Reply to: Tony Blair and the £8million tax 'mystery'

[Paddy]

Nevermind his political career - why HMRC isn't on the case demanding to know why he's got so much admin expenses and why he is using so many companies which to me look totally artificial.

Because the British are far more cleaver at corruption that the Russians. Perhaps we can run courses on how to be a corrupt Politian and still get off Scott free.

[AtW]

Nevermind his political career - why HMRC isn't on the case demanding to know why he's got so much admin expenses and why he is using so many companies which to me look totally artificial.

[TheFaQQer]

Blair saw that he could have a political career with labour, so joined them. If he'd have been able to pull it off with the tories, then he'd have been a tory.

It was all about gaining power, having a political career. Nothing to do with deeply held convictions.

Which is one of the reasons that the Tories hate Blair so much. If they had had someone who could do the same (kind of like how they have now, in fact), then they wouldn't have been moaning for so long about how he was all sound bite and no substance.

[DimPrawn]

Nothing will ever change... the system has been designed to keep the "ruling elite" and the "plebs" in their respective places.

The voting system is just there to give an illusion of "democracy".

Exactly. You'll never oust me an sasguru.

[NotAllThere]

Blair saw that he could have a political career with labour, so joined them. If he'd have been able to pull it off with the tories, then he'd have been a tory.

It was all about gaining power, having a political career. Nothing to do with deeply held convictions.

[TheFaQQer]

Yes, but as I recall they all had the decency to resign (or were told to).

Jonathan Aitken resigned so that he could prove his complete innocence using the "simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play". And then tried to get his daughter to lie under oath in the court case. He since claimed bankruptcy to avoid paying the legal bills.

Neil Hamilton said that he would resign if he'd done anything wrong. Unfortunately, he lost his seat before anyone could put that theory to the test, since the Downey report wasn't published until after the election.

[TheFaQQer]

"We must tackle abuse of the tax system"

"But since we didn't, I don't see why I shouldn't take advantage of it" - Tony Blair (implied), 2012

[SantaClaus]

I agree, both, in fact all three parties are a bunch of thieving c^nts.

The system has to change,

Nothing will ever change... the system has been designed to keep the "ruling elite" and the "plebs" in their respective places.

The voting system is just there to give an illusion of "democracy".

[Paddy]

Exclusive: How Blair and BP "Lied" Over Iraqi Oil

TONY BLAIR and BP misled the public about the importance of securing lucrative oil contracts in the decision to invade Iraq, secret government documents reveal.

Shortly before the invasion in March 2003, Blair dismissed criticism that he was fighting a war for oil as an “absurd conspiracy theory”. BP had also denied holding specific talks with the government about oil opportunities once Saddam Hussein was toppled.

However, four months before the invasion, Baroness Symons, the then trade minister, told BP that the government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq’s enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Blair’s military commitment to secret US plans for regime change.

Symons also agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP’s behalf because the oil giant feared it was being “locked out” of secret “political deals” that Washington was striking ahead of the invasion with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

The minute of the meeting with BP, BG (formerly British Gas) and Shell on 31 October 2002 said: “Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis.”

The minister then promised to “report back to the companies before Christmas” on her lobbying efforts. She met BP again on 5 December.

The restricted documents describing these meetings on the road to war were released under the Freedom of Information Act to oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. “It was a five-year struggle to get them, but they provide evidence of what many of us suspected: that oil was at the centre of the Blair government's thinking on Iraq,” he said.

“Not for nothing was BP known as Blair Petroleum, but Baroness Symons’ attitude sounds more like something from the Nineteenth Century. Didn’t her officials point out that under the Hague and Geneva conventions it’s illegal to fight wars for resources?" added Muttitt, whose book, Fuel on the Fire, will be published later this week.

BP also gave a presentation to one of Blair’s economic advisers on 6 November 2002 during a discussion at the Foreign Office about opportunities in Iraq “post regime change”. The government minutes record that: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.”

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf’s contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world’s leading oil company. BP told the government it was willing to take “big risks” to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world after Saudi Arabia.

Weeks later on 6 February 2003 Blair told a television audience: “The oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons.”

