well intended, the fear is that the ALTOs will be run by big companies, such as *BOOTS* SERCO and a plethora of American healthcare giants.
Serco operates a number of public sector contracts on behalf of the government and local authorities.
These include running four prisons including Doncaster, the maintenance of a number of RAF bases including Brize Norton, and the operation of London's Docklands Light Railway, recently Serco tried to pass on the impact of government spending cuts to suppliers. Serco, had asked its largest suppliers to pay a 2.5% rebate. However, when it thought it may lose its lucrative contracts from the Conservative government, it decided not to go ahead. But there is nothing to stop serco doing this in the future when their contracts are in place. In fact Andre Lansley has taken out the very regulation that prevented companies like this adopting such practices.As we can already see in the case of Derby City and London Primary Healthcare Trusts, this change is already starting to happen.
Further, I am told that now it is very likely that consortia will have to tender for their commissioning support, so former PCT staff will find themselves in a position where they will have to form organisations and bid competitively for contracts. Of course huge organisations like KMPG are way ahead of any competition and have clearly been preparing for this for a few years. In the interests of fairness, questions need to be asked as to how these giant companies suddenly find themselves already prepared for something they "presumably" did not know was happening prior to this government's publication of its white paper on the "Liberation of the NHS"? After all according to Cameron and the Tories, they were not going for any "top down reorganisation of the NHS"! (Then we learn directly from Cameron that the Tories and Lansley have been working on this for years - more lies from Cameron and Lansley) Were these companies like KMPG given information prior to this government coming to office while the Conservative party were still in opposition? I find it incredulous that a huge company like KMPG has been awarded a contract of this magnitude when they have given such financial backing to the Conservative party, and then the company seems to be ahead of everyone else in the field? Or are we supposed to believe that KMPG just cobbled together their partnership commissioning company since last July 2010?
Putting aside that any group or organisation formed now to challenge for NHS contracts will certainly be at a colossal disadvantage, and even if ordinary people, like former PCT workers were able to form organisations and groups to try and compete for NHS contracts, how likely is it that they would be able to compete with huge organisations like KMPG? How likely is it that they will be able to realistically compete with these multi-national private companies, who are so far ahead and in terms of purchase power, could just offer quality loss leaders and blow them completely out of the water? This is just flim-flam and window dressing from David Cameron and Andrew Lansley, a concealed plutocracy which is disguised by being wrapped up in pink fluffy stuff designed to make their plans look acceptable when they are anything but! This duplicitous Tory government know, and we know, and these huge organisations know, and any likely co-operative of PCT workers know, that this is a completely unfair and uneven market and the odds are stacked dramatically against any small PCT co-operative. How will they be able to compete with these huge companies like the KMPG partnership for commissioning, who appear to have been formed specifically to offer this kind of care in the UK?
Ultimately what will happen (it has already started) is that services will be syphoned off to these huge private companies, health workers, former PCT workers etc will be binned off and made to reapply for their positions at LESS favourable rates and terms of employment, it will be that or face redundancy. Of course many former PCT workers will be made redundant in any case as it is huge doubtful that private companies will want to hire all previous PCT staff, these companies generally try to get the work of three people done by one, this is the era we are now moving into.
As I have already shown above the big companies will offer huge economies, even loss leaders, (they have the purchasing power to do so) and profit will be the beginning, middle and end in the NHS, profit will dominate and it will drive services and quality down, cheapest is very rarely the best and cheapest often turns out to be a false economy anyway. The NHS is headed for complete chaos, confusion and mayhem, post code lotteries for treatment, appointments and drugs will be back in ever increasing numbers and many patients will be forced to travel many miles out of their locality for treatment. The government's mantra is that GPs and patients know best and patients want choice, sounds good, but what patients and most GPs want is good quality local care they can depend on whenever they need it, choice is fine, but it comes way down the list. Ask a patient to choose out of a list of 6 consultants specialising in the same field, how are they going to know who is best? Short answer is in the majority of cases they won't and will have to take advice and then that procedure becomes opened up to corruption!
The following are the kind of companies that the UK Conservative led government is now enlisting to run our NHS and care for our health needs.
KMPG - Have helped wealthy clients dodge millions in taxes.
Following accounting scandals KMPG changed the name of its business consulting arm to BearingPoint. BearingPoint has been granted a $76 million USAID contacts in Iraq.
KPMG, PWC, E&Y and Deloitte behind almost half of all known tax avoidance.
The Department of Health’s (DH) director of commissioning Gary Belfield has taken up a new position with KMPG. Gary Belfield has held roles in the NHS and DH for over 25 years, and his name is closely associated with the World Class Commissioning drive, along with his predecessor Mark Britnell who left to join KPMG in 2009. Surely this is a conflict of interests?
The first tender of its type to be awarded in the country was awarded to KPMG and comes at a crucial time where GPs face the transition to legally accountable commissioning organisations by April 2013. The contract was won through the establishment of the KPMG Partnership for Commissioning which comprises the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC), Healthskills, Primary Care Commissioning (PCC), United Health UK and Morgan Cole.
"The KPMG Partnership will draw on the expertise of its members to provide a comprehensive and evidence-based package of business, finance, governance and personal development support. The programme will help GPs to develop key skills they will need as future commissioners, such as financial management skills, contract management and engaging with local councils and other stakeholders."
Gary Belfield, Associate Partner at KPMG said:
"I am delighted that NHS London has awarded this ground breaking contract to the KPMG Partnership for Commissioning. GP commissioning consortia are at the leading edge of the Government's health agenda as they align clinical responsibility with financial accountability. Over the next two years GP consortia will have a stretching development agenda before they formally take the commissioning responsibility for over £70bn of resources across England.”
“We look forward to working closely with the early pathfinders in London to ensure they are as prepared as possible to meet the commissioning challenges that face the NHS in the coming years.”
I do not doubt that Mr Belfield was delighted, close on the heels of Mark Britnall from the Department of Health to KMPG, I bet KMPG were delighted too! Especially when Mr Belfield decided to leave the Department of Health in 2009, take all of his knowledge to KMPG and quite possibly help them start setting the new partnership for commissioning up - PRIOR to the Tories even winning the 2010 general election. Ah, it must be great to have psychic abilities, especially where lucrative NHS contracts are concerned! I bet some former PCT and SHA workers wish they had these abilities too!
Dr Johnny Marshall, Chairman of the National Association of Primary Care said:
"We are excited to be part of this initiative and look forward to providing support to practices as they seek to implement GP commissioning locally."
Again I bet Dr Johnny's excitement knows no bounds as he is a private GP backing David Cameron and his company, not for profit organisation NAPC, is suddenly a benefacto in the "new" KMPG partnership for commissioning! Incidentally, not for profit organisations do not stop their chairmen and executives from receiving huge salaries and every conceivable company perk imaginable!
Question 4 - While still in opposition, how much of his reforms has Andrew Lansley previous discussed with people like Gary Belfield and Mark Britnell? And companies like KMPG; NAPC; UnitedHealth UK? And drug companies like GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca and private healthcare companies like Care UK and Healthcare UK?
