Third Whoops-A-Daisy Tory MEP
We have had Giles Chichester personally benefiting from payments of £445,000 to his own family service company based at his home, Den Dover authorising payments of £758,143 to his wife's profiteering service company also headquartered at his home. Blatant and unacceptable self dealing.This morning Guido is looking at documents which show an MEP authorising six figure payments to himself - not a service company - an unincorporated, unregistered partnership of which prima facie he appears to be the beneficiary.
Guido is contacting the MEP's office this morning with some serious urgent questions - looking for answers by the close of business today. It doesn't look good on paper...
51 comments:
To HIMSELF?!!! Bit blatant isn't it? No shame!
Looks like our Dave needs to urgently get his shit together with these fucking parasites, WE NEED PROSECUTIONS!!
What do we WANT!
Funny how the authorities are happy to run public service Ads stating "we know who you are and we know what you do" and happy to threaten dire warnings of imprisonment and heavy fines if you get caught.
Well we know who these individuals are and we know what they are and what they have been doing so what next!
Prosecutions please!
If you talk the talk!!!
Guido you deserve a medal. Keep at it, expose the bastards, make it impossible for them to carry on. "Call me Dave" might even make a name for himself by jumping on your bandwagon. Well done!
When are the police going to do something?
What the fuck is wrong with this country?
I like the Chinese model
Bullet to the back of the head when caught with your fingers in the till.
What's the name of Mr Chichesters Ltd company?
It would be handy to know where to send the invoice for the bullet.
I can't believe that with Labour on the run you are helping the socialists with this tabloid style journalism.
It will take me the rest of my life to earn what those two fuckers have stolen from us. If I'm lucky.
Getting away with it IS NOT ACCEPTABLE! FFS!
Is this another Tory?
You don't specify.
No matter - Nuke the Bastards.
I think the conservatives need to re-do their MEP candidates selection for the 2009 elections. Looks like the current lot may have been in Brussels too long.
Cover Bilderberg you useless shit. This is all fucking trivia. Unless of course you are just like the other press and you set the frame of what reality is or isn't. Don't think about Bilderberg or even become obsessed with it. What if you were to develop a compulsion for some mysterious reason to 'study Bilderberg,' nooooow. This message is for each and both of you.
please God, let it be Kirkhope
"I can't believe that with Labour on the run you are helping the socialists with this tabloid style journalism."
So we should ignore corruption and theft of OUR money just because the perpetrators are Tories? No politician should be immune from criticism, political beliefs are irrelevent. In fact this should help the Tories by clearing the decks now and ensuring this sort of thing doesn't happen when they're in power.
"Cover Bilderberg you useless shit."
A bunch of rich politicians and businessmen having a chinwag. What else is new?
These are just a handful of MEPs out of the many hundreds, or is it thousands. I bet it's accepted that they're all doing something similar.
What was it Kinnock's supposed to be doing when he joined? Rather than root out fraud, he was probably thinking it'd be better to not upset the applecart and join the bandwagon.
Unelected, unaccountable. That's the way they like it.
Squeal, piggies, Squeal!
Let them suffer, all of them. Let the gates of Hell unleash their fury.
These "fill yer boots" merchants must have thought that they had died and gone to Heaven when they became MEPs.
Whilst Cameron can't have them prosecuted he must ensure their deselection immediately.
Congrats again,Guido.
Guido,
(1) So you have not and are not involved in any tax mitigating schemes of any sort.
(2) Isn't Den Dover a video artist?
GOOD !!
When it cannot be denied that it is endemic and not an isolated blip it will be the best position to blow the whole thing apart.
And why are we only looking at english MEPs ? Our taxes go into the pot that pays ALL MEPs - this is europe you know.
God forbid they get an EU army -- think of the kickbacks on military budgets and spending(!) -- If the saudis can do it with impunity, then so will the EU Trough Gobblers.
Guido
If you have found evidence of corruption, then inform the police.
A slap on the wrist from Dave is not good enough. A 9pm to 6am curfew and 3 year ban from parliament would make a good starting point.
Auschwitz for the lot of them
I think that many are missing the point here. Why are these MEPs paying the expenses into companies rather than directly to their wives/children/mistresses whatever, especially given that the company route has all the hassle and expense of forming and running a company? The companies even have to be audited - so presumably their auditors were asking the basis question as to whether the income received from the EU was being spent in the manner intended.
I suspect the answer lies in that the companies were being used a device to reduce income tax paid by the wives/children/mistresses on their earnings (and increase the taxes paid by everyone else). Strangely enough whenever the Government has made proposals to stop such abuse the Conservative Party has nearly always opposed them without fail.
It might also be very interesting to look at the Companies VAT returns - but not sure of the VAT status of payments received from the EU.
Why are they using corporate structures which in theory are more transparent than direct payments??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZoaSaN-aZY&NR=1
The IRONY of watching my MEP talk about openess when he refuses to be open with his expenses.
