Thursday, May 21, 2009
Britain's Credit Rating Suffers From Brown's Debt Policy
Iain Dale 10:23 AM
We have revised the outlook on the UK to negative due to our view that, even assuming additional fiscal tightening, the net general government debt burden could approach 100 percent of GDP and remain near that level in the medium term," Standard & Poor's credit analyst David Beers said in a statement.
Beers said S&P had a more cautious view than the UK government of "how quickly the erosion in the government's revenue base may be repaired, the extent to which the growth in government spending can be curtailed, and consequently the pace at which historically high fiscal deficits are likely to narrow".
The June gilt future and the pound tumbled sharply after the announcement.A Little More on Tam Dalyell & His Books
Iain Dale 10:19 AM
So hard up was Mr Dalyell that he decided to spend a few more taxpayer pounds - admittedly only about £30 that I can prove, but as we have seen, every penny counts, doesn't it? How did he do this?
Well, if you have bookcases which cost that amount you need some nice books to fill them. Clearly, just as ordinary book cases weren't enough for Mr Dalyell, nor were ordinary books. So he set about sending them out to authors to get them signed. Nothing wrong with that - except he used House of Commons postage to do it. And not only that, he enclosed a House of Commons franked SAE for the authors to send them back to him in.
I know the names of two well known authors who received books in this manner from Mr Dalyell and there were at least two others. But if there were four, there were probably more.
OK, it's not exactly on the scale of Duck Island or Elliott Morley's mortgage, but when the Telegraph can devote half a page to Jo Swinson supposedly claiming for a 29p eyeliner when it only devoted about 6 column inches to two Labour Peers being chucked out of the House of Lords, I don't think I will be taking any lectures about proportionality!Iain Dale 9:13 AM
The report stated that Margaret Moran had used her position as an MP to facilitate the access to Government Ministers for the company. Specifically, it was alleged that she has held parties at Westminster to which Ministers were invited.
It was also alleged that eNetworks is run by local Luton Labour party members.
Perhaps the most damaging allegation was that eNetworks submitted an application for a grant for the sum of £26,000 from Luton Council in 2007. Nothing wrong with that on the surface, but eNetworks ticked the box to say that they were a registered charity and gave a charity number. The Charity Commission told Look East that eNetworks is not a charity and that the number does not exist.
Margaret Moran, her partner Mick booker & eNetworks were invited to respond. Neither did.
Interestingly, eQuality ran a conference on 7 May 2009 on housing at which both Andy Burnham and local government minister Iain Wright spoke. Margaret Moran chaired it. Is it ethical for an MP to run a commercial conference company and use her undoubted influence to secure such top name speakers?
And how nice of one of Ms Moran's employees at eQuality to nominate her for a Women in Public Affairs Award. From the citation, you'd think she was a blameless heroine...Margaret Moran MP for Luton South is an outstanding woman and one that Luton should be proud of.Her vision is that of a forward thinking, modern day suffragette and her attitude is one of a high performance athlete...Parliament would be a very dull place without her; I’m 100% positive about that.
Indeed. Indeed.
UPDATE: The FT has yet more serious allegations against Ms Moran, relating to eQuality. She is accused of using her Commons staff to work for the company.The FT has further discovered that Ms Moran used her Commons staff to work for Equality Networks (EQN), a non-profit group of which she is the non-remunerated chair. Michael Booker, her fiancé, is one of two company directors. The company, which states its profit “goes back into regeneration, jobs and skills to some of the most deprived communities in the UK”, offers services including research, training and “influencing”, defined as “legislative advice, relationship building and arranging meetings to parliamentary receptions or political briefings”.
EQN’s accounts show its funding comes from public grants, business sponsorship and private events organised for paying clients, principally in the housing sector.
Hundreds of documents seen by the Financial Times dated from 2006 to 2008 show that Ms Moran used her parliamentary staff to write funding bids for EQN, telling one that the salary the individual received was tied to working for EQN. Her constituency office also helped organise “great networking opportunities” at EQN conferences with ministers personally invited by Ms Moran.
When EQN bids for funding were unsuccessful, Ms Moran repeatedly used Commons-headed paper to intervene with local authorities and Whitehall departments to express her “concern and amazement”.
EQN received grants in 2008 from public bodies including £10,000 from Luton Borough Council for local regeneration funding, and £20,000 from the East of England Development Agency’s Investing in Communities programme for a “feasibility study” into a local women’s business centre.
A statement authorised by Ms Moran in response to the FT stated that “Margaret has never written any letters for EQN on parliamentary headed notepaper”.
However, the FT has seen copies of letters written by Ms Moran in 2007 on Commons-headed paper supporting EQN funding bids and personal invitations to EQN events sent to businesses on Commons headed paper.
If David Cameron can fire an MP for claiming £1,600 for a duck island, isn't it about time that Gordon Brown did the same thing to Margaret Moran?
Thursday 21 May 2009
What we should be discussing is what some of us have warned of for some time - Standard & Poor's downgrading of Britain's credit rating. Their outlook for the UK economy is now "negative" and while it is not yet changing our AAA rating, it warns that there are huge questionmarks over public finances. It is only a matter of time before the AAA rating is downgraded. Here's what Reuters say...
I've got a little supplementary to the Tam Dalyell bookcases story. Remember, he put in a claim for £18,000 for new bookcases only two months before he retired from Parliament in 2005. In the event the Fees Office only paid him £7,000. Poor chap. Must have been on his uppers after that.
The BBC local news programme Look East ran a report last night concerning Margaret Moran and her connections to her partner's company eNetworks.
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