Question 5: - Has Andrew Lansley been in discussion with companies that offer private health insurance?
Question 6: - Has Andrew Lansley and George Osborne ever had discussions about waiving all, or part of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for people choosing to opt out of the NHS and go private?
UnitedHealth UK: is the UK subsidiary of the large American organisation UnitedHealthcare. UnitedHealth UK is now part of the KMPG Partnership for GP Commissioning, now aiming to cash in on millions of pounds of NHS money. UnitedHealthcare has repeatedly cheated the US health system in the past decade.
UnitedHealth UK is set to advise and run GPs' services under controversial plans announced by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and prime minister David Cameron. UnitedHealthcare was fined tens of millions of dollars for fixing charges in 2009 alone.
In a catalogue of cheating UnitedHealthcare paid over £1million in 2000 in nine states for offences including overcharging and denying treatment.
UnitedHealthcare was featured in Michael Moore’s health docu-movie Sicko, in which he claimed 18,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford to pay insurance.
Morgan Cole: Has links to a Conservative MEP
Ashley Fox is a British Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing the South West of England.
He was elected to the European Parliament in June 2009. As a British Conservative he is a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). He sits on the Internal Market Committee where he takes a particular interest in the Aerospace and Pharmaceutical Industries.
Before being elected as a MEP Ashley worked for 15 years as a Solicitor in Bristol, specialising in Insurance Litigation. He was a Partner at Badhams Thompson and an Associate at Morgan Cole.
Within these large political donations to the Conservative party, there is the strong proclivity for conflict of interests to develop. We have already read about Stuart Wheeler who has donated millions to the Tory party virtually admitting that large donations influence policy etc. How can we allow a situation where those that are giving advice, in terms of commissioning advice, are also potential providers and benefactors of large NHS contracts? (This also applies to education) Without a shadow of a doubt there is a massive conflict of interests that is developing with the Conservative party/government, whereby all these accountancy companies, and health care providers, and services that have already been, and will be awarded contracts within the NHS, some have already been found to have given large donations of cash and "free" services to the Conservative party prior to this White paper!
If the dubious practices I have outlined above are not worrying enough, we are now being governed by a dangerous government of plutocratic morons. They seem to have no idea what they are doing, when asked to explain, both the Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, are risible and lacking in any form of coherent replies, if we are seeking reassurance about the future of this country's NHS, we are not going to get it from the Tory led government of plutocratic buffoons and nincompoops, who plainly see nothing wrong with having these ties to companies that want to take the most lucrative parts of the NHS over - for good!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Tory "Donorgate" - John Nash - NHS - Care UK - Sovereign Capital - Hedge Fund
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| Andrew Lansley & Tory Donor John Nash |
John Nash - sold the majority of his shares in Care UK to a private equity company, but is retained as a consultant for Care UK. Mr Nash runs several other companies (see last paragraph) and is also the boss of a hedge fund. Hedge funds are speculative funds which make large bets on market movements. They utilise borrowed money to substantially leverage their returns (and losses). During the the global financial crash, hedge "funders" made billions out failing banks and short selling in the UK. People were suffering losing their jobs, livelihoods, having their homes repossessed and their loans called in by banks, and men like John Nash and many other Conservative donors were making millions out of their suffering. People like the New York billionaire John Paulson , have come under fire for short-selling UK bank shares, like HBOS.
Mr Nash also ran several other firms that provide services to the NHS and stands to gain massively from Tory plans to increase the role of private sector involvement in the NHS.
Care UK is one of the largest independent providers of health and social care services. The company has worked in close proximity with local authorities, strategical heath authorities (SHAs) and primary care trusts (PCTs). Care UK provides healthcare services which include the running of NHS walk-in centres, GP surgeries, children's specialist care services and treatment centres.
In his speech on the Tory plans for radical reform of the NHS, David Cameron said that they had been preparing for this for years while in opposition. If this is so, then why did he continually tell the British people that the NHS was safe in his hands, and that the Tories had "no plans for top-down reorganisation of the NHS"?
By his very own admission in an unguarded moment when trying to sell these disastrous reforms, Cameron let it slip that he lied to the British people and completely and deliberately mislead them. He lied in order to procure votes and that has to be voter fraud. If the court maintains that Labour's Phil Woolas lied and he had to lose his seat, then so should David Cameron. Why is he being allowed to get away with lying like this? This was not a little lie, it was a huge lie to obtain votes under deception.
Exactly how much of the Tory plans to abolish all 10 SHAs and all 152 PCTs and completely dismantle the NHS, did Tory donor John Nash know before the election?
While Nash was still chairman of Care UK he and his wife donated £21.000 to Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's office to help Lansley fight the general election when he was in opposition.
Over the past five years John Nash and wife Caroline have given £203,500 to the Conservative party in cash donations.
Andrew Lansley has been accused of a direct conflict of interest because Care UK makes 96 per cent of its money from the NHS and operates on a £400 million turnover from the NHS.
In 2008, Parliament's sleaze watchdog Sir John Lyon found that a string of senior Conservatives had accepted money from businesses with a vested interest in their political portfolios.
Nash is a businessman who ALSO regularly invests in private education companies, has praised the Tory reforms for the NHS in official Care UK company documents.
This not only brings Health secretary Andrew Lansley's judgement and honesty into question, it once again brings into question the prime minster David Cameron's judgement and crucially his honesty and integrity and all three have been found sorely lacking.
Another millionaire backer of the Tories, Stuart Wheeler, who has donated around £3.5 million, said it was inconceivable to think that large party "donees" did not have influence over ministers and policy making, so we can safely assume from that statement that he himself has had influence over ministers and policy making in the past.
The British people are entitled to know about the impact that these massive financial donations to the Tories have had and are still having on Conservative health policy.
David Cameron came to power promising us a "new politics" and "open and transparent government", we have seen little of that, if any at all, in just eight months this Tory led government have turned out to be more corrupt and sleaze ridden than the Labour government were in its entire 13 years.
Especially when this week we learn that Care UK which John Nash is involved with has been awarded a £53m NHS prison health contract.
The contract, awarded by the North-East Offender Health Commissioning Unit, has been awarded to Care UK rather than current NHS providers. Until the contract was put out to tender last year, the primary health care service for 5,000 inmates at eight North- East prisons and young offender establishments was provided by more than 400 NHS staff.
So I guess that is 400 staff facing redundancy, or having their contracts and pay downgraded by Care UK. This company is offering cut price services and conditions.
All part of the Tory government's plan to lower UK living standards and lower the wage bill of their Tory donor friends.
Andrew Lansley is handing the £80bn NHS budget over to the private sector, creating the conditions for wholesale privatisation of the NHS, and private healthcare bosses are lining up and salivating at the prospect of making huge profits from public money.
At the time the Lib Dems slammed the payments made by Nash and his wife to Andrew Lansley as a “staggering conflict of interest”.However, now the Liberal Democrats are in bed with the Tories they are now totally ignoring this and helping the Tories vote the decimation of our NHS through parliament.
How times change!
And look who Michael Gove Education secretary appointed on the Department for Education Board, as part of a drive to improve governance across Whitehall, they will be given real powers and can even remove the permanent secretary!
