Theresa May

Tories have taken £291,000 in gifts from airports as Sunak eyes runway U-turn

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Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Donations raise eyebrows with Rishi Sunak expected to reject Climate Change Committee advice on banning expansions

Image of a dirty jet passenger aircraft
A dirty jet passenger aircraft

Airport operators have lavished Britain’s last three prime ministers with VIP services worth more than £200,000 since the 2019 election, analysis by openDemocracy has found.

Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May are among the Conservative MPs who have accepted more than £275,000 in donations-in-kind from airport operators, while Conservative Party HQ has also taken more than £13,500 in donations from airport operators.

It comes as the government signals its backing for airport expansions, in contrast with advice from its own climate advisers that adding runways to Heathrow and Gatwick would be incompatible with the UK’s net zero goals. The Department of Transport told openDemocracy it was “supportive of airport expansion where it can be delivered in a sustainable way”.

Peter Barclay, the chair of Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign, said gifts to the Conservative Party were “all part of the industry’s efforts to oil the government machine in their favour”.

“It makes you very suspicious of politicians,” he said.

Sarah Clayton, coordinator of climate campaign group AirportWatch said: “Rishi Sunak has no interest in the environment, his only interest is keeping the Conservative Party going.

“The airports will use every little trick in the book in order to make sure that the law isn’t changed so they can get their expansion plans through.”

Truss, Johnson and May have accepted tens of thousands of pounds in donations in kind from Heathrow Airport Ltd and Gatwick Airport Ltd in the last four years. Both airports are hoping to open additional runways.

Theresa May alone accepted donations in kind worth more than £183,000 for the use of the VIP Windsor suite at Heathrow Airport a staggering 44 times, according to declarations made on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Heathrow advertises the private suite as a “unique and luxurious service” that includes a chauffeur and dinner prepared by a Michelin starred chef “served by your own personal butler”.

Boris Johnson also used the suite at least 34 times, accepting stays worth £58,000 from the airport, four of them while still in office. In addition, he made use of a VIP suite at Gatwick Airport for him and his family on three occasions after leaving office, a donation in kind worth more than £4,000.

His short-lived successor Liz Truss also made use of VIP suites at Heathrow and Gatwick, accepting 14 stays worth more than £24,000 after resigning as prime minister.

Theresa May accepted donations in kind worth more than £183,000 for the use of the VIP Windsor suite at Heathrow Airport a staggering 44 times

Tory Party HQ also accepted a £12,500 cash donation from London City Airport Ltd just days after it won the 2019 election, according to the Electoral Commission’s records, while Heathrow Airport Ltd made a “non-cash” donation worth the equivalent of £1,680.00 to the party in October 2022. It did not respond to questions about what the donation actually was.

A further six Conservative MPs have accepted gifts worth almost £7,000 in total from London City Airport Ltd since 2019. Orpington MP Gareth Bacon declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that he received tickets to sporting fixtures worth £1,849 from the airport last year, which is the closest to his constituency.

Tory MPs Nigel Evans, Robert Neill, Paul Scully, Kevin Hollinrake and Gagan Mohindra also declared that they had accepted tickets to sporting events from the airport.

London City had an application to increase the size of its terminal refused by Newham Council in July, but has appealed the decision.

Operators of British airports including Heathrow and Gatwick, as well as the Airport Operators Association (AOA), also sponsor the Future of Aviation All-Party Parliamentary Group of MPs by donating £10,000 a year to pay for its secretariat.

Karen Dee, the chief executive of AOA, recently wrote that she had been “working with MPs on the Future of Aviation All Party Parliamentary Group to lobby the prime minister and chancellor to allow airports to establish arrivals duty-free stores and to restore VAT-free shopping for international tourists”.

Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingTories have taken £291,000 in gifts from airports as Sunak eyes runway U-turn

The Conservative are responsible for Brexit nonsense over the past three and a half years and this general election

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UK’s Conservative party are solely responsible for Britain’s Brexit debacle over the past three and a half years. The Conservatives brought the referendum vote, Boris Johnson shamelessly lied in the referendum campaign, the Conservatives negotiated a Brexit deal twice, former Conservative prime minister Theresa May called a general election to increase her majority to get Brexit done and ended up with a reduced majority, the Conservatives still had a majority in coalition with the DUP to get Brexit done. The insane idiot Boris Johnson took over as PM, sacked (withdrew the whip from) 21 of his own MPs and spaffed on the DUP to destroy his working majority. He refused to continue with his withdrawal agreement when it was clear that parliament would fulfil their duty by scrutinising it and bringing amendments.

Boris and his rich, elite backers want an insane, anarchic no-deal Brexit. They want a wholesale burning of rules and regulations so that we return to the regulatory regime of fifty years ago. They want to destroy protections for workers and consumers, they want the freedom to pollute and they want you to eat shit. Thankfully opposition parties have prevented that.

The point about Boris Johnson is that he refuses to submit to scrutiny. The prorogation of parliament, telling children not to get drunk at university when it was so much more than that and abandoning his withdrawal agreement are all about evading scrutiny and criticism. His advisor is probably as insane as he is.

