In 1970 the UK and Norway were roughly equal, almost no debt, and owned all their Public Services.
Now the UK owns nothing and has £3tn of debt.
While Norway still owns everything and has the equivalent of £10tn.
That's how privatisation 'works'.
A lot of people would have you believe that handing over parts of the NHS to private providers is our only option
But…
* Only the NHS takes care of patients at A&E
* Only the NHS trains our doctors and nurses
* Only the NHS looks after all patients
If you think it’s acceptable for someone who owns a U.K. political party to take a £5 million bribe to act in the interests of a crypto billionaire, try to hide it and then when they get caught refuse to answer questions about it, you need to give your head a really good shake.
The more I dig, the more I realise that Nigel Farage is literally done for. It's over for him. The £5 million bung is big enough to take the entire Reform movement down and possibly land Nigel in jail.
1) The fact the donation was made BEFORE Nigel was MP is absolutely irrelevant. Parliamentary Code of Conduct requires all receipts for the full 12 months before election. Nigel receiving his bung just a few days before he announced his candidacy makes it so much worse, not better.
2) "Category 5: Gifts and benefits from sources outside the UK - THRESHOLD FOR REGISTRATION Section 39. Members must register, subject to the paragraphs below, any gifts or benefits with a value of over £300 which they receive from a source outside the UK."
Nigel argues this was 'purely personal' but the Code refers to partners or families when it comes to personal gifts... this takes us to the next issue...
3) Christopher Harborne has a long track record of making SUBSTANTIAL political contributions to Nigel's parties, first to The Brexit Party, and later to Reform. He is a POLITICAL DONOR - any "gift" he made to Farage CANNOT be argued as personal or without political context due to this track record.
4) Using his platform as an MP, Nigel went on to promote 2 companies in which Christopher Harborne holds $ billions in stock - Nigel NEVER publicly endorsed or mentioned these companies prior to the "gift". Nigel also began actively pushing for policy that would directly interest Christopher Harborne and his business affairs. These were not interests that any could argue could possibly be of interest to his constituents - deregulation of crypto, and lowering of taxes on crypto gains. Nigel spent a substantial amount of time and effort pushing these policies.
It is beyond a doubt that this is the biggest breach of Parliamentary Code of Conduct rules in relation to donations in parliamentary history.
But even more concerning for Nigel will be that if it can be proven he was secretly incentivised to use his public office to push for policies to support a wealthy donor, then he should very likely face a criminal probe for corruption and bribery. I suspect Harborne might also be exposed to this. The United Kingdom and Thailand have a bilateral extradition treaty. Maximum prison sentences of up to 10 years for the offence.
This is not going to go away.
If you are worried about
Benefit Fraud £0.5bn but not Government Corruption £219bn.
Immigration £2bn but not Tax Havens £150bn.
Junior Doctors pay rises £1.3bn but not Bankers tax cuts £7.3bn.
You‘re buying their lies.
This is Lord Rothermere the owner of the Daily Mail.
He lives in a massive mansion in the English countryside, but he pays no tax here because he identifies as French.
While the Daily Mail is registered in Bermuda and pays no tax anywhere.
That is his ‘Patriotism’.
@Nigel_Farage Your beloved Thatcher left office without a general election so shut the fuck up Farage no one voted to make you leader of your own farcical party
Will you actually start talking to journalists or will you just be talking to your camera like the cowardly recluse you are #r4today
HOW BRITAIN REWARDS PEOPLE WHO TRY TO SAVE TAXPAYER MONEY: FIRE THEM
Mike Kiely spent 22 years inside BT (@BTGroup). He knew how the telecoms industry operated. So when the government hired him as a consultant to oversee the £2.5 billion rural broadband rollout, he knew exactly what he was looking at.
BT had won all 26 government contracts. All of them.
Kiely did the maths. Installing a street cabinet in Northern Ireland cost around £13,000. On the mainland, BT was charging the government between £61,000 and £80,000 per cabinet. Public money covered roughly 77% of every single one.
He suspected BT was simply inventing tasks and inflating charges to absorb as much public funding as possible without doing more work.
So he shared his analysis with local councils. The people whose job it was to negotiate these contracts and spend public money responsibly.
Then his document leaked to a broadband blog.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport trawled his internal emails, found what they needed, and sacked him. The man who tried to protect public money.
Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge), chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told the Guardian (@guardian) she was getting increasingly concerned at the way whistleblowers were being bullied. She pointed out that hiding behind commercial confidentiality was denying the public the right to know how their money was being spent.
Her committee later confirmed what Kiely had warned all along. Taxpayers had been ripped off. £1.2 billion had gone to BT shareholders.
Kiely was eventually vindicated when a community in Oxfordshire paid £28,000 per cabinet. Exactly in line with what his numbers predicted was fair.
He lost his job for telling the truth. BT kept every contract.
This is what accountability looks like in Britain. The consultant who raises the alarm gets sacked. The company he raised the alarm about gets the cheque.
Support whistleblowers. They are the only audit most public spending ever gets.
SOURCES
@BBCNews@TheRegister@guardian@margarethodge
Amazon UK pulled in £8.2bn revenue and even reported £355m in profit.
But they didn't pay ANY tax.
The reason you have to pay so much, is because they don't pay any.
@BladeoftheS 60,000 a year for driving a train safely, within the limits, with skill and keeping all passengers on board safe. And they pay tax in the UK
Horrible news from the Isle of Man. Maria Costello is currently paralysed from T5/6, following her crash during sidecar qualifying last week. Please contribute to her recovery if you can and also RT
https://t.co/WFKDWnTorE
Fortunately, Britain has a Bermuda-registered mass circulation newspaper owned by a French-domiciled billionaire, a television station owned by a Dubai hedge fund and a political party backed by a Thailand-based crypto tycoon to remind us of the importance of patriotism
The gravy train continues.
Failed former CEO of Ofwat, David Black has reappeared at a consultancy company called BRG where he will "Advise firms and investors across regulated industries as they navigate shifting regulatory frameworks".
His boss? No less than former head of regulation at Thames Water one Colm Gibson.
As @PrivateEyeNews would say "Trebles all round". Well actually that's exactly what they did say. 👇👇👇