"John Nash's private equity firm Sovereign Capital owned leading British private schools firm Alpha Plus and special needs school operator SENAD until a few years ago.
Sovereign has sold these education businesses on, but it uses them to advertise its continuing interest in private schools investment.
Nash's firm still owns international private schools firm WCL. He is a specialist in privatisation generally, with investments in companies like DC Leisure, which runs swimming pools for local authorities, training firm Paragon and a variety of care home investments.
His company DC Leisure recently took Bristol Council to court, successfully demanding a payoff after the local authority decided not to go ahead with the firm's PFI deal. "
I am wondering if the private equity firm "Sovereign Capital" that John Nash owns is the same "private equity company" that he sold the majority of his Care UK shares to?
_______________________________________________________
Tory "Donorgate" - A Comprehensive List!
What influence will all the health care companies, the accountancy firms
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| David Cameron & Tories Bankrolled By Companies Set To Make Millions Out Of NHS Contracts Awarded By Government After Radical NHS Reforms |
, insurance companies and the big banks and hedge funders etc, who all donate millions to the Tory Party have on Tory policy? On our lives, these are unelected big business, banks and newspaper barons, that are dictating the way we live our lives. Below is a list, a must read, any you see I have left off please post and I will research them and add them on, this is important, this is an outright threat to our democracy, our NHS, our jobs etc. You cannot trust this government, they have blatantly lied, connived, deliberate mislead the us, stole our votes fraudulently, let's kick them out BEFORE they do much more damage and BEFORE they privatise our NHS.
It is naive to think that all these people donate millions of pounds to the Conservative party and want nothing back in return, of course they do. Stuart Wheeler who has donated millions of pounds to the Tories even admits this. (See below)
NHS
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's restructuring of the NHS will be as music to the ears of private healthcare companies – many owned by private equity firms who have made generous donations to the Tory party in the recent past.
How much influence do big money donors hope to buy with their money?
As former multi-millionaire Tory donor who has donated millions to the Conservatives Stuart Wheeler says, "absolutely natural and unobjectionable" for big donors to gain influence over policy".
So we can presume from his statement that Mr Wheeler has in fact gained influence from the Conservative party/government, in return for his donations?
In just eight short months many of the private healthcare companies have donated over three quarters of a million pounds (£750.000) to the Conservative party, these are companies that are set to cash in on the Tory led government's plans to totally gut the NHS.
Under the Tories’ total dismantling and destruction of the health service, despite protests, GPs will be forced to take charge of the purse strings of the £80 billion budget. It could mean private firms land multi-million-pound contracts as hard-pressed family doctors hire them to deal with other parts of the service and handle the accounts. There are fears those companies will end up buying services like operations and hospital care from the private sector under "any willing provider" instead of buying care from the NHS under the present preferred provider scheme. The NHS will become just another part of the "any willing provider" system. Under Lansley's plans, hospitals will be allowed to provide unlimited private care, where any "willing provider" will be able to deliver services.
With competition law now set to be enforced, NHS hospitals will have no more right to carry out NHS operations than private healthcare firms.
This is already happening under NHS Direct pilot schemes where the service has been renamed NHS 111 and already these pilot schemes are reporting and sharp increase in the number of people being sent to Accident & Emergency Services, as untrained staff feel unable to make a judgement call on patients ringing the service. (Medically trained operators are being replaced with people who have undergone just 72 hours training)
GPs are, generally speaking, neither managers nor accountants. As a result, other "winners" will be private management consultants such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and McKinsey, who also anticipate huge income from Lansley's restructuring.
Tory Donors and the NHS
Lord Blyth - Boots Chemists deputy chairman. Tory Donor. Stands to gain from the break up and privatisation of the NHS wants to buy the Walk in Centres.
UK Pharmaceutical Industry Courting the Conservative party -
The UK pharmaceutical industry has also begun gearing up for a change in government, as drug companies have been reshuffling their public affairs teams and courting the Conservative party. The American Pharmaceutical Group handed public affairs briefs to Hanover Communications, who also represents National Health Service (NHS) cancer screening departments, and in December 2009 hosted a meeting on the Conservatives’ approach to regulating business.
John Nash - Hedge fund boss is one of the major Conservative donors with close ties to the healthcare industry.
John Nash and wife Caroline gave £203,500 to the party over the past five years.
Andrew Lansley also accepted a £21,000 donation for his private office from John Nash, chairman of Care UK.
Mr Nash STILL continues to work as a consultant to the firm, which provides walk-in centres, GP surgeries and other specialist services, after selling his majority stake to a private equity firm last year.
Lansley has been accused of a direct conflict of interest because Care UK makes 96 per cent of its money from the NHS.
At the time the Lib Dems slammed the payments as a “staggering conflict of interest”.
Now the Liberal Democrats are totally ignoring this and helping the Tories vote the decimation of our NHS through parliament.
MORE than a year after a company chairman’s wife donated £21,000 to the office of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the same company has been awarded a £53m NHS prison health contract.
The contract, awarded by the North-East Offender Health Commissioning Unit, has been awarded to Care UK rather than current NHS providers.
Private Health Care - companies had donated £750,000 to the Tory party, asking: Doesn't the Prime Minister see the conflict of interest in this?
Sir Peter Gershon - Chair of Healthcare UK and whose company stands to benefit millions from NHS cuts, which Sir Peter himself helped the Tories to draw up! If ever there was a clear cut case of conflict of interests this is it.
Ryan Robson - Major Tory donor who has given the party £252,429.45 his company invests in numerous private healthcare firms including Choice and Christchurch Court, which provide specialist and residential care.
His donations included £50,000 to be a member of the party’s “Leader’s Group”, a secretive cash-for-access club. The would-be MP, who tried but failed to get selected as the election candidate in Bracknell, is managing partner at Sovereign Capital.
Dolar Popat - Nursing and care home tycoon has given the Conservatives £209,000.
Has amassed an estimated £42million fortune as founder and chief of TLC Group, which provides services for the elderly.
Mr Cameron made the businessman a peer shortly after entering No10 last May, and Lord Popat’s donations include a £25,000 gift registered a week after the Tories’ health reforms were unveiled last July.
Sir Christopher Gent - non-executive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, (drug company) has given £113,400 to the Conservative Party.
IC Technology- which provides computer services to the NHS, has handed the Tories £70,000 over the past two years.
Philip Scott - chief of the Priory Group, has donated £20,000.
The famous Priory Clinic is private but Mr Scott has revealed in the past most of its income comes from NHS or local council referrals.
The Trichological Clinic Limited - which operates out of Harrods has handed balding David Cameron and the Tories £10,000 last year.
Senior Tories - who helped formulate the party’s health policy in Opposition have had links to private health care and health insurance firms.
Julian Schild - When in opposition Shadow minister Stephen O’Brien’s office received three payments totalling £40,000 from Julian Schild. Mr Schild’s family made £184million in 2006 by selling hospital bed-makers Huntleigh Technology.
BUPA - Mark Simmonds MP - A second shadow health minister Mark Simmonds accepted a US trip to Boston worth £4,512 from private health provider BUPA.