Continue ReadingThe Conservative are responsible for Brexit nonsense over the past three and a half years and this general election

Brexit referendum result turned on its head

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The Brexit referendum result would be reversed if rerun today.

Has There Been a Shift in Support for Brexit?

Posted on 8 February 2019 by John Curtice

Unsurprisingly, protagonists on all sides in the Brexit debate are keen to claim that their views reflect the will of a majority of voters. After all, the decision to leave the EU was made by the public in the first place, so being able to argue that what should happen now is backed by voters is a potentially valuable currency in the political debate. Thus, the Prime Minister, for example, insists that in pursuing Brexit she is delivering ‘the Brexit people voted for‘, a vote that, she argues, should not be questioned by asking voters their view a second time. Opponents of Brexit, in contrast, often take the view that voters were misinformed – even misled –  during the EU referendum, and now that they are more aware of the supposed downsides of leaving the EU they should be given the chance to register their second thoughts in a second ballot.

The intensity of this argument reflects, in part at least, the narrowness of the outcome of the referendum in June 2016. Against the backdrop of a 52% vote for Leave and 48% for Remain, not many voters would have to change their minds for the balance of opinion to be tilted in the opposite direction. So, with March 29 – the date when the UK is currently scheduled to leave the EU –  rapidly approaching, where does the balance of opinion now lie on the principle of leaving the EU?

Regular users of our site will be aware that polls that have asked people how they would vote in another EU referendum have for some time been pointing to a small lead for Remain. For much of last year our poll of polls, a running average of the last half dozen readings of second referendum vote intentions, put Remain on 52% and Leave 48%, the mirror image of the outcome in 2016. However, given all the potential pitfalls of polling, such a lead was too narrow for anyone to be sure what the outcome would be if a second ballot were to be held.

In recent months, though, the Remain lead has grown somewhat in our poll of polls. By the beginning of October, it had crept up to Remain 53%, Leave 47%. Now, since the turn of the year it has increased further to Remain 54%, Leave 46%. This movement has also been replicated in the pattern of responses to the question that YouGov regularly ask, ‘In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU?’. Until the 2017 general election typically more people said that the decision to leave the EU was right than stated it was wrong. Since then, however, the oppose has been the case. Even so, by the spring of 2018, on average the proportion who said that the decision was wrong (45%) was still only three points higher than the proportion who said it was right (42%). However, in the readings that YouGov has taken in the last three months, that lead has grown on average to as much as eight points, with as many as 48% saying the decision was wrong, and only 40% that it was right.

…

Three-quarters of newly eligible voters would back remain in second poll

Inigo Alexander 9 Mar 2019

Some 87% of people who were too young to cast a ballot in the 2016 Brexit referendum but have since reached voting age would “definitely” take part if a second public vote were called, according to a new poll. And of the estimated 2 million new young voters, 74% would back remain.

…

Separately, constituency-by-constituency analysis by YouGov of more than 25,000 voters shows that in only two out of 632 constituencies do a majority of voters want their MP to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

Commenting, Peter Kellner, a past president of YouGov, stated: “The coalition that produced a narrow majority for Brexit three years ago is falling apart. It brought together traditionalists in Conservative Britain who saw the EU as a threat to British values and sovereignty, with families in Labour’s heartlands who felt that ‘Brussels’ threatened their living standards and their children’s job prospects.

“The prime minister’s plan is unpopular essentially because few people in either group think it tackles the threat they face. The fact that only two constituencies in the entire country – not including her own – want their MP to support her deal shows just how risky it would be for the prime minister to force this deal on the people now.”

Continue ReadingBrexit referendum result turned on its head

Dizzy Deep’s rough guide to factions in contemporary UK politics

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A rough guide to factions in UK politics. Comments are welcome.

This is my own work looking at the influences behind various UK politicians. You are welcome to disagree with any point. It should be recognised and accepted that some politicians will not have any philosophical or ideological basis at all – many people simply unquestionably accept the politics and world-view of their parents. Some of them may also be mad or simply whores to power or financial gain.

Socialists are a diverse bunch often fighting injustice e.g. anti-racism, and campaign for human rights, universal healthcare, democracy, equality, workers’ rights, etc. There are more radical Socialists outside of parliamentary politics fragmented according to adherence to the different historical origins and aspects of Socialist Ideology. The Labour party catchphrase “For the many, not the few” catches the Socialist ethos perfectly. [17/1/22 This article is now dated and was written while Jeremy Corbyn was leader of the UK Labour Party. “For the many, not the few” was a slogan of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and the title of the 2017 Labour Party manifesto. This ethos has been abandoned by the current UK Labour Party under leader Keir Starmer which should be regarded as a return to Blairism i.e. Tories pretending to be Socialists and no mainstream political representation of Socialism in UK.]

Parliamentary Socialists are not that concerned with historical Socialist ideology. They will recognise and object to the vast inequalities in wealth and control of the media but that’s about it.