Remarkable.
Go get him Guido. Bring me his head on a silver platter
Who is the Scottish Labour MP about to pop his/her clogs?
Got to admit Gordon didn't look too well at PMQs this week.
Unfortunately I have never seen any evidence that Dave and co are likely to be any better than the current encumbants. We have been royally screwed by Government for the past 10 years and will continue to be screwed for the next 10 years. There is absolutely no sign of anything changing for the better.
Don't stop, Guido, oh, Guido, keep going, it feels so good, oh, oh...
I salute you Guido. Your namesake may have screwed up a good idea but you're putting that right bigtime with your verbal gunpowder.
Given the amounts involved and that there are roughly 800 MEPS the potential scale of theft is enormous; no wonder they have suppressed exposure of the EU fraud report - that's the one that we know exists. The great train robbers got very long sentences for a fraction of this amount - an MEP resigns. Go figure.
I'm on to my Westminster MP already and encourage everyone to harass the bastards. Westminster took us into this den of iniquity - and its a fair bet they were aware of the existing skulduggery but by their own standards (??) such behaviour is not unreasonable.
Conway is still a free man and MP to boot, Martin is still spending other people's money for immoral purposes, drawing a salary and claiming two taxpayer-funded pensions, MEPs are rampant robbers, the list is endless ... Cameron, Brown and Clegg say much and do little; not one ball between the three of them. Where's all this transparency to which they keep referring. Fairness? Justice? MPs' idea of justice is 'I can fiddle justice much as Martin'.
And while I'm in rant mode, they want to extend custody to 42 days without charge; that will be the same terrorism act they used to hold an 80 year old man for justifiably responding 'rubbish' to the verbal diarrhea to which he had been subjected.
I'll gladly contribute to a firing squad.
this is in part what you get with the 'closed list' of candidates.
a selection of apparatciks , 'has beens', never weres' and all of them arse kissers in order to be selected in the first place by the party machine.
I think this show that Guido is not a "Tory mouthpiece" as some on the left like to think.
He is for high standards from all parties. Any self respecting Tory would agree, being a Conservative is about hard work and responsibility, not about theft, not about filling your boots from the public purse.
The Conservatives must lead from the front, by being cleaner than clean. If some MPs/MEPs/Councillors don't like that then they should leave and join some other party.
Guido, why stop with Conservative MEPs? I would not take any odds at all on every other MEP from every other Euro state being up to exactly the same thing. If you can get this sort of stuff on Tory MEP's why can't you get it on all the others? Or are you being fed this info by disgruntled lefties?
Also what is actually wrong with paying your family if they do work for you? As long as it is at market rates and totally transparent why not? Plenty of business owners do this. And if your spouse/child/mistress is part of your work, as many politicos spouses/children/mistresses are (why do I get a mental image of one being force fed a beef-burger), they may actually work pretty hard for their money. But I do agree that sham employment like Conways son's is completely unnaceptable when claimed against the public purse.
Small service companies are often used to make such payments tax efficient and again why not? The issue may be the ludicrous Brown inspired tax system that drives this system rather then the service company culture itself. And anyway as someone else has pointed out such companies are audited, or at least their accounts published.
On the whole though it is clear that the whole MP/MEP expenses thing is totally out of hand and IMHO has a lot to do with the endemic corrupt culture of Euro politics that, thanks to our continued membership and the consequent emasculation of Parliament, has infected our politicians - of all creeds. So keep up the good work.
Guido,
As the good public spirited man you have proven to be. No doubt, when you have had your questions answered, andthey are not to your satisfaction. You will, as IS your public duty. Make an official request to the Metropolitan Police for the matter to be investigated as possible fraud!
It is no good just putting stories on your blog, you have got to act responsibly.
You could, of course, alert Mr cameron's office of your intention to call in PC Plod and give him the opportunity to do that first!!
We need a complete clean out of British Politics. We need a new party made up of people who are NOT full time politicians or failed counillors. We need new people with no stain on their characters.
Come on lets start a revolution.
If the MEP's can 'fiddle' this much how much is being syphoned off by the unelected and the unknowns further up in the EU. No wonder they can't account for all the EU billions when they have their accounts audited (Is it 14 years now that the auditors have refused to sign off the EU accounts? )
How the Blair's built up their property empire - makes a good read. Also shows, once again that Cherie is not so good on the facts - a quality required by a judge?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1024574/How-Blair-built-property-portfolio-mortgage-expenses-payments.html
These sort of things need to be "weeded out" and if found to be "improper" the person/MEP responsible needs to be "booted out" of the party(although in fairness Cameron has no real say in that regard in relation to MEPs) and I don't care if the MEP in question is a Tory(and I speak as a lifelong Tory Supporter), We had enough of these "shennaningans" in the early 1990's from Tory MPs and other disruptive elements that have kept us out of power for over a decade and I for one have no intention of allowing these sort of people to keep us out of power for another generation, if they can't get the message -they're out(period). We can do without them and they have absolutely no place in the present Conservative Party . There is no longer any excuse for "fiddling" expenses. If you do- you're out. It may be unfair but tough ! I know its "innocent until proven guilty" - tough. Any question marks over your integrity and you're out period. You can whinge about the unfairness of it outside the Conservative Party.