Lord McColl of Dulwich - Tory health spokesman in the Lords, is a consultant of Endeavour Healthcare. David cameron has previously defended Lord McColl of Dulwich, after it emerged that the peer is a paid consultant to a new private healthcare company that provides a paid-for rival to the NHS's GP service.
Dr Mark Lloyd-Davies - Defeated Prospective Tory MP for Bristol South.
Would have made a valuable addition to the Conservatives’ pharma-friendly team. According to the Conservative website: “Mark is the UK head of the pharmaceutical government affairs and communications team in the world's largest healthcare company [Sanofi-Aventis], so he’s already familiar with the workings of Westminster.”
It is naive to think that all these people donate millions of pounds to the Conservative party and want nothing back in return, of course they do. Stuart Wheeler who has donated millions of pounds to the Tories even admits this. (See below)
NHS
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's restructuring of the NHS will be as music to the ears of private healthcare companies – many owned by private equity firms who have made generous donations to the Tory party in the recent past.
How much influence do big money donors hope to buy with their money?
As former multi-millionaire Tory donor who has donated millions to the Conservatives Stuart Wheeler says, "absolutely natural and unobjectionable" for big donors to gain influence over policy".
So we can presume from his statement that Mr Wheeler has in fact gained influence from the Conservative party/government, in return for his donations?
In just eight short months many of the private healthcare companies have donated over three quarters of a million pounds (£750.000) to the Conservative party, these are companies that are set to cash in on the Tory led government's plans to totally gut the NHS.
Under the Tories’ total dismantling and destruction of the health service, despite protests, GPs will be forced to take charge of the purse strings of the £80 billion budget. It could mean private firms land multi-million-pound contracts as hard-pressed family doctors hire them to deal with other parts of the service and handle the accounts. There are fears those companies will end up buying services like operations and hospital care from the private sector under "any willing provider" instead of buying care from the NHS under the present preferred provider scheme. The NHS will become just another part of the "any willing provider" system. Under Lansley's plans, hospitals will be allowed to provide unlimited private care, where any "willing provider" will be able to deliver services.
With competition law now set to be enforced, NHS hospitals will have no more right to carry out NHS operations than private healthcare firms.
This is already happening under NHS Direct pilot schemes where the service has been renamed NHS 111 and already these pilot schemes are reporting and sharp increase in the number of people being sent to Accident & Emergency Services, as untrained staff feel unable to make a judgement call on patients ringing the service. (Medically trained operators are being replaced with people who have undergone just 72 hours training)
GPs are, generally speaking, neither managers nor accountants. As a result, other "winners" will be private management consultants such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and McKinsey, who also anticipate huge income from Lansley's restructuring.
Tory Donors and the NHS
Lord Blyth - Boots Chemists deputy chairman. Tory Donor. Stands to gain from the break up and privatisation of the NHS wants to buy the Walk in Centres.
UK Pharmaceutical Industry Courting the Conservative party -
The UK pharmaceutical industry has also begun gearing up for a change in government, as drug companies have been reshuffling their public affairs teams and courting the Conservative party. The American Pharmaceutical Group handed public affairs briefs to Hanover Communications, who also represents National Health Service (NHS) cancer screening departments, and in December 2009 hosted a meeting on the Conservatives’ approach to regulating business.
John Nash - Hedge fund boss is one of the major Conservative donors with close ties to the healthcare industry.
John Nash and wife Caroline gave £203,500 to the party over the past five years.
Andrew Lansley also accepted a £21,000 donation for his private office from John Nash, chairman of Care UK.
Mr Nash STILL continues to work as a consultant to the firm, which provides walk-in centres, GP surgeries and other specialist services, after selling his majority stake to a private equity firm last year.
Lansley has been accused of a direct conflict of interest because Care UK makes 96 per cent of its money from the NHS.
At the time the Lib Dems slammed the payments as a “staggering conflict of interest”.
Now the Liberal Democrats are totally ignoring this and helping the Tories vote the decimation of our NHS through parliament.
MORE than a year after a company chairman’s wife donated £21,000 to the office of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, the same company has been awarded a £53m NHS prison health contract.
The contract, awarded by the North-East Offender Health Commissioning Unit, has been awarded to Care UK rather than current NHS providers.
Private Health Care - companies had donated £750,000 to the Tory party, asking: Doesn't the Prime Minister see the conflict of interest in this?
Sir Peter Gershon - Chair of Healthcare UK and whose company stands to benefit millions from NHS cuts, which Sir Peter himself helped the Tories to draw up! If ever there was a clear cut case of conflict of interests this is it.
Ryan Robson - Major Tory donor who has given the party £252,429.45 his company invests in numerous private healthcare firms including Choice and Christchurch Court, which provide specialist and residential care.
His donations included £50,000 to be a member of the party’s “Leader’s Group”, a secretive cash-for-access club. The would-be MP, who tried but failed to get selected as the election candidate in Bracknell, is managing partner at Sovereign Capital.
Dolar Popat - Nursing and care home tycoon has given the Conservatives £209,000.
Has amassed an estimated £42million fortune as founder and chief of TLC Group, which provides services for the elderly.
Mr Cameron made the businessman a peer shortly after entering No10 last May, and Lord Popat’s donations include a £25,000 gift registered a week after the Tories’ health reforms were unveiled last July.
Sir Christopher Gent - non-executive chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, (drug company) has given £113,400 to the Conservative Party.
IC Technology- which provides computer services to the NHS, has handed the Tories £70,000 over the past two years.
Philip Scott - chief of the Priory Group, has donated £20,000.
The famous Priory Clinic is private but Mr Scott has revealed in the past most of its income comes from NHS or local council referrals.
The Trichological Clinic Limited - which operates out of Harrods has handed balding David Cameron and the Tories £10,000 last year.
Senior Tories - who helped formulate the party’s health policy in Opposition have had links to private health care and health insurance firms.
Julian Schild - When in opposition Shadow minister Stephen O’Brien’s office received three payments totalling £40,000 from Julian Schild. Mr Schild’s family made £184million in 2006 by selling hospital bed-makers Huntleigh Technology.
BUPA - Mark Simmonds MP - A second shadow health minister Mark Simmonds accepted a US trip to Boston worth £4,512 from private health provider BUPA.
Lord McColl of Dulwich - Tory health spokesman in the Lords, is a consultant of Endeavour Healthcare. David cameron has previously defended Lord McColl of Dulwich, after it emerged that the peer is a paid consultant to a new private healthcare company that provides a paid-for rival to the NHS's GP service.
Dr Mark Lloyd-Davies - Defeated Prospective Tory MP for Bristol South.
Would have made a valuable addition to the Conservatives’ pharma-friendly team. According to the Conservative website: “Mark is the UK head of the pharmaceutical government affairs and communications team in the world's largest healthcare company [Sanofi-Aventis], so he’s already familiar with the workings of Westminster.”
Mr Heathcoat-Amory- FORMER Tory MP for Wells and a former Treasury minister, registered a payment of "£1,671.08 and health benefit to the value of £86.17" in July from Western Provident Association, which provides private medical insurance policies.