Last night, Blair dismissed the content of official documents from his own time in office and denied oil was a consideration in the decison to invade Iraq. His spokesman said: “This is the stuff of ludicrous conspiracy theory without basis in fact whatsoever.”

Symons, 59, who also served as defence minister and Middle East minister in the Blair government, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid advisor to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gadaffi started firing on protestors.

[Sysman]

History of the British Conservative Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, but as I recall they all had the decency to resign (or were told to).

The NuLabour lot just carried on as nothing had happened when they got caught out.

[pjclarke]

Lets not forget Dame Shirley Porter, described by Leo McKinstry as "the high priestess of Tory sleaze,", surcharged £43m for corruption offences including shoving large numbers of homeless families into a set of tower blocks which were riddled with asbestos, purely for the political goal of keeping these likely Labour voters out of marginal wards.

[Paddy]

The Tories were amateurs compared to the next lot, who had the cheek to campaign against Tory sleaze:

1. In late 1997 Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss, gave £1m to Labour and in return motor racing was exempted from a ban on tobacco advertising. Ecclestone's donation was returned in 1998 when the public found out about deal.
2. The Hinduja brothers, whilst on bail under corruption charges in India, were finally given British passports after donating more than £1m to the Millenium Dome project and the intervention of Labour minister Peter Mandelson.
3. In 2001 Mr Blair wrote to the Romanian Prime Minister to support Lakshmi Mittal's bid to buy their state-owned steel firm. In return Mittal donated £125,000 to the Labour party's 2001 election campaign, and has in total given £2m to the party.
4. In March 2006, several men nominated for life peerages by Tony Blair were rejected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It was later revealed they had loaned large amounts of money to the governing Labour Party, at the suggestion of Labour fundraiser Lord Levy. Levy was arrested and Blair became the first person to be interviewed by police at 10 Downing Street.
5. Of seven British donors who have given more than a £1m to Labour while Blair was Prime Minister, six have received honours. They include Lord Drayson, who gave £1.1m and was given a job as a Defence minister, and Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who has given Labour £16m and who became Science minister.
6. Sir Alistair Graham, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, called for a tougher standards regime and has been critical of Mr Blair for failing to implement a series of recommendations to combat sleaze.

And that's just the big ones.

I agree, both, in fact all three parties are a bunch of thieving c^nts.

The system has to change,

[AtW]

All amateurs compared to Putin's mafia.

[Doggy Styles]

History of the British New Labour Party

History of the British Conservative Party - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tories were amateurs compared to the next lot, who had the cheek to campaign against Tory sleaze:

1. In late 1997 Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One boss, gave £1m to Labour and in return motor racing was exempted from a ban on tobacco advertising. Ecclestone's donation was returned in 1998 when the public found out about deal.
2. The Hinduja brothers, whilst on bail under corruption charges in India, were finally given British passports after donating more than £1m to the Millenium Dome project and the intervention of Labour minister Peter Mandelson.
3. In 2001 Mr Blair wrote to the Romanian Prime Minister to support Lakshmi Mittal's bid to buy their state-owned steel firm. In return Mittal donated £125,000 to the Labour party's 2001 election campaign, and has in total given £2m to the party.
4. In March 2006, several men nominated for life peerages by Tony Blair were rejected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It was later revealed they had loaned large amounts of money to the governing Labour Party, at the suggestion of Labour fundraiser Lord Levy. Levy was arrested and Blair became the first person to be interviewed by police at 10 Downing Street.
5. Of seven British donors who have given more than a £1m to Labour while Blair was Prime Minister, six have received honours. They include Lord Drayson, who gave £1.1m and was given a job as a Defence minister, and Lord Sainsbury of Turville, who has given Labour £16m and who became Science minister.
6. Sir Alistair Graham, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, called for a tougher standards regime and has been critical of Mr Blair for failing to implement a series of recommendations to combat sleaze.

And that's just the big ones.

[DodgyAgent]

In January 1997 Mr Ecclestone, the Formula One chief, donated £1million to Labour - a donation only made public in early November after the government had announced F1 would be exempt from a ban on tobacco advertising which was a key plank of the party's election manifesto. Mr Ecclestone lobbied for the exemption at a meeting at Number 10 with Mr Blair on 16 October.

The difference being That the Tories coined about £3K and labour £1 million - the left do corruption much better than the Tories