Tory Party Sleaze and Corruption

 

‘Selflessness. Integrity. Objectivity. Accountability. Openness. Honesty. Leadership.’ These are the Seven Principles devised by Lord Nolan’s 1994 Committee on Standards in Public Life to promote a code of conduct that all public servants should follow. Following the news in the last week, it is apparent that our country has elected a government that is attempting to rip to shreds all of these rules.

 Lord Acton famously once said: ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’: ambitious people who think themselves untouchable tend to bend the rules for their purposes. Nonetheless, what shocks me is the level of corruption we are seeing in our country, and how this country has become numb to it. This is unsurprising based on our incumbent primus inter pares: Boris Johnson who has paved the  way for an unprecedented level of sleaze and scandal. Whether it was the dispute over who paid the furniture for Downing Street, or his oddly timed  Marbella holiday in a villa owned by the family of environment minister Lord Goldsmith.

Johnson has already been admonished on four occasions, most recently over a £15,000 holiday to the island of Mustique between December 26, 2019, and January 5, 2020, but this was later overturned by the Committee on Standards.

Johnson has already been admonished by the commissioner on four occasions, most recently over a £15,000 holiday to the island of Mustique between December 26, 2019, and January 5, 2020, but this was later overturned by the Committee on Standards.dubiously funded holidays, or tennis matches with dodgy donors, Boris has pushed the envelope out of what it is acceptable for our political leaders to do. 

This has been apparent with the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal that has engulfed the government this week. Paterson , was found in breach of ministerial code by the independent watchdog for these type of matters. He was found to have repeatedly lobbied ministers and officials on behalf of two companies he worked for as a paid consultant. 

On top of Paterson’s £81,932 salary, he took home £8,333 a month to lobby on behalf of healthcare company Randox Laboratories. 

As Johnson announced Covid safety restrictions in March 2020, the government  handed Randoz a £133 million contract to ­manufacture Covid tests. 

The Sunday Times newspaper has revealed a phone call on 9 April last year between Paterson and the Tory peer Lord Bethell, who was the minister responsible for ­handing out contracts. 

According to documents, civil servants were trying to cover for the fact that Randox did not have the equipment it needed. 

In an email, an official wrote that Matt Hancock health secretary at the time, would send a letter to universities “asking for loans of the various things we need”. 

Campuses would have to give up testing resources and send them to Randox, they continued. 

Randox later received a £347 million contract. Paterson’s lobbying interests extended to sausage company Lynn’s Country Foods who paid him £12,000 for just 24 hours of work each year. 

Last month the ­independent Parliamentary Standards Commissioner found Paterson had breached the tame paid advocacy rules. 

Paterson had, on 16 occasions, used his House of Commons office for meetings relating to his private business interests.

 

 

He failed on a number of occasions to declare those interests. 

The Committee on Standards suggested Paterson should just be suspended from the Commons for 30 days. This was set to be voted on in parliament.  

In an effort to save him even this punishment, Johnson instructed Tory MP Andrea Leadsom to put forward an amendment and set up a committee to prevent his suspension. 

 Parliamentary votes on these reports are usually free, i.e. the party whip allows MPs to vote with their conscience, and so MPs typically endorse the recommendation of the Standards Select Committee. Yet this time the government imposed a three-line whip , and the Leadsom Amendment to the motion to suspend Paterson was backed. The amendment was half-baked and an outrageous watering down of current processes. It aimed to not only set aside Paterson’s suspension, but also to throw the Standards Commissioner on a bonfire and chop up the Standards Committee for firewood. A new committee of MPs was to be set up to decide the future of the Standards Select Committee, which interrogates the work of the Standards Commissioner,

Tory whips threatened MPs with the loss of local funding unless they fell into line. MPs duly voted for it. But the stench of corruption  was too much. The government was forced to go back on itself and announced there would be a vote on Paterson’s suspension.

The government narrowly won the vote 250 to 232, and the former MP announced he would resign and self pitying leave “the cruel world of politics”following his shameless lobbying for big businesses.

What was outrageous was that when the debate in the house happened, the cowardly PM was nowhere to be seen. Sorry but he is always available for a photoshoot or somehting like that but when he us under fire he disappears.

I've read  that Con MPs said  the vote was not about letting Paterson off the hook but rather introducing a fairer system. The flaw there is that is they weren’t planning a fairer system. They wanted to scrap a public committee & replace it with a Tory mates-led committee. Arrant corruption. 