The former MP also worked as a non-executive director for the firm, which pays him around £20,000 a year, as well as his former duties as a constituency MP.
Helen Whately - Former Conservative parliamentary candidate has shrugged off any suggestion of a conflict of interest, after it emerged she works for the same consultants helping draw up plans which could see the A+E or maternity unit at Kingston Hospital removed.
Her website states she works as a management consultant specialising in healthcare, mainly in the NHS but does not mention her employer McKinsey.
Aventis Pharma -
Andrew Lansley and Simon Burns attended an oncology conference in the US paid for by Aventis Pharma.
Norbrook Pharmaceuticals - Millions of pounds donated to the Tories by Norbrook Pharmaceuticals, which boasts its mission is to "aggressively expand" its healthcare business.
Johnson & Johnson - Tory register reveals donations from a lobbying group that works for Johnson & Johnson, the US multi-national health and hygiene corporation.
London Secure Services - Mr Lansley has also registered a donation from London Secure Services, a care firm that sparked outrage after it ran up £1.24million in debts and made its staff redundant with two hours notice.
Banker and Hedge Fund Tory Donors
Henry Angest - Flowidea Ltd Arbuthnot Banking Group Plc £1,347, 600
Zac and Ben Goldsmith - The world's most famous banking dynasty. The Conservative party hid donations of £40,000 from from Zac Goldsmith, his brother Ben and two billionaire brothers in an apparent breach of the law.
The donations were recorded on official records as coming from Unicorn Administration, an intermediary company that helps run the finances of the super-rich.
Stanly Fink... Co-treasurer, Conservative Party, is apparently "the Godfather" of the hedge fund industry and runs hedge fund International Standard Asset Management .
David Cameron - has taken millions of pounds in donations from hedge-fund managers whose firms made fortunes taking bets that the share price in British banks would fall. Donors are entitled to attend intimate suppers with Cameron.
These intimate suppers were held at Cameron's House of Commons offices but after being criticised by the standards watchdog they now take place outside parliament.
Michael Hintze ...Head of CQS, who has given £662,500 and whose organisation shorted shares in Bradford and Bingley.
Paul Ruddock... Chief Executive Landsdowne Hedge Fund said to have made £100m short-selling Northern Rock, has given the Conservatives almost £210,000.
David Craigen...who has donated £50,000. Paul Ruddock and David Craigen own investment firm, Lansdowne, and short sold shares in HBOS.
Howard Shore - A multi-millionaire banker and Tory donor Raising £2 million for the Tory party is sponsoring David Cameron’s lavish £1,000-a-head Tory ball next week (Feb 2011) Mr Shore will be one of dozens of super-rich bankers toasting the Government’s failure to make a major dent in their £7billion bonuses. The star guests will be Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne.
Premier tickets for the event cost £1,000 each, or £10,000 for a table. The cheapest seats for less well-heeled Tories are £400 a head or £4,000 a table. Up to 1,200 people, including regulars Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha, will attend next Monday’s bash in South London, which aims to raise £2million for the Party.
RF Trustee Co - Several donors, but five of these belonged to the Fleming Banking Family. £1, 689, 500
Accountancy Giants
Accountancy giants KMPG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Grant Thornton have donated to the Conservative party the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash and non-cash donations such as staff secondments and consultancy services.
KPMG - Donated over £400.000 to Tories
Pricewaterhouse Coopers - Donated over £500.000 This company anticipates huge income from Andrew Lansley's radical restructuring of the NHS.
Deloitte - £400,000 worth of non-cash services from Deloitte since 2005
Grant Thornton - made a non-cash donation of £15,000 over the same period
It is no surprise that these companies gave around £1 million in staff time to the Tory party, pre-election, to help get them into power! Question that *MUST* be asked, if this is so, then these companies MUST have known what the Cameron, Lansley and the Tories were intending to do with the NHS. Which PROVES that Cameron, Osborne and Lansley were LYING and gaining votes under false pretenses! Remember Cameron said; "there will be no more top down reorganisation of the NHS"
All these companies benefited from the government's decision to close down the Audit Commission, the public spending quango.
The Tories went on accepting almost £100,000 worth of donations from the disgraced tax exile more than a year after they said he had stopped supporting them financially.
Seeming to be seen as a guardian of public health, Lansley wants the makers of fattening foods to pay for adverts highlighting the dangers of obesity, whilst at the same ensuring that the regulation of their unhealthy foods will become even lighter thanks to his abolition of the Food Standards Agency.
Law Firms
DLA Piper/Nick Clegg/Francis Maude - Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, today defended the government after it emerged that the law firm where the deputy prime minster's wife works has a long-standing contract with his department.
Maude said it would be "ridiculous" to debar companies whose employees are related to ministers after criticism over the Cabinet Office paying the legal firm that employs Miriam González Durántez £88,000 this year.
Spread Betting
Michael Spencer - Chief Executive IPG Ltd Intercaptial Private Group £3,832,400 Billionaire Oxford alumnus and founder of ICAP, one of the world’s biggest brokers. He is also the party’s co-treasurer, owns the spreadbetting firm City Index and has other business interests. He has raised millions for the Conservative party.
Stuart Wheeler - in the past has given £3.933. 300 said it is "absolutely natural and unobjectionable" for big donors to gain influence over policy. "Fairness isn't the be all and end all." (So we can assume that Stuart Wheeler is gaining influence in the Tory party for his mega bucks?)
Michael-Alen Buckley - Chairman, RAB Capital
Founded the hedge fund with Phillip Richards on 1 April 1999. The company was floated in 2004. Has donated to the Tory party
Zac and Ben Goldsmith - The world's most famous banking dynasty. The Conservative party hid donations of £40,000 from from Zac Goldsmith, his brother Ben and two billionaire brothers in an apparent breach of the law.
The donations were recorded on official records as coming from Unicorn Administration, an intermediary company that helps run the finances of the super-rich.
Stanly Fink... Co-treasurer, Conservative Party, is apparently "the Godfather" of the hedge fund industry and runs hedge fund International Standard Asset Management .
Wants to raise £40m to “blow Labour out of the water” by the end of 2009. (he didn't succeed) Recently left Man Group and started ISAM, another hedge fund. A keen philanthropist who backs three academy schools, he is a multimillionaire and a big Tory party donor
Fink also a key donor to the Boris Johnson mayoral campaign he donated more than £1 million to the Tories in the run up to the 2010 general election. David Cameron - has taken millions of pounds in donations from hedge-fund managers whose firms made fortunes taking bets that the share price in British banks would fall. Donors are entitled to attend intimate suppers with Cameron.
These intimate suppers were held at Cameron's House of Commons offices but after being criticised by the standards watchdog they now take place outside parliament.
Jeremy Isaacs - Heads his own investment firm
Stepped down from running Lehman Brothers’ European operations just before the crash. Now runs his own investment firm with ex-colleague Roger Nagioff, who was head of Lehmans’ fixed income division. Has been a big Conservative party donor.
Michael Hintze ...Head of CQS, who has given £662,500 and whose organisation shorted shares in Bradford and Bingley.
