Monday 26 February 2007

Bank Charges

any thoughts as to why bank charges do not have VAT on them?

More Labour Donors unearthed

The Electoral Commission will publish more labour donors for 2006 this week, so who migh they be? Peter Hain and the BBC believe they could be -

"Media reports said investors Nigel Doughty, Sir Ronald Cohen and Jonathan Aisbitt each donated £250,000 during the final quarter of 2006."

Cohen is well known as Gordon's financial backer and has been ritisised in the past for tax avoidance, Jon Aisbitt gpt a big payout from Goldman sachs and is now on the board of a hedge fund and an company Ocean Rig that has an oil rig in Angola - very New Labour? Perhaps hedge funds will now avoid Gordon's tax squees? Money well spent!

The Assets Recovery Agency

The NAO have just published their report on the Assets Recovery Agency

To date the Agency has spent £65 million and recovered assets worth £23 million.

"Staff do not record their time and therefore the
Agency cannot measure the resources deployed on
each case. There is no effective case management
and no consistent use of targets and deadlines to
incentivise staff to progress cases."

Another success from the Government of lawyers. Only three years old and it will now be scrapped and the remenants merged with SOCA!

Friday 23 February 2007

Sir Patrick Cormack


I hear that Sir Patrick has just been told that the meeting where he was deselected as the Conservative candidate in South Staffordshire has been declared invalid by the party leadership and he will have to be rerun.
Good news, although contrevercial he is an individual, and has a sence of history sadly lacking in Blair's Britain.

The SFO incompetence and Saudi Arabia

I read with enthusiasm the news today that the SFO might finally be axed. The SFO under Wardle (left) has been a liability to this country as well as all honest businessmen. They have powers that Cromwell would have envied however lack the intelligence to use them. Even Tony Blair had to interveen to prevent them destroying the British defence industry, and we pay them!

This year according to their accounts they have spent £40 million and a whopping total of £228 millions sonce 2000. And what do we get for our money, 20 years of failure, Maxwell, Jubilee Line, Polly Peck the incompetence is mindbogling especially for a Government full of Lawyers.

Hopefully now British business will now breath a sigh of relief and get on with what they do best, employing people and exporting and yes this includes jets to saudi Arabia.

Sophie Pimm


I notice that Guido (that damnable papist) has taken a fleeting interest in Sophie Pimm, the ex Cameroon, (can it be love), well I was ammused to find her in this photo with Dave (who seems to having trouble reading?) - so was she the makeup artist or the "operations manager" and does she have a seet on this plane?

Julia Goldsworthy


No need to be churlish!

Government chief employs wife at £550 a day

Reading the NAO's published accounts of the HMRC Prosecution Office I see that it has been castagated for losing all control of the money it doles out to its lawyers there were no contracts, "poor audit trails" and no any idea of its liabilities. How many lawyers in the Government does it take to negociate a contract?

Well one can expect a Government of lawyers to waste money on lawyers what I was more amused to read was that the Chief Operating Officer has employed his wife as an employment consultant at £550 a day. Well at least it was his wife.

Thursday 22 February 2007

Legal affairs

What is it with the Government's lawyers?

First the DPP Ken Macdonald is caught having an affair with fellow lawyer Kirsty Brimelow but now it seems he was only following the departmental guidelines set by his boss Lord Goldsmith who has also had an affair with a lawyer (this time a QC) called Kim Hollis

"My wife knows all about this and has done for some time. It is all in the past."

Well that is alright then? Well perhaps not, both the DPP and Lord Goldsmith are responsible for large chunks taxpayer's money spent on, yes lawyers, did any find its ways to these favoured two?

A top idea Sir Percy Blakeney

Why thank you Sir,

What a fine idea. I think it was Arthur Balfour who said that in life "Nothing matters very much, and very few things matter at all." Well I think that is a good starting point, as most of what will come taken in the broard brush of history will not matter, but while it does it makes me mad!

For instant today in the Commons Theresa May pointed out that the total cost of Gordon Brown's special advisors is £1.1 million, and this is despite the Ministerial code limiting the number of advisors to 2 - a good use of my money?

The Treasury is like an onion; you peel off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep