Tuesday 21 September 2010

The British Election 2010: the view from Belize!


The Right Honourable the Baron Ashcroft has cemented his leadership of the Tory awkward squad by resigning as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and issuing a stinging rebuke to David Cameron and his coalition in the form of a 133 page book entitled “Minority Verdict”. Thankfully this is going to be his “first and only contribution” on the subject. But as we know Lord A is a great believer in the adage that promises and pie crusts were made to be broken. Evidence his solemn promise to his then leader wee Wullie Hague to stop being a non-dom and actually pay taxes on his trillions like... err... ordinary British people (on condition of course that he gets to sit in the Houses of Parliament without the actual need to be elected). So look out for more of his inane wittering on the subject of how we all should be acting and voting.

The book is the good Baron’s take on why the Tories did not get the thumping majority that he thought the people of Great Britain ought to have given his party after all the money he shelled out on the election. It seems that his view of how the ordinary British man/woman ought to think is markedly different from ....erherm, well reality. The view from Belize City is that David Cameron and the Tories were wrong to agree to the televised debates as this enabled the Lib Dems to grasp the real change initiative. Of course it may have escaped the good Baron’s notice (what with the entire Atlantic Ocean between him his cosy Caribbean retreat and the rest of us) that during the height of the “I agree with Nick” furore, the Lib Dems were polling way up in the high 20s and at some points were second to the Tories with Labour in third. But this did not actually transmit into real votes, and yet again the Lib Dems limped home in a dismal third place.

He also concluded in his “book” that the Tories failed to get their message over to voters, who had little clear idea of what the Tories stood for. Yet again the view from Belize may have rendered the good Baron’s judgement somewhat simplified. Did he not notice that in England the message came home loud and clear, while in the devolved areas it clearly did not. No doubt popular wisdom in Belmopan is that England extends from Lands End to Wick and he can’t understand why those bits on the edges didn’t swallow his message hook line and sinker just like the English did.

Finally and most laughably of all he went on to criticise the Tory leadership for not giving him more support when he was caught out being a greedy, lying, cheat in March when his continued non-dom status was revealed despite the by then ten year old pledge to wee Wullie to actually make a contribution to the nation in whose Parliament he has a seat. Hardly surprising considering the red faces all round that that little bit of chicanery produced at Tory central. My opinion is: why don’t you take your book and you billions and F off back to the back of beyond, your contributions are most certainly not welcome. And there you are one and all, an instance where I do agree with the Tories!

22 comments:

  1. Shock...horror..agreeing with the T..T..T.. (can't say it) munguin!? (you feeling ok?)

    Good post!

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  2. So who is to be Labours' next target? One of their own non-doms?

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  3. LOL Very funny post Munguin... he is an abominable little man isn't he? Clearly he paid out all that money and got.... Nick Clegg, who incidentally seems to have been in the news an awful lot more than David (notwithstanding the Liberal conference).

    OR, the blog has been accused of Tory bashing over the last few months, but prior to the general election, when Labour mattered a little (because they were the government), we bashed them too. They are, at present an irrelevance; even their daft leadership contest has been so entirely dull, despite the family connection, that it has barely been worthy of note. Whoever wins will carp at the Tories for doing more or less what they would have done anyway. David or Ed.... who cares?

    I’m sure that at some stage we had a go at the ignoble lord Paul on here. The non-dom who apparently lives in a cupboard in his own hotel, but has to have another house, the size of St Paul’s cathedral in central London, because of his need to claim expenses...... so sorry, because of all the work he does in the House of Cards...Lards... no, Lords.

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  4. The hatred of Ashcroft is a bit hypocritical of Labour. None of the Labour leadership could match his success or have done anything like him in wealth creation.He creates wealth and Labour destroys wealth.
    100,000 jobs created in the UK, set up and funds 'Crimestoppers, funds hundreds of charities, bought 160 VC's to stop them going abroad and presented them to the Imperial War museum in a purpose built building. The list goes on and on. 40 years of job creation and donations and they hate him because he decided to move abroad to reduce his tax bill. Hundreds of 'stars' do the same. All the Bono's and Connerys, Jaggers etc etc. But their luvvies and so are not to be attacked. labours role of corrupt MPs' going to the 'other place' is endless. Martin, Prescott etc etc...
    And there are Labour non dom donors who are ignored by the media.

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  5. Disagree Grumpy:

    He wants to buy power in a relatively powerful country (hanging on USA's coat tails). If he is THAT altruistic he should pay his tax like he promised to in return for ermine.

    He wanted a title; there was a price, which he agreed with his friend to pay, and then didn't.

    I agree about the stars, but they simply aren't important enough to get that level of criticism. This guy would be a politician. They just want to be entertainers, which they do to a greater or lesser extent. Personally I think that handing titles to these people is plain ridiculous and of course it’s about buying popularity with their fans. These people did what exactly to get titles?

    There are corrupt, pathetic and despicable MPs from all parties in the Lords. I think it should be dismantled immediately and the titles taken away from its members. There’s nothing wrong with Mr Mrs, Ms or Miss. I’d say they should blow it up, but if I did then probably the Met would lock me up for the weekend.

    As for the Labour non-doms, I think that the Telegraph and the Times gave them a fair blasting when they were discovered. I can only remember Lord Paul but there are others. Feel free to remind us of who they were though. I’ve no time for non-dom politicos no matter who they are.

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  6. tris..

    We never got to the bottom of what was agreed with Ashcroft and Hague. It seems to have been deliberately vague. I'm like you and would prefer no House of Lords or an elected upper house ( Cleggie on the case allegedly). But if we do have to have jobs for the boys then we shouldn't help the BBC and aim all our hate at Ashcroft. We never hear about the Labour non doms which is why you have probably never heard of some of these guys..



    • Lord Paul – £69,250 in donations to Labour, including £45,000 to Gordon Brown’s leadership campaign. A close friend of Gordon Brown and appointed to the Privy Council last summer, he has admitted to being ‘non-dom’.
    • Lakshmi Mittal - £4.125 million in donations to Labour.
    • Sir Ronald Cohen - £2.55 million in donations to Labour. Cohen was appointed chair of the Social Investment Taskforce, which was announced by the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown.
    • Sir Christopher Ondaatje - £1.7 million in donations to Labour.
    • Sir Gulam Noon - £532,826 in donations to Labour.
    • William Bollinger - £510,725 in donations to Labour.
    • Mahmoud Khayami - £985,000 in donations to Labour including £5,000 to Hazel Blears’ deputy leadership campaign. He has helped bankroll two flagship schools, one of which Gordon Brown opened, and was personally thanked for a donation by Tony Blair.
    • Dr David Potter - £90,000 in a donation to Labour. He has previously delivered a lecture at Downing Street.

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  7. Grumpy: For all I detest the modern Labour party, they have to have donors as well, and as far as I can see you only mention one non-dom there...(unless the rest are and you didn't mention it). I’ve already had a go at the odious Paul. If the rest are in fact non doms, then why doesn’t wee Gideon do something about it this very day? He has the power. And I would back him all the way. If you are non dom you may not be a member of a political party; you may not donate to a political party and you may not hold a title given by the British Empire, whatever that is. (The Isle of man I think.)

    One of the things incidentally I would like to see is the BBC slimmed down to BBC1, and a few radio stations. The licence fee would then be only a matter of a few pounds, and people could have a block put on their tv sets so that they could not receive BBC if they wished not to contribute to it, but did wish to watch STV or Sky or Bid-up TV, or whatever.

    Mr Mark Thomson would then only need about £40,000 to be running it and if he didn’t like that he could always go and get a proper job, or sign on.

    You see, I’m with you on a lot of things.

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  8. Indyan: I am agreeing with the Tories in power in the coalition, but clearly I’m not in accord with them all. Grumpy for example seems to sympathise with Ashcroft and Davis and think we should aim our ire at Labour and the BBC. Whereas I am no apologist for Labour misdemeanours, it’s absolutely priceless that Lord A should be throwing his toys out of the pram in this way because he didn’t get everything he wanted. The Labour non-doms aren’t doing that (much more fun to watch the feud between their ex-PMs) so it wouldn’t make a very good post would it? Did the Labour non-doms lie to get their titles and then get exposes in such a sensational manner? Did they make a total fool of their erstwhile leader who wangled their title for them? Did they then moan about it in a book from the safety of the Caribbean and petulantly resign from the party elite? These are the excellent reasons for a post. And so I have to be in agreement with the Tory leadership. Lord A is an arse who is full of s**t.

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  9. PS Munguin: I see that Ashcroft has been appointed doctor. I wondering ...from whom did he purchase that, and what was the supposed subject? Fiddling?

    Grumpy: I forgot to deal with teh question of what we know and don't know about Ashcroft's deal.

    It is actually totally pathetic that there WAS a deal. A reward, to sit in an antiquated house of parliament, and be raised to an aristocracy that is now less about “breeding” and more about purchasing your title.

    If we don’t know everything about it, we bloody well should. The Queen hands out these so called honours on our behalf. Hague had no business making any kind of deal with him (and he admitted that he had). When there are dirty deals, like cash for peerages, which we all know Labour was doing, we deserve to know. Not of course that we ever do. The British government’s job creation scheme was in the manufacture of whitewash and cultivating crooked judged, who also want seats in the House of Lords. It must employ hundreds of thousands (although they probably buy it in from China¬)

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  10. Oldrightie: would be fun. I for one would be happy to post on Labour non-doms if their antics are as worthy as the good Baron Ashcroft.

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  11. Grumpy: you must allow me to vent my social democratic republicanism on my own blog. To be honest Lord Ashcroft’s internecine war with his own party is much more meritorious of a blog than a simple litany of Labour non-doms.

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  12. tris..

    Yes the drones on my list are all non doms.
    I'd love to see the BBC totally privatised. If they're really so good then they will have no problem getting employment in the private sector. Panorama was funny last night. That BBC reporter asking another BBC drone if she was worth twice the salary of the Chief of the Defence Staff was priceless.
    The lady looked insulted and mumbled something about 'market premium ' . She looked about 25 and probably had a degree in meeja studies or something.

    Munguin..

    No probs it's your blog. Vent your spleen at anyone you want.

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  13. Aye, there' something far from right about these salary scales Grumpy... Quite mad actually.

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  14. Since your on about money the Vatican is being investigated over money laundering, invest in confessionals are a sure thing.

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  15. Now there's a surprise, NOT CH.

    Who is doing the investigating?

    Because, if they are good catholics, like the garda in Ireland, they will find nothing wrong, and the offending people will be found jobs elsewhere....

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  16. HRMC are willing to take launderers as they like to keep it in house.

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  17. I wish they'd take my laundry. It's piling up a bit here!!

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  18. I posted this over on Dean's New Right Blog but as only he, his Mother and unguin go there here it is again



    I note that the Noble Lord has resigned his position in the Tory Party and wonder why?

    I also note that the Tories will probably make moves to tighten up on offshore domicility and UK taxation due. This is probably being driven by the LibDem awkward squad.

    I wonder if the two are connected.

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  19. Thats a little unfair bugger, Dean gets lots of readers.

    I did see your comment over there and refer yoy to the reply I made a few moments ago!

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  20. Yeah, Dean gets a lot of readers Bugger.

    He may be a Tory, but he's our Tory.... and I read all his stuff.

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  21. Well... no, clearly you read it as well....so that's 3 :)

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