This multi-millionaire philanthropist manages a hedge fund worth £4.5bn. He has given about £20m to charity and is worth £250m. Caught up in the cash for honours scandal when he revealed he had given the Tory party about £1m and loaned them £2.5m more.
Paul Ruddock... Chief Executive Landsdowne Hedge Fund said to have made £100m short-selling Northern Rock, has given the Conservatives almost £210,000.
David Craigen...who has donated £50,000. Paul Ruddock and David Craigen own investment firm, Lansdowne, and short sold shares in HBOS.
Premier tickets for the event cost £1,000 each, or £10,000 for a table. The cheapest seats for less well-heeled Tories are £400 a head or £4,000 a table. Up to 1,200 people, including regulars Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha, will attend next Monday’s bash in South London, which aims to raise £2million for the Party.
RF Trustee Co - Several donors, but five of these belonged to the Fleming Banking Family. £1, 689, 500
Simon Dingemans - Goldman Sachs
A mergers and acquisitions banker, Mr Dingemans has handled deals worth £250bn and is one of the most highly paid in the City. Called in by BAA to plot a defence against Ferrovial’s takeover bid but was beaten by Citigroup, adviser to the Spanish conglomerate.
Pierre Rolin - Credit Suisse Mr Rolin gave £12,000 to the Tory Party in February last year, taking his total donations to £88,000. He also moved in the same circles as Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, giving his office the initial £80,000 capital for a study into the Olympic Park's new visitor attraction . Mr Rolin is currently being pursued through the courts by creditors for £43 million.
Prominent figures from the financial services industry - gave £500,000 (€574,838) to the UK's Conservative Party in the second week of the General Election campaign, amounting to nearly a quarter of all of donations to the opposition party.
Pierre Rolin - Credit Suisse Mr Rolin gave £12,000 to the Tory Party in February last year, taking his total donations to £88,000. He also moved in the same circles as Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, giving his office the initial £80,000 capital for a study into the Olympic Park's new visitor attraction . Mr Rolin is currently being pursued through the courts by creditors for £43 million.
Prominent figures from the financial services industry - gave £500,000 (€574,838) to the UK's Conservative Party in the second week of the General Election campaign, amounting to nearly a quarter of all of donations to the opposition party.
Accountancy Giants
Accountancy giants KMPG, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Grant Thornton have donated to the Conservative party the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash and non-cash donations such as staff secondments and consultancy services.
KPMG - Donated over £400.000 to Tories
Pricewaterhouse Coopers - Donated over £500.000 This company anticipates huge income from Andrew Lansley's radical restructuring of the NHS.
Deloitte - £400,000 worth of non-cash services from Deloitte since 2005
Grant Thornton - made a non-cash donation of £15,000 over the same period
It is no surprise that these companies gave around £1 million in staff time to the Tory party, pre-election, to help get them into power! Question that *MUST* be asked, if this is so, then these companies MUST have known what the Cameron, Lansley and the Tories were intending to do with the NHS. Which PROVES that Cameron, Osborne and Lansley were LYING and gaining votes under false pretenses! Remember Cameron said; "there will be no more top down reorganisation of the NHS"
All these companies benefited from the government's decision to close down the Audit Commission, the public spending quango.
The Tories went on accepting almost £100,000 worth of donations from the disgraced tax exile more than a year after they said he had stopped supporting them financially.
Seeming to be seen as a guardian of public health, Lansley wants the makers of fattening foods to pay for adverts highlighting the dangers of obesity, whilst at the same ensuring that the regulation of their unhealthy foods will become even lighter thanks to his abolition of the Food Standards Agency.
Law Firms
DLA Piper/Nick Clegg/Francis Maude - Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, today defended the government after it emerged that the law firm where the deputy prime minster's wife works has a long-standing contract with his department.
Maude said it would be "ridiculous" to debar companies whose employees are related to ministers after criticism over the Cabinet Office paying the legal firm that employs Miriam González Durántez £88,000 this year.
Spread Betting
Michael Spencer - Chief Executive IPG Ltd Intercaptial Private Group £3,832,400 Billionaire Oxford alumnus and founder of ICAP, one of the world’s biggest brokers. He is also the party’s co-treasurer, owns the spreadbetting firm City Index and has other business interests. He has raised millions for the Conservative party.
Stuart Wheeler - in the past has given £3.933. 300 said it is "absolutely natural and unobjectionable" for big donors to gain influence over policy. "Fairness isn't the be all and end all." (So we can assume that Stuart Wheeler is gaining influence in the Tory party for his mega bucks?)
Dodgy Arms Deals Tory Donors
May Makhzoumi - gave £50.000 to Tories on the eve of the election, the Tories received large donations from the wives of two controversial Middle Eastern businessmen linked to arms deals. Data from the Electoral Commission showed May Makhzoumi gave the Tories £50,000 a week before the election. Her billionaire Lebanese husband, Fouad, was involved in a weapons deal scandal that brought down the former Tory defence minister, Jonathan Aitken.
Rosemary Said - £50,000 donation was recorded a week earlier from Rosemary Said, the wife of Wafic Said. Mr Said was linked to a deal between BAE and Saudi Arabia, which was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office following allegations of bribery. Mr Said, born in Syria, is barred from making donations to British political parties as he is not deemed to be a British resident. He has denied distributing commissions to members of the Saudi royal family.
Big Business Tory Donors
Andrew Cook - Mr Cook donated £500,000 to the Conservative party, along with the £54,000 worth of plane flights to David Cameron largest donor in Yorkshire and caused uproar when it emerged that Cook had successfully lobbied to prevent Sheffield Forgemasters from getting a government loan, which remains a highly controversial issue - Nick Clegg deliberately mislead the House over this issue.
The man who donated almost £750,000 in cash and flights to Cameron's campaign started an email "I am the largest donor to the conservative party" and then went on to call for the loan to Forgemasters to be axed.
Downing Street are unable to confirm if Cameron was personally lobbied.
Question; Why? It is in the public interest, possible corruption of our government always is!
Six more questions spring to mind
1. Why was Forgemasters loan cancelled when other loans to business weren't?
2. Was Cameron lobbied by Andrew Cook, the owner of a rival company to Sheffield Forgemasters and who has made several unsuccessful bids to buy the company in the past?
3. And was Mr Cook, the Tory donor, present on any one of the 23 flights David Cameron accepted from him?
4. Why was the loan refused, when it so obviously more than met the criteria Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Vince Cable (remember him?) set to try and grow British manufacturing jobs?
5. And what an earth was Nick Clegg doing allowing this to happen in his own back yard?
6. And has Nick Clegg been reprimanded for deliberately misleading the House of Commons?
David Ross - Founder, Carphone Warehouse
Aidan Heavey - chief executive of Tullow Oil, has donated £5,500.
Reuben Brothers - £14,390 came from the Reuben brothers, property developers and aluminium tycoons who made a fortune in Russia
May Makhzoumi - gave £50.000 to Tories on the eve of the election, the Tories received large donations from the wives of two controversial Middle Eastern businessmen linked to arms deals. Data from the Electoral Commission showed May Makhzoumi gave the Tories £50,000 a week before the election. Her billionaire Lebanese husband, Fouad, was involved in a weapons deal scandal that brought down the former Tory defence minister, Jonathan Aitken.