 Amid fallout from the “sleaze” row Labour Party leader Keir Starmer  who has not previously been noted for his voice of opposition at least had the tenacity to accuse Boris Johnson of "corroded trust" in MPs. The Labour leader told the emergency debate in the Commons that the PM had given the "green light to corruption".

Also this week we have also heard about the MP and former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox who had been accused of pocketing hundreds of thousands of pounds to help stop ironically the exposure of corruption in a Caribbean paradise. the British Virgin Islands (BVI) during lockdown.n his second job as a lawyer advising the Caribbean tax haven..

Iain Duncan Smith is also facing questions over his £25,000-a-year second job advising a multimillion-pound hand sanitiser company after he chaired a government taskforce that recommended new rules benefiting the firm.in a brazen conflict of interest

The MP and former Conservative party leader chaired the Task Force on Innovation, Growth, and Regulatory Reform, which reported back in May after he and two other MPs were asked by Boris Johnson to recommend ways of cutting supposed EU red-tape.

However, the fresh spotlight on moonlighting by MPs has now prompted questions about the taskforce’s recommendations that alcohol-free hand sanitisers should be formally recognised as suitable for use in the UK.

The report made no reference to Duncan Smith’s relationship with Byotrol, which provides the NHS with 92% of its non-alcohol sanitiser. It retains the former Tory leader as an adviser for £25,000 a year, according to his declaration in parliament’s register of members’ interests.

In a message to investors after the recommendations of Duncan Smith and his fellow former ministers George Freeman and Theresa Villiers, Byotrol welcomed how an “influential UK government-sponsored taskforce has recommended a regulatory ‘green light’ for alcohol-free hand sanitisers”. Its directors were also quoted in a report as saying that it delivered a “powerful boost” to the firm.

The taskforce said in its report: “Current guidelines in the UK on non-alcohol based hand sanitisers are unclear. As a result, there is confusion in industry and among consumers as to what products are safe and effective to use, and we may be unnecessarily limiting the range of sanitising products available.” It called on the government to review guidance “to place alcohol- and non-alcohol-based on a level playing field”.

Duncan Smith was a director of Byotrol between June 2009 and May 2010 and has previously declared share options. Both have been approached for comment.

Byotrol, which is based in Cheshire, said in August that its revenue almost doubled and its pre-tax profits rocketed by more than 600% following “exceptional demand” for its sanitising technologies due to the pandemic. It reported a revenue of £11.2m for the 12 months to 31 March, up from £6m the previous year.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said: “The prime minister needs to explain why he think it is justified for one of his MPs to be paid by a company that stands to benefit from a recommendation of a taskforce chaired by that same MP. This is exactly the kind of brazen conflict of interest that proves that the Conservatives think it is one rule for them and another for the rest of us. 

“Did this MP declare an interest when these matters were discussed and reported on by the taskforce? Why is the prime minister failing to act over these glaring conflicts of interest?”

More than a quarter of Tory MPs have second jobs with firms wbose activities range from gambling to private healthcare, making more than £4m in extra earnings in a year, Guardian analysis has found.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/09/at-least-a-quarter-of-tory-mps-have-second-jobs-earning-5m-a-year These aren't MP's 'with second jobs. They're lobbyists with second jobs as MPs. And if we don't do something to stamp it out now, it's only a matter of time before it's as corrupt here as it is in the US.

 It's been interesting to see Tory MP's saying thy can't live on £82 k a year when they thought some of the poorest people in the country could cope with £20 a week less. The party of low wages, austerity, exploitaiton and poor ambition. With a huge slice of sleaze and a massive dose of  corruption and a total lack of morals,.It’s one rule for us, and no rules for them The criminals are right here Cressida Dick, arrest them!

Boris Johnson did not cause all these mounting scandals, but it was his nature of governing and what he views as acceptable that is seriously harming our political culture. Over the centuries this land has produced some absolute rotters, but I honestly cannot think of anyone worse than this lying, arrogant, cheating dishonest, incompetent, racist thug with blood on his hands,

The Conservative Party Party is  also facing demands for a police investigation into a fresh cash for honours scandal. The SNP are demanding action from the Metropolitan Police to determine whether any criminal offence has been committed after it was reported party treasurers who meet a £3 million threshold in donations are virtually guaranteed a peerage.

The Sunday Times and Open Democracy found 15 of the last 16 Tory treasurers have been offered a seat in the Lords having each donated more than £3m.