Neo-Liberals are Capitalists who believe that “the market will provide”. These are the ones who are keen on deregulation so that businesses are unhindered by “red tape” – actually laws and regulations that protect standards and ordinary people – and the privatisation of everything. Brexit is all to do with deregulation so Brexiteers are mostly Neo-Liberals.

Neo-Conservatives are Neo-Liberals with the added aspect that they are Zionists – supporters of the state of Israel. Theresa May and many of the Conservative party are Neo-Cons.

Rabid Zionists are extreme supporters of the state of Israel. These are the ones that make accusations of anti-Semitism within the Labour party. The Al Jazzera series ‘the Lobby’ shows that Israel is directing accusations of anti-Semitism and the Israeli embassy may deserve its own entry in this guide.

Appeasers to Zionism. Since Zionists are attempting to apply a veto on UK politicians there are those that appease them to gain advantage. Strangely, these are often found to be trombonists.

The DUP (Democratic Unionist Party). Theresa May’s minority government is supported by the DUP. In any abusive relationship, the party that needs the relationship least is in the position of power.

Simples

6/3/19 Apologies that I neglected the nationalists. I did intend to but was on a roll.

The Scottish Nationalist Party and Plaid Cymru (the party of Wales) are both opposed to Brexit since they recognise the damage that it will cause their communities. Assembly and Scottish Parliament in joint no-deal Brexit warning.

Sinn Fein campaigns for a united Ireland. They have 7 MPs which refuse to participate in the UK assembly at Westminster. Sinn Fein regard Brexit as an opportunity to achieve an united Ireland.

17/3/19 Revealed: How dark money split the Tories’ ruling elite by Adam Ramsay

17/1/22 This article is dated. Theresa May was replaced by haphazard alcoholic Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and UK Prime Minister.

Continue ReadingDizzy Deep’s rough guide to factions in contemporary UK politics

Checking in

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Just checking in and addressing a few diverse issues.

I should really do the long promised Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) expo particularly since UK govt is to review the HHSRS scheme in the private rental sector https://www.localgov.co.uk/Whitehall-to-review-health-and-safety-standards-in-rental-sector/46276. I’m very relieved to be moving out of my slum private rented flat very soon.

Briefly,

Council Housing is maintained strictly to HHSRS standards. [21/1/19 Council housing should be maintained strictly to the HHSRS standard i.e. it is the minimal legal standard so councils should meet that standard. The reality is that – no doubt due to austerity – it’s often extremely difficult for council tenants to secure maintenance or repairs to that standard.]  It’s utilitarian but adequate.

Problems with HHSRS in the privare sector are that

Environmental Health Officers (EHO) who enforce HHSRS in the private sector have absolute discretion over the application of HHSRS leading to the very real possibility of corruption. I got the impresson that EHOs were biased and very concerned to excuse landlords from their responsibilities e.g. building regulations. The senior EHO who was attending my slum flat to protect my landlord’s interests was very friendly with him as if they were members of the same club.

The HHSRS scheme is only concerned with appearance and it is perfectly acceptable to EHOs that problems are simply hidden. At my slum flat ceilings and walls damp from the sieve-like roof are hidden behind false walls and ceilings.

[25/11/18 Combi boiler has failed this weekend so no heating or hot water. This was the reason for my first report to EH in Nov/Dec 2 years ago. Attending EHO exercised absolute discretion by deciding that it was acceptable since it worked when she attended. There is some support for that decision since HHSRS is at the time of inspection except that she was biased and quite clearly protecting the slum landlord’s interests.

Combi boiler was installed by an unqualified cowboy* approx 10 years ago. Combi boiler has been unreliable since a ‘service’ a fornight ago. Landlord rushes around to satisfy legalities when expecting a HHSRS inspection i.e. those legalities are otherwise not satisfied. I have had to have HHSRS inspections to force landlord to do necessary repairs e.g. ceiling repair.

*cowboy is a UK slang term for workmen with little training or experience who will take your money for extremely poor service and workmanship.

Combi now briefly working.]

[28/11/18 I got the message that some people oppose my intended move. I’ll do wtf I like. I  can’t see my current flat existing in five years or so – it is seriously falling away from the rest of the street. The neighbouring property filled a 2″-wide gap recently and I often see new cracks at mine. Need to name my new flat.]

I was successful at a benefit’s appeal on 20 September after it taking about 16 months. The tribunal recommended that I was not reassessed for 24 months from that date. I was reassessed on Thursday, 22 November. I had the same assessor as last time so I had overturned her recommendation at appeal 2 months previously. It appears that the policy is to require appeals because so many claimants simply can’t manage that. I’m expecting it all again.

Lots of Brexit nonsense at the moment. While I am personally opposed to Brexit as a democratic Socialist I feel bound by the vote despite the all sorts of illegality in the Brexit campaign. The Brexit deal choice with one option reminds me of Blair and Campbell.

There are parallels between Brexit and the oppressively intelligent Donald Trump. He was elected and now he’s owned by the Israeli-Saudi Arabian axis. His Achilles’ Heel is fairly obvious – he was in a certain Israeli paedophile’s book of contacts, his daughter’s hinted at it, the way he treats women …

Continue ReadingChecking in