Rosemary Said - £50,000 donation was recorded a week earlier from Rosemary Said, the wife of Wafic Said. Mr Said was linked to a deal between BAE and Saudi Arabia, which was investigated by the Serious Fraud Office following allegations of bribery. Mr Said, born in Syria, is barred from making donations to British political parties as he is not deemed to be a British resident. He has denied distributing commissions to members of the Saudi royal family.
Big Business Tory Donors
Andrew Cook - Mr Cook donated £500,000 to the Conservative party, along with the £54,000 worth of plane flights to David Cameron largest donor in Yorkshire and caused uproar when it emerged that Cook had successfully lobbied to prevent Sheffield Forgemasters from getting a government loan, which remains a highly controversial issue - Nick Clegg deliberately mislead the House over this issue.
The man who donated almost £750,000 in cash and flights to Cameron's campaign started an email "I am the largest donor to the conservative party" and then went on to call for the loan to Forgemasters to be axed.
Downing Street are unable to confirm if Cameron was personally lobbied.
Question; Why? It is in the public interest, possible corruption of our government always is!
Six more questions spring to mind
1. Why was Forgemasters loan cancelled when other loans to business weren't?
2. Was Cameron lobbied by Andrew Cook, the owner of a rival company to Sheffield Forgemasters and who has made several unsuccessful bids to buy the company in the past?
3. And was Mr Cook, the Tory donor, present on any one of the 23 flights David Cameron accepted from him?
4. Why was the loan refused, when it so obviously more than met the criteria Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Vince Cable (remember him?) set to try and grow British manufacturing jobs?
5. And what an earth was Nick Clegg doing allowing this to happen in his own back yard?
6. And has Nick Clegg been reprimanded for deliberately misleading the House of Commons?
Quit as London Mayor Boris Johnson’s aide after he used £120m of his company’s shares to back personal loans. The ex-public schoolboy, who has donated more than £150,000 to the Tories, is a friend of Lord Marland the ex-party treasurer Former Carphone Warehouse Tory donor and a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron, has endured a tumultuous recession and was forced to stand down from the boards of Carphone and a number of other firms after it emerged he used shares to back investments in commercial property.
Simon Wolfson - Next boss given the party £293,000 and is understood to be pivotal in encouraging business figures to sign a letter opposing Labour's plan to increase National Insurance. The letter, released during the election campaign, provided a major boost for the Tories. AWARDED A PEERAGE BY DAVID CAMERON! (The NI rise was held back for bosses but employees had to pay increased contributions - another lie from Cameron.)
Hunter Boots - which is owned by Tory minister and long-term donor to the Conservative Party Lord Marland. Prime Minister David Cameron gave two pairs of Hunter wellies to President Barack Obama's daughters Malia and Sasha. (Bet Cameron did NOT pay for them!)Reuben Brothers - £14,390 came from the Reuben brothers, property developers and aluminium tycoons who made a fortune in Russia
David Rowland.... David Cameron asked David Rowland to become party Treasurer, despite Rowlands past shady deals, Cameron was later forced to rescind the offer but not before he took £137.000 off of David Rowland, just weeks before Rowland was forced to step down as Tory party treasurer. Further, Rowland 65, gave the Tories a cash injection of £2.7 million in the run up to the 2010 general election.
The Bamford Family - JCB Researchers/World Brands £3, 898,900
Robert Edmiston - IM Properties International Motors Ltd £3, 274, 200
He was questioned by detectives about the secret loan deal that he struck with the Conservative Party which had the effect of circumventing the law that requires all donations of £5,000 or more to be made public.
Midlands Industrial Council - (plus individual members) have donated £3, 135,500. Has also in three years given £950,000 to 50 constituency parties including Mr Cameron’s, which received £5,500.
Most of the members of the MIC, which is registered to a terraced house in a Lincolnshire village, are anonymous.
The MIC gives £1 million a year to Constituency Campaigning Services, a support centre for Tory candidates, at Coleshill Manor, a Midlands country house. Mr Edmiston, a key member of MIC, owns Coleshill Manor. He was not available for comment.
Mr Cameron, challenged on the BBC One Sunday AM programme (Oct 1 2006)about the confidential backers of the MIC, said that he knew the identity of them because he had met them. But the party said later that it would continue to withhold their identities. It is taking advantage of a loophole in election law which means that the membership list can remain confidential because MIC is an unincorporated association.
The Coleshill Manor centre was described by Conservative Central Office as independent of the party and registered with the Electoral Commission as a “regulated donee”. Mr Cameron contradicted that yesterday when he said Coleshill Manor was “effectively a part of the Conservative Party”.
The commission states that membership associations registered as regulated donees cannot be part of a political party.
The Bamford Family - JCB Researchers/World Brands £3, 898,900
Robert Edmiston - IM Properties International Motors Ltd £3, 274, 200
He was questioned by detectives about the secret loan deal that he struck with the Conservative Party which had the effect of circumventing the law that requires all donations of £5,000 or more to be made public.
Midlands Industrial Council - (plus individual members) have donated £3, 135,500. Has also in three years given £950,000 to 50 constituency parties including Mr Cameron’s, which received £5,500.
Most of the members of the MIC, which is registered to a terraced house in a Lincolnshire village, are anonymous.
The MIC gives £1 million a year to Constituency Campaigning Services, a support centre for Tory candidates, at Coleshill Manor, a Midlands country house. Mr Edmiston, a key member of MIC, owns Coleshill Manor. He was not available for comment.
Mr Cameron, challenged on the BBC One Sunday AM programme (Oct 1 2006)about the confidential backers of the MIC, said that he knew the identity of them because he had met them. But the party said later that it would continue to withhold their identities. It is taking advantage of a loophole in election law which means that the membership list can remain confidential because MIC is an unincorporated association.
The Coleshill Manor centre was described by Conservative Central Office as independent of the party and registered with the Electoral Commission as a “regulated donee”. Mr Cameron contradicted that yesterday when he said Coleshill Manor was “effectively a part of the Conservative Party”.
The commission states that membership associations registered as regulated donees cannot be part of a political party.
Lord Laidlaw... Monaco-based Tory tax exile who has given the Conservative party more than £4m.
ABC- Abbey Business Centres - (Lord Laidlaw's company) had also donated £60,000 in the form of free rent and services last year(2009) The donations are controversial because of Laidlaw's tax status.
Records show ABC donated £5,000 in rent and services to the Tories in January, £10,000 in March, and £8,387 in May . The donations were in lieu of rent on a building in Edinburgh's Princes Street that the Scottish Tory party used as its headquarters until May.
ABC has donated almost £85,000 in free rent and business services to the Conservatives, according to the Electoral Commission.
Over the past five years, ABC has given £807,000 in cash and £540,887 in "non-cash" donations to the Tories. Overall, Laidlaw, who made his money organising international business conferences, is estimated to have given the Tories more than £4m. This is despite the Conservatives announcing they were not accepting further donations for Lord Laidlaw until his tax issues were sorted out.