The most controversial appointment was that of Lord Cruddas, who took his seat after Boris Johnson rejected the advice of the House of Lords Appointment Commission not to grant him a peerage.

An ex-party chairman explained: “Once you pay your £3m, you get your peerage.”

The report found that, since 2010, 22 of the party’s main financial donors have been given peerages after donating a combined £54m. Two Labpir  and five LibDem major donors have also been handed peerages.

SNP MP Pete Wishart said the latest scandal was corruption – “plain and simple”.

He commented: “The Tory corruption scandal is growing worse by the day. It’s now beyond all doubt that the honours system has been abused by the Tories. The Metropolitan Police should launch a fresh cash for honours investigation to determine whether a criminal offence has been committed. 

“It is utterly appalling that so many millionaire Tory party donors have been handed life peerages by Boris Johnson and his predecessors. But this isn’t just a scandal for the Tories – the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats have also been dishing out peerages to donors as though they were sweeties. It is corruption plain and simple – and it absolutely stinks.  

“The undemocratic House of Lords is packed with hundreds of Tory, Labour and LibDem donors and cronies, who are making laws without being elected and claiming allowances at our expense. It should have been abolished centuries ago but, whenever they’ve had the opportunity, the Tories and Labour Party have instead chosen to continue benefiting from the broken system – milking taxpayers for every penny they can get.”

 Sadly Starmer  chose last week to announce that Labour was no longer in favour of abolishing the House of Lords.

Wishart continued: “This is just the latest scandal for Boris Johnson who seems to believe he is immune to abiding by the rules everyone else does. Whether it’s cash for peerages, changing the standards system to suit him best, or soliciting dodgy donations for the refurbishment of flats and holidays, he is reigning over a system that he’s using to benefit him and his party.

“People in Scotland are looking in horror at what’s going on at Westminster. The sooner Scotland can become an independent country, and shake off this broken system, the better.”

 Regardless of Boris Johnson’s attempts to appeal to the whole country  his same tendency to serve the elite has manifested in the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response. Nearly £1 billion in government contracts ’have been awarded to 15 companies with directors, or people with controlling interests over these companies, who have donated £12 million to the Conservative Party’. That is to say, public money has been funnelled to Tory donors in vast quantities. The problematic nature of these transactions is obvious: any argument that those bodies which were awarded contracts are the best suited to the job is naturally suspect as a consequence of their relationship with the Conservative party. This suspicion is further justified when many COVID contracts have been awarded without competition and in breach of transparency rules,.

During the last year of the pandemic, the wealth of British billionaires increased by over a fifth. In a similar period, food bank use increased by about one third. This stunning inequality is unlikely to be addressed by a Conservative party whose raison d’etre is to protect the existing centres of wealth and power. Yet Labour leader Keir Starmer’s current search for rich donors to replace the subscription fees of a reduced party membership gives little reason to think that the opposition offers a viable alternative to the current plutocracy. To build a Britain that works for the many, the impetus for change will have to come from the ground up.These scandals and the furore to  which it has given rise have deep roots in our political system and highlight the structural flaws that so urgently need to be addressed. But incredibly knowing all this corruption is going on in plain sight, the public still vote for the Tories and they are still ahead in the polls.I wish people would wake up and realise that Britain is  being run by the Bullingdon State; a chummy elite who are above pesky things like parliamentary standards and so-called ‘transparency’ behaving like arrogant masters pursuing their own interests while the little people find supermarket shelves empty as prices and taxes rise.

Whoever leads them, the British Conservative party is diametrically opposed  to the good of the British public and deliberately acts against their interests. Their motives driven by authoriarianism designed to disenfranchise all, unless  you are not a millionaire, the Conservative Party is not your friend, they are enemies of the people.

The Conservatives with their feelings of self entitlement believe they are born to rule. Unconcerned by any principles except their maintenance of power, they U-turn  on positions at a drop of a hat, betray promises and even sacrifice their own in order to maintain control.The interests they serve are not yours or mine, but those of the bankers, financiers, fossil fuel magnates and the elite, look how they have voted.to pollute our waterways to keep their donors happy. I cannot believe the UK keeps  accepting this crap.

There will likely be many more scandals .As to the outcome of the investigations into these scandals, they’ll undoubtedly conclude that lessons must be learned and rules tightened, etc. In other words, business as usual, unless that is, both Scotland and Wales manage to break free from the rotting corpse of Westminster and the stench of Tory corruption,  because we can't  allow  Boris and the Tory's  to keep getting away with what they have up to now, surely we all deserve so much better.