banana republic

SNP vow to ‘sabotage’ Labour’s ‘watered-down’ House of Lords reforms

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/snp-vow-sabotage-labours-watered-down-house-lords-reforms

King Charles III reads the King’s Speech, as Queen Camilla sits beside him during the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords, London, July 17, 2024

THE SNP has vowed to “sabotage” Labour’s “watered-down” House of Lords reforms with a deluge of amendments.

Labour’s House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, aiming to exclude the last remaining 92 hereditary peers from the legislature, faces its third reading in the House of Commons today.

But SNP MP Pete Wishart has tabled amendments ranging from abolishing the institution altogether to making peers’ £342 daily allowance liable for income tax.

Pointing to the “egregious example” of £18,808 paid to private healthcare tycoon Lord Hameed of Hampstead last year, despite him playing no role and failing to vote even once, Mr Wishart argues that taxing the £20 million paid out in allowances last year could generate over £9m — enough to restore Winter Fuel Payments to more than 22,000 pensioners in Scotland.

Urging Scottish Labour MPs to “at least” back him on taxing allowances, Mr Wishart commented: “That’s the only viable option for anyone who believes in democracy.

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“The Labour Party has repeatedly broken its promise to abolish the House of Lords for more than a century and, frankly, this embarrassingly limited Bill is 114 years too little, too late.

“The undemocratic House of Lords is an archaic institution of the kind you’d find in a banana republic and it’s second only in size to the Congress of China costing taxpayers more than £200m a year.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/snp-vow-sabotage-labours-watered-down-house-lords-reforms

Continue ReadingSNP vow to ‘sabotage’ Labour’s ‘watered-down’ House of Lords reforms

“This is the United Kingdom for God’s sake, not some third world banana republic where the organs of state are in hock to some sort of kleptocracy”

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/uk-refused-to-raid-lycamobile-citing-its-tory-donations

The British government refused to assist a French investigation into suspected money laundering and tax fraud by the UK telecoms giant Lycamobile – citing the fact that the company is the “biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party” and gives money to a trust founded by Prince Charles.

French prosecutors launched a major probe into the firm and arrested 19 people accused of using its accounts to launder money from organised criminal networks two years ago, after BuzzFeed News revealed its suspicious financial activities in the UK. But the Conservatives continued taking Lycamobile’s money – and it can now be revealed that the British authorities stonewalled a formal request from French prosecutors to carry out raids in London as part of the ongoing investigation.

Confidential correspondence between British government officials and their French counterparts, shown to BuzzFeed News by a source in the UK, reveals that the French wanted British authorities to raid Lycamobile’s London headquarters last year and seize evidence as part of their investigation into money laundering and tax fraud by the company.

In an official response dated 30 March 2017, a government official noted that Lycamobile is “a large multinational company” with “vast assets at their disposal” and would be “extremely unlikely to agree to having their premises searched”.

The letter, from the team at HMRC that handles law enforcement requests from foreign governments, continued: “It is of note that they are the biggest corporate donor to the Conservative party led by Prime Minister Theresa May and donated 1.25m Euros to the Prince Charles Trust in 2012.” The email referred to Lycamobile’s donations to the British Asian Trust, which was founded by the Prince of Wales to tackle poverty in South Asia, not to his youth foundation The Prince’s Trust which has never received any money from Lycamobile.

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Continue Reading“This is the United Kingdom for God’s sake, not some third world banana republic where the organs of state are in hock to some sort of kleptocracy”