Millionaire wannabe Tory MP Zac Goldsmith is a non dom !

A few years ago nobody had heard of "non doms", but now most people have a good idea that those who are "non domiciled" in the UK and avoid paying UK income tax, now pay a fairly nominal flat rate of £25,000 a year and that is it. Now for anyone earning over £70,000 a year, being able to pay a one off £25k might seem like a bargain in order to avoid paying more in income tax. The problem is you have to have teams of accountants, generally have a home overseas, and be very wealthy in order to have the pieces in place for tax avoidance on this scale.

So it must be galling for the people of Richmond Park constituency to read that their Tory candidate,the multi millionaire Zac Goldsmith, is a non dom, and avoids UK income tax on his vast £200 million wealth.

No wonder the Tory Party were so keen to try to overturn a recent Lib Dem and Labour amendment to a law which would have made it illegal for non doms to fund in any way UK political parties as it would have cut off the vast sums Zac Goldsmith has poured in to Richmond Park constituency.

David Cameron and George Osborne have been talking tough on tax avoidance recently. Let's see how they act against one of their own "A listers".

I wonder if the Tory front organisation the Tax Payers Alliance will comment about this ? After all, surely those setting our taxes should also be paying the taxes ? However, it's hardly likely since it was reported recently that one of the senior people in the TPA is also a French resident who does not pay UK tax.

Five years to vaccinate the UK population from swine flu

The fool, Sir Liam Donaldson, who regularly every Thursday magnifies his stupidity by either stating the bleeding obvious about flu or contradicts something he said a few weeks before, further underlined just how poor our government have been in dealing with what is a very mild flu, by announcing that in the last month, just one million people have been vaccinated.

In simple terms, we have had around 5 million doses delivered to the UK, but have only managed to inject 20% of them. And if we keep up with the current rate, it will take 60 months to vaccinate 60 million people. That's five years !

God help us if H5N1 ever mutates to a human form. With a 60% kill rate, we'd all be dead by the time Sir Liam got to his final press conference after 5 years of vaccinations.

Why I've been away

Apologies to regular readers of my blog for my absence.

In simple terms, I am up to my neck in work, with PGCE students to monitor, classes to teach, plans to be written, trips to be organised, and keeping myself healthy and avoiding the flu.

So I may well blog this weekend, if I get the time, but perhaps not. As soon as I am on top of my work, I'll be back !

Brown and Cameron both in the wrong over photo opportunity on Remembrance Day

It's good to see that those in charge of marking the Day of Remembrance have told David Cameron and Gordon Brown that they were wrong to turn the act of remembrance in to a photo opportunity.

Quite why we should believe the Tory spokesman who claimed it was a "last minute decision", is beyond me. How many people just happen to turn up with a camera man with an expensive SLR camera with them in case you make a "last minute decision" ?

Four days later, not even the courtesy of a reply

Four days ago I emailed Norman Lamb MP and Andrew Lansley MP regarding an issue to do with swine flu vaccination. I e-mailed the exact same e-mail to both MPs, gave no further prompts and wondered who would get on to this issue, with the strong hope that both of them would bring the government to account over the fact that some asthma sufferers are being denied the vaccine because of "technicalities".

Norman Lamb replied within two hours, and I have received a subsequent e-mail from his office out of courtesy explaining that they will get back to me.

As for Andrew Lansley, not one word. Not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

Is this how the Tories deal with people ? Is this their "Open and accountable" face ?

Come on Mr Lansley. I gave you all the facts to take this story up with the appropriate minister. I have been impressed with your words so far on the issue of swine flu. It's a shame your office lack the basic manners to deal with people courteously.

First it was the VCR, then CRT, now it's the CD

Five of years ago we all marvelled at the pace of technology when it was announced that Currys would stop stocking video recorders.

Then manufacturers stopped producing cathode ray tube TVs.

