One thing that strikes me from the leaflet is the over the top compliments to former Labour Councillor, Mike Royston. Now, two key questions arise from this. One, if Mr Royston was so good, why did the electorate choose to dump him? Perhaps they were just fed up with all the petitions he decided to start in the run up to the election campaign. These were petitions on issues that Mr Royston had had nine years to campaign on, choosing instead to do so six weeks before polling day. Funny that!

Second, if Mr Royston was such a good thing, why were all women shortlists imposed during their candidate selection in St Luke’s? So instead of allowing someone who they claim “has been successful in providing additional facilities for securely parking bikes” (debatable point anyway) to even stand a chance of being re-elected, they chose someone who has never worked in St Luke’s via an all women shortlist.

I personally find all women shortlists appalling. No form of discrimination should be tolerated