Tory sleaze, as common as ever - Nu Lab just tried to copy them
I'm not Tory and will never be
I'm a Libertarian and love seeing our Lords and Masters getting a thorough kicking.
Anybody spending my money and telling what I can or cannot do is always going to be very much in my field of vision if not my telescopic sights.
Bastards
What is it about British society that makes the rats float to the top while the cream sinks to the bottom?
Guido, dear chap, great job keep the maggots squirming on the hook.
Fuck them all, the trough swilling fucking swine that they are.
Anon @ 9:24 I think you are confusing Den Dover with Ben Dover.
One is a lowlife scumbag who lurks in society's sewers preying on the defenceless and innocent. The other is a pronographer.
Of the two, I am sure you will be able to guess which one I'd be more likely to introduce to the vicar.
Guido, with respect, I do think you and many of the commentators above are really getting a little over excited about this. £440,000 since 1996 equals £37,000 a year. This seems very modest for a salary these days.
If you are saying he should not be employing his wife, I say why not? Every Indian corner shop owner employs his wife and children and we all, rightly, say - well done.
Conway was different as his son obviously did no work for him.
Let's wait and see what the facts are. I'm sure someone will tell me quickly enough if I have missed something.
@ Anonymous at 9.14 am - why does everyone hate kirkhope?
"I suspect the answer lies in that the companies were being used a device to reduce income tax paid by the wives/children/mistresses on their earnings (and increase the taxes paid by everyone else). Strangely enough whenever the Government has made proposals to stop such abuse the Conservative Party has nearly always opposed them without fail. "
I have no problem with people trying to avoid or evade tax. I just object to them using other peoples' tax money to do it.
"£440,000 since 1996 equals £37,000 a year"
No, it is the manner in which they did it.
It is a tax avoidance scheme, which is dubious for an M(E)P to be using, but is also against the rules (not sure since when).
Basically it all goes through a sham company and they only pay 20% tax, no NI, and can write off lots of costs against their so-called 'profits' (where of course the only profit is at the tax-payer's expense: there is no possible way to argue that an MP's company used to funnel expenses into his greedy gullet is in any way a genuine business that can increase sales and employe people, it only exists to avoid tax).
Anon 12:24
Certainly he should be allowed to employ his wife. The question is should he be allowed to use my/our money to do so?
And, what evidence do you have to show she's actually doing anything at all to justify this unaccounted spending of taxpayers' cash? Where was this job advertised and what are the job description and terms?
He's not running some sort of private concern is he?
has he come up with an explanation yet? Time is ticking away!
Guido
How about going after some Irish MEPs. As a fellow Irishman I am sure you'd agree that the Irish political establishment are at least as bent as the brits and a good Euro scandal couldn't do any harm ahead of the vote next week could it?
Has anyone else noticed how creepy-looking Giles Chichester is? I was immediately reminded of Uncle Fester out of the Addams Family.
Has Chichester been expelled from the Conservative party? If not, why not?
Although it's true to say that public servants who use public money to fund their own luxuries are scum, I'm less worried about relatively small amounts of money being siphoned off to a handful of dodgy MEPs/MPs than I am about billions being siphoned off and lost by the labour government generally.
When you consider the hundreds of billions wasted by Brown over the years, this is fucking peanuts.
Yes, these people are scum, but kicking labour out of power is infinitely more important.
I really don't care about sleaze especially when it's relatively small like this (huge oil deals in iraq is a different thing; this is just like dodgy expenses) - the vital thing instead is to put Brown's government finances out in the public arena without obfuscation so that everybody can see how many hundreds of billions he's flushed down the toilet.
Personally I think Brown should be imprisoned for his obfuscation/fraud when it comes to government finances and the fact that he broke innumerable legal contracts to steal money from pensions etc. If you did the same things he does in your tax returns as he does to the country then you'd be put in jail immediately.
So, keep perspective; this "sleaze" is just fucking peanuts and it's dubious whether or not it really is sleazy in the first place; concentrate on the government's own fraud instead; it'll save a fuck of a lot more money in the long run.
Right off topic, but I saw Tony McNulty on Daily Politics today.
What an arrogant, over-opinionated toss-pot he is. Be nice if someone could dig up some really stick dirt on this obnoxious zanulab sod.
Wake up Anon @ 2:46! Someone noticed this the other day but we disowned him!!
Bend Dover - You are about to be royally shafted !!
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