Now one specialist manufacturer of audio equipment has announced it will stop making CD players, such is the dominance and better quality of digital music.

The fact that Blu-Ray players also play DVDs mean that DVDs still have some life left in them, but it does make me wonder what the next technology to be dropped will be.

Vince Cable in Total Politics

Vince Cable has been interviewed by Iain Dale for this month's Total Politics magazine.

The full interview is available to read HERE.

I love his refreshing honesty in dealing with a question from Iain which seemed to imply that he was inconsistent. Vince, unlike most politicians, simply says that he was proved wrong by the extreme financial mess we were in and he changed his mind accordingly.

If only a few more politicians could be less entrenched.

Iain Dale : "In September 2008, you said the government must not compromise the independence of the Bank of England by telling it to slash interest rates. A month later, you urged the Chancellor to write to the Governor of the Bank demanding a large cut in interest rates. "

Vince Cable "Yes, that is true and like a lot of other people, I realised in the autumn of 2008 that we were on the verge of a completely catastrophic failure of the system - a once in a lifetime experience. The whole banking system was in danger of going down and this was a system for which the Bank of England had not been prepared. The mandate of the independent Bank of England, which I supported, was not just concerned with those issues, it was concerned with a broadly stable environment. I had supported the independence of the Bank of England and I still do and I think its role will be increasingly important in future years when we get a lot of inflationary pressure. But that moment in September and October when they had to do something dramatic and where their existing mandate was simply about responding to and anticipating inflation rates, this was not actually the primary concern. And I was certainly the first person out of the traps saying that, although it was a departure from the line I had been giving before. "

M&S vs Diet Coke

Apparently the latest M&S Christmas ads are being complained about because they are sexist because Philip Glenister, very much in character as DCI Gene Hunt from Ashes to Ashes, says he wants as his Christmas present the girl from the ad who takes her clothes off.

Strange that those people who are complaining never moaned about women lusting after naked men in the Diet Coke ads from a few years back.

Question - What is the designation of an MPs first home ?

Please send your comments in on this simple question.

Should an MP have their first home in the part of the world they represent in parliament (not necessarily in the constituency, but locally) or should their first home be in London (if they are not a London MP).

Then the logical second question is, is your first home where your children go to school ?

Please comment and let me know your views.

And the winner is ...

Congratualtions to Norman Lamb MP, who responded to my blog posting about flu in less than an hour and a half.

Although I have known Norman for many years, I did not contact him personally about this and instead I sent an identical e-mail to both him and Andrew Lansley.

I hope too that Andrew Lansley will respond and take the issue up as I have been impressed with the work he has done on highlighting shortcomings in the government's flu vaccination programme.

The true cost of the Conservatives problems in South West Norfolk may not be known for some time yet

The local news today has been full of the smiling face of Liz Truss in the wake of the confirmation of her selection as Tory candidate for South West Norfolk. Congratulations to her. However, depite the seemingly "resounding" victory she achieved, it seems there was a price in terms of how many people in South West Norfolk Conservatives feel further alienated from David Cameron and Mrs Truss, and also in financial terms.

It appears, from reading e-mails sent to me and from comments to my blog, that Mrs Truss appears to have won her victory very much on the back of a concerted campaign from Conservative Central Office. People have commented on being phoned several times from a phone bank (presumably in London), and a massive "Get Out The Vote" campaign also being run from CCO. This, of course, does not come without its costs. But what is the cost to Mrs Truss locally ?

If comments I have received are anything to go by, there a a good number of Tories in South West Norfolk who feel absolutely disgusted by the methods and tactics of the Tory party in London who have in effect forced an A lister with no local roots on to them, in great part by intimidating locals by saying that they would in effect impose another candidate on South West Norfolk if they dared deselect Mrs Truss.

