Facebook group on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status piles on the pressure

Has Lord Paul joined the campaign???

RT @leftfootfwd Facebook group on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status piles on the pressure: http://is.gd/8voQV

Are you starting a Facebook Group on Lord Paul as well? Or is this the usual “Do as I say… not as I do…”?

RT @leftfootfwd: Facebook group on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status piles on the pressure: http://is.gd/8voQV <I signed up to it!

I see the two comments above already point out some double-standards. Surely this should be about improving transparency and party funding, not some “Get Ashcroft” rant.

I also note the blog post says “just who it is that funds many of the back offices of leading Tories, including Osborne – multi-millionaire hedge fund managers and investment bankers” when we all know these same types have funded Labour for years

Sir Ronald Cohen, owner of the the Apax, the UK’s largest private equity operation, has donated millions to Labour and Gordon Brown’s personal office. He and his colleagues have been massive and direct beneficiaries of the huge cuts to Capital Gains Tax passed soon after Brown became Chancellor in 1997. City Minister Lord Myners is a former director of hedge fund GLG and Brown’s minister Lady Vadera was very senior at investment bank UBS.

Donations are fickle. Money follows whoever is going to get into office. Bleating about it after 13 years in office only risks making Labour look equally fickle, many were happy to woo the City for years, sacrificing prawns and championing “light touch regulation” so they should not cry when it backfires.

…and nothing at all wrong with the Labour Party being a wholly owned subsidiary of the UNITE union. I’m sure that little fact doesnt interfere with how policy is decided.

There are some serious allegations about to come out about Unite’s funding of Labour, any chance you might tell us what they are before the MSM do John and Will??

So the Tory defence can be summed up as follows –

“We’re just as dodgy as Labour when it comes to donations”

CHANGE you can believe in? Hmmmmmnnnnnn………

RT @Jessica_Asato: RT @leftfootfwd: Facebook group on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status piles on the pressure: http://is.gd/8voQV <I signed up to it!

Let’s get all this is perspective. According to the FT, 28% of Tory donations since 2006 have come from the city & property sectors. And a GMB study showed that 63 Tory PPCs were from a banking or finance background. So do we really think that these bankers – who played a major role in screwing up the world economy – are not going to have a major impact on Conservative policies?

It is pretty hypocritical of Labour regarding the Ashcroft situation, especially considering the position of Lord Paul.

What is more alarming though is the situation regarding UNITE, who effectively bankroll much of the Labour party. Labour has diverted significant TAXPAYER money to unions for “restructuring and developement”. Somehow much of that money finds it’s way back into Labour party coffers. Essentially Labour are funding themselves from Taxpayers money, through the back door.

And Labour’s defence? We shopped the Tories first!!! What a hypocritical bunch of class envy loonies you are!

RT @Jessica_Asato: RT @leftfootfwd: Facebook group on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status piles on the pressure: http://is.gd/8voQV <I signed up to it!

The question about Ashcroft’s £5 million donations – which is being very slowly investigated by the Electoral Commission – is whether his company Bearwood is actually carrying out business in the UK. If it’s not, & it’s merely a conduit for money from abroad, then his donations are legal & will have to be repaid.

I’m not aware that there are similar questions about donations by Lord Paul & his company.

Thanks for the comments. One point appears to have been missed, and it’s a fundamental difference between Lord Ashcroft and all the other examples outlined above: No-one, including it seems his boss Eric Pickles, knows whether Ashcroft is a non-dom. All the facebook group is asking for is transparency.

Will

Isn’t Ronnie Cohen a non dom as well?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/oct/07/incometax.tax

Lakshmi Mittal…Mahmoud Khayami?

BTW, it really does annoy me the way people keep failing to make this disticntion. As far as we know the deal was that to get the peerage Ashcroft had to become resident for UK taxation. If he’s here more than 91 days a year then he’s managed that.

Dom or non dom is an entirely diffrent matter. And as far as we know, no one’s insisted that he become dom in order to keep the peerage. Like, of course, Lord Paul ain’t.

OBAMA and Bernanke are featured in a movie– about greedy hedge funds called “Stock Shock.” Even though the movie mostly focuses on Sirius XM stock being naked short sold nearly into bankruptcy (5 cents/share), I liked it because it exposes the dark side of Wall Street and revealed some of their secrets. DVD is everywhere but cheaper at http://www.stockshockmovie.com

[...] that any one person or group should be able to buy themselves favour. This is why the Conservatives are so touchy about Lord Ashcroft, and Labour are (or at least ought to be) deeply concerned with Lord Paul. But [...]

[...] Facebook group on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status piles on the pressure – John Slinger, February 16th [...]