Lord Ashcroft - Belize tax exile donated millions of pounds to Tory coffers and ploughed millions into the marginal Tory constituencies, to help them wing the 2010 election - this is despite telling the Tories he was registered for tax purposes in the UK, when clearly he was not.
Bearwood Corporate Services - (Ashcroft’s company) donated £4,131,995 to the Conservatives over the four-year period, in 27 separate chunks of cash or services in kind, such as focus groups or printing costs.
Ashcroft's company was found to be the biggest single donor since David Cameron became leader, Without "Ashcroft's millions" in the marginal seats, David Cameron may never have become prime minister. So we had a Conservative Lord, NOT registered to pay tax on money earned in this country, using his untaxed loot to decide the result of the general election and who should govern the country!
Chris Rea - (Rock star) gave the Conservatives £25,000.
Hans Rausing - Packaging Billionaire and his wife, Marit, who are worth more than £5 billion, have donated almost £100,000.
Disingenuous Tories On National Insurance Contributions
Treasurer's Group - For £25,000 per year financial backers can join the Treasurer's Group, which describes itself as “aimed at substantial financial supporters with a keen interest in politics!"
Renaissance Forum - £10,000 a year will buy membership of the Renaissance Forum and a chance to debate policy with senior figures. It is, says the website, “for our closest supporters to enjoy dinners and political debate with eminent speakers from the world of business and politics”.
Conservative Party Conference - £1000 one off payment buys Financial backers access to ministers at £1,000-a-plate dinners which were held at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham in 2010. (One wonders if they spoke abut the 10.000 strong demonstration against their cuts which took place and who David Cameron had re routed away from directly outside the conference hall, probably not wanting the great unwashed to bother his wealth backers.)
Angie Bray - Conservative MP Ealing Central and Acton - is a PR professional from Cameron's "A-list was unabashed about using political links formed while working for the Tory communications machine to help her private PR clients quote:
"I have introduced private clients for my lobbying company to political contacts. But I have always felt I was on the side of the angels''
Oh OK Angie it's OK to be corrupt in that case!
I ask this question again, what does David Cameron actually do to earn the salary the taxpayer is paying him? He is gaffe prone, appears to know absolutely nothing, if he is asked something unexpectedly he is blown way of course and cannot answer. Now we see he appears to spend all of his time raising millions of pounds for the Tory party coffers!
ABC- Abbey Business Centres - (Lord Laidlaw's company) had also donated £60,000 in the form of free rent and services last year(2009) The donations are controversial because of Laidlaw's tax status.
Records show ABC donated £5,000 in rent and services to the Tories in January, £10,000 in March, and £8,387 in May . The donations were in lieu of rent on a building in Edinburgh's Princes Street that the Scottish Tory party used as its headquarters until May.
ABC has donated almost £85,000 in free rent and business services to the Conservatives, according to the Electoral Commission.
Over the past five years, ABC has given £807,000 in cash and £540,887 in "non-cash" donations to the Tories. Overall, Laidlaw, who made his money organising international business conferences, is estimated to have given the Tories more than £4m. This is despite the Conservatives announcing they were not accepting further donations for Lord Laidlaw until his tax issues were sorted out.
Lord Ashcroft - Belize tax exile donated millions of pounds to Tory coffers and ploughed millions into the marginal Tory constituencies, to help them wing the 2010 election - this is despite telling the Tories he was registered for tax purposes in the UK, when clearly he was not.
Bearwood Corporate Services - (Ashcroft’s company) donated £4,131,995 to the Conservatives over the four-year period, in 27 separate chunks of cash or services in kind, such as focus groups or printing costs.
Ashcroft's company was found to be the biggest single donor since David Cameron became leader, Without "Ashcroft's millions" in the marginal seats, David Cameron may never have become prime minister. So we had a Conservative Lord, NOT registered to pay tax on money earned in this country, using his untaxed loot to decide the result of the general election and who should govern the country!
Chris Rea - (Rock star) gave the Conservatives £25,000.
Hans Rausing - Packaging Billionaire and his wife, Marit, who are worth more than £5 billion, have donated almost £100,000.
Dave Whelan - the owner of Wigan Football Club, has given the party £250,000.
Christopher Moran - Owner, Glenfiddich sports estate
Aserial Tory donor, Mr Moran refuses to answer questions about money lent to the party. Said to be a supporter of David Davis and to be worth £200m, he owns the 48,000-acre Glenfiddich sports estate in Scotland. He was expelled from Lloyd’s of London in 1982.
Baroness Hogg - Tory peer
Sarah Hogg was previously Governor of the BBC and economics editor of The Independent and a member of John Major’s policy unit. She is married to Douglas Hogg, who controversially claimed money from parliamentary expenses to have his moat cleared.
Siv Jensen - Leader, Norwegian Progress Party
Ms Jensen’s populist, right-wing party narrowly failed to grasp power from the ruling left coalition earlier this month. She is intent on shrinking Norway’s welfare system.
Seventeen of the 35 chairmen or chief executives who signed Osborne's letter endorsing spending cuts, were among the businessmen who endorsed a similar round-robin letter before the May election backing Tory plans to reverse Labour's proposal to raise national insurance contributions by 1 per cent. Mr Osborne later cancelled it for employers but retained it for employees.
George Osborne MP - Conservative Chancellor Is avoiding paying over a £1 million inheritance tax to the treasury he is in charge of.
Fund Raising Dinners for Financial Backers
David Cameron £50.000 per year buys you access to the prime minister, who is personally raising cash for the Conservative Party by offering to attend dinners with businessmen/people. The Prime Minister and senior Cabinet ministers are willing to parade themselves to wealthy donors at functions ranging from drinks after the weekly Prime Minister's Question Time in the Commons, to campaign launches.
Treasurer's Group - For £25,000 per year financial backers can join the Treasurer's Group, which describes itself as “aimed at substantial financial supporters with a keen interest in politics!"
Renaissance Forum - £10,000 a year will buy membership of the Renaissance Forum and a chance to debate policy with senior figures. It is, says the website, “for our closest supporters to enjoy dinners and political debate with eminent speakers from the world of business and politics”.
Conservative Party Conference - £1000 one off payment buys Financial backers access to ministers at £1,000-a-plate dinners which were held at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham in 2010. (One wonders if they spoke abut the 10.000 strong demonstration against their cuts which took place and who David Cameron had re routed away from directly outside the conference hall, probably not wanting the great unwashed to bother his wealth backers.)
Angie Bray - Conservative MP Ealing Central and Acton - is a PR professional from Cameron's "A-list was unabashed about using political links formed while working for the Tory communications machine to help her private PR clients quote:
"I have introduced private clients for my lobbying company to political contacts. But I have always felt I was on the side of the angels''
Oh OK Angie it's OK to be corrupt in that case!
I ask this question again, what does David Cameron actually do to earn the salary the taxpayer is paying him? He is gaffe prone, appears to know absolutely nothing, if he is asked something unexpectedly he is blown way of course and cannot answer. Now we see he appears to spend all of his time raising millions of pounds for the Tory party coffers!
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Note: Any I have missed off just email them to me gracie.samuels@hushmail.com or post on the main blog under the latest blog entry and I will research and add them on. - Thanks.