One wonders what a good candidate with strong local credentials might be able to achieve in South West Norfolk if they chose to stand as an independent if Mrs Truss's party fail to back her with the delivering and canvassing required at the next general election. The so called "Neanderthals" and "turnip Taliban" might just choose to send the Tory party a message in response to the barbs the Conseravatives have thrown at the good people of Norfolk.

The truth about the Swine Flu Vaccine - Asthmatics are NOT a priority

The government, and that idiot Liam Donaldson perpetually peddle the lie that "People with health conditions such as asthma are considered a priority and will get their swine flu vaccinations as a matter of priority". The fact is, they are not.

The department the Department of Health uses to define an asthmatic is that they are someone with "a chronic respiratory disease that requires repeated or continuous use of inhaled or systemic steroids". the fact is that many tens of thousands of people in this country (possibly more) use non steroid based inhalers. This is being used by GPs as a justification not to give Swine Flu jabs to people who are asthmatic. Even those people who use asthma inhalers and those where the doctors own records indicate that the person is an asthmatic.

The problem is that for many young children, and those who are not able to take a steroid based inhaler, even though they are actually asthmatic, they will not being given the swine flu vaccine.

So what is being done about this ? I shall be emailing both Andrew Lansley and Norman Lamb, the Tory and Lib Dem health spokesmen and I will see who takes this issue up. It seems that thousands of people in an "at risk" group are being ignored because of a loophole which the government knows exists.

Liz Truss selection confirmed

Liz Truss has won her selection confirmation in South West Norfolk.

As for the Tories, their attacks on Norfolk people as "Turnip Taliban", and worse, I predict will come back to haunt them in Norfolk in future years.

Whilst the wind is with Cameron, he might get away with it, but in the long term, we Norfolk people will not let the Tories forget that using stereotypical attacks against people from Norfolk like some poor comic will not win us round at the ballot box.

Iain Dale endorsement

My wife came home from work today having been told by a number of her work colleagues that someone had written something nice about me in the Eastern Daily Press last Saturday.

Not buying a daily newspaper and usually reading the EDP at work, I don't often see the Saturday edition, so I phoned my parents and was surprised to read that Iain Dale was talking about the ongoing problems the Lib Dems and Tories are having in the Broadland constituency.

The are Lib Dems having to reselect in the wake of April Pond switching to Norwich North during the recent by-election. But the Tories too have potential problems if, as is rumoured, Keith Simpson is "kicked upstairs" to the House of Lords and Cameron tries to insert an A lister from London (as has happened in South West Norfolk), Broadland is a very interesting seat to live in.

The Lib Dems ought to be able to win this seat within two elections and if the right candidate is chosen, perhaps sooner, so it was nice to hear that the "one credible candidate the Lib Dems could choose" is, erm, well, me, or so says Iain in his EDP column.

Thanks Iain for the kind words but no thanks. Politics is a dirty business these days and the thought of spending four days a week away from my family in London is not an option I would look forward to.

Still, I really appreciate the compliment.

Let's give Simon Cowell some credit

After all the slagging off of Simon Cowell this week, let's at least give him some credit.

It takes an enormous amount of hard work to take a group of largely talented people, give them an all time classic song, and yet still produce a a cover version of that song which genuinely is appalling.

Still, Simon Cowell has managed to achieve this through his release of the X Factor contestants cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Political Opportunist Of The year Award Goes To ...

The MEP for the North West who thinks it appropriate to stand for the UK Parliament in a London Borough.

Stand up and collect your prize Nick Griffin.

Cameron and the Camera Man

It seems a very odd world that when Gordon Brown tries to do the right thing and write a person handwritten letter to a mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan, he is castigated. And when he further goes out of his way to phone her, he receives more bile from the Murdoch Press. Yet when David Cameron takes his own personal cameraman to a war memorial in order to gain extra publicity shots, he seems to get off with none of the major media organisations taking up the story.

Biased BBC ? I should say !

Forget Performance Related Pay in the MOD, all Performance Related Pay Is Flawed Anyway

The was a lot of fuss yesterday about Performance Related Pay (PRP) in the Ministry of Defence yesterday, but little discussion of the reason it was introduced and the very fact that virtually all PRP is flawed.

Looking in to the details of the MOD PRP system, it appears that staff were effectively robbed of the pay increase they might have expected in the past with the promise of a performance based system that was designed not improve performance but instead, like all PRP system, was designed to save money.

When I worked at worked at Norwich Union in a team of 10 people, we were sold the idea of PRP being introduced that would "reward people for their efforts". When you looked at the system itself, it was nothing of the sort.

Of the ten people in a team, only a maximum of two could receive the top rating of "1", a further two could receive a "2" and three people could receive a "3", meaning that three people had to fight it out to get the remaining two "4 ratings, leaving one more person to get "5". Put simply, you were not and could not be rated on your performance because you were forced in to bands. if everyone in the team did the same work and every worked to the best of the abilities, one of those outstanding people would still have received the lowest rating of "5" whilst his or her colleagues, doing exactly the same work to the same standard could receive the top rating of "1".

In short, PRP is not a means of rewarding people for the work they have done. It is a means of paying people different salaries for doing the same job.

I know of a Council, for example, that allows its HR department to choose which council department should receive the highest "one off" performance bonus each year and, surprise surprise, the HR department wins the award almost every year.

So let's not criticise staff in the MOD for getting PRP. Let's castigate those morons who thought PRP should be introduced in the first place.

What is the Tories obsession with sex ?

The furore over the possible deselection of South West Norfolk Tory PPC Liz Truss is ongoing, with various newspapers now covering the story in some detail. The problem is, whenever they need a comment on the issue, they turn to the usual suspects in the Tory blogosphere, Iain Dale, and ConHome . And sadly every single time they seem to turn the issue to one of sex rather than one of trust. It seems the Tory blogosphere is obsessed with talking about sex.

The one thing they have missed is that South West Norfolk Tories are not going on about sex at all, and it seems odd for me, a Lib Dem who has campaigned in South West Norfolk against the Tories there to be defending them whilst the Metropolitan Tory blogs sling mud and barbs at Norfolk using the sort of stereotypical rubbish that anyone who really knew the county would know to avoid. Indeed some of the insults might easily be used by other political parties to highlight just what the Tories really think of Norfolk people.

The Telegraph did a piece on the Liz Truss story which went under the headline "Having an is no barrier to being an MP", says Shadow Womens minister. I agree, and I am sure that South West Norfolk Tories would agree also. The fact is though that it is an issue of trust because she did not share this information with the local Tory Party at the meeting.

It seems clear from virtually everything I have read that locals in South Norfolk are not talking about "the sex" or "the marital affair", but are instead deeply upset that they were treated like fools who could not be trusted to make sensible judgement based on being given the full facts. It might have been any issue, one not involving sex, it might have been a failed business, a scurrilous comment or a failed marriage, quite frankly it did not matter what the issue was. It was the fact that nobody bothered to tell the members first. If the local members are not told who the candidates are in advance (which I gather they were not), they couldn't look people up on Google. But should they be expected to ? Should you have to believe that candidates might keep potentially embarrassing information from you just because you don't have the ability to come already briefed to the selection meeting ?

So I would stress to those metropolitan Tories from outside of Norfolk. Get over the affair and start dealing with the issue of trust, and whilst you are at it, stop labelling and attacking people in Norfolk. If that's what you think of us all, you certainly don't deserve our votes.

Update : Ironically, I was also phoned today about whether I was interested in being the Lib Dem candidate in South West Norfolk. Sadly, I am too busy, but it appears that my views are closer to a lot of those in the Tory Party in SW Norfolk than many would have thought.

Liz Truss - Can the Tory blogging mafia spin their way through this one ?

As one commenter to my blog wrote

"Yesterday's headlines were "Liz Truss Comes out Fighting" (Iain Dale) and "Liz Truss Wins Over local paper" (Con Home).

They should have waited a day for Saturday's EDP !

I think this finally does for Liz. Even Iain Dale cannot spin this one."

What the Tory spinners failed to notice (from only looking at the online editions of the EDP) was that there was also a column in yesterdays EDP which absolutely castigated Liz Truss and those who from on high in the Tory Party, and outside of Norfolk, were dictating what they should and should not think. This article was totally overlooked by Iain Dale and Con Home.

The inconsistencies too in Liz Truss' story about when she became a Tory (at university she claimed) when everywhere else it says she was a Lib Dem at university and that she left the Lib Dems after leaving University did not add up.

Then we turn to today's EDP front page which leads on the headline that Elizabeth Truss is accused of "more hypocrisy and deceit as new revelations emerge".

Now come on Iain and Con Home. Spin your way through this.

The fact is that Iain and Con Home still don't get it. Whilst for many people the issue might be the affair she had, the truth is for the majority of people it is an issue of trust. And what is clear is that in the current political climate, being able to trust your candidate and MP is vital. Clearly people in SW Norfolk Tories have lost trust in Lizz Truss.

UPDATE - For those incapable of reading, can I refer them to the final paragraph and get over the issue of her marital infidelity. That, in itself, is not the issue. The issue is clearly one of trust and honesty, and this is where Mrs Truss appears to have her problems.

Tories absolutely 100% spot on over swine flu

At last one of the opposition political parties has broken the cosy consensus over swine flu and dared to question the way the vaccination programme is being handled in the UK.

Andrew Lansley has questioned why, in the light of evidence from the US, all those under the age of 24 are not being targetted with the vaccine, and further evidence on the BBC website would back up that view.

It is clear that those with underlying medical conditions are more at risk than other groups, but in particular those under the age of five are at just as big a risk as many people with underlying medical conditions. Currently 81% of under fives admitted to hospital for swine flu have no underlying medical condidtions. As the evidence shows, this age group, who are also twice as likely to need medical care and an intensive care bed, are being largely ignored by the government.

Despite government claims that under fives with medical conditions such as asthma are being targeted for the vaccine, I know that many children with asthma, using inhalers BUT who ahve not been officially diagnosed because many children under the age of three are not "officially" asthmatic until further test are undergone when they have "developed", will NOT GET THE VACCINE ! This is another one of the little lies this government and Sir Liam Donaldson have peddled in order to maintain that they know what they are doing.

I hope the Tories go further in asking the government why doctors surgeries have not even been told when they can expect the vaccine (meaning they cannot even start the process of booking appointments), and why it is that all doctors surgeries, irrespective of size and the number of patients they have, will all get 500 vaccines delivered. Surely any idiot could work out that larger doctors surgeries require more vaccine than smaller ones ? Apparently not, as it seem Sir Liam Donaldson really is as stupid a man as you can find. Remember it was Sir Liam Donaldson who said in September that we were "tantalisingly close to beating swine flu", and before that in early Ausgst he said we would be vaccinating by the end of August. Worse still he was saying in June we might have vaccines by late July. Oh dear !

So well done to Andrew Lansley, who has put the Lib Dems to shame in the silence that they have shown over this issue.

The cosy consensus would have had us believe that because things are not as bad as they might have been over swine flu that they government have done well. In truth, they have shown a massive degree if complacency and Sir liam Donaldson has shown himself to be a prize fool.

NatWest/RBS double talk

For months RBS, owners of NatWest, have been selling NatWest to the public as the bank that has more staff, more branches open, the most helpful staff and cares most about customers.

Today we read that NatWest are to shed up to one third of their staff.

It's investment banking that made the losses at RBS/NatWest, but it is the staff in wholesale banking who lost their jobs. What's more is it is customers, ordinary people like you and me who suffer and get worse service and less branches.

Isn't that an odd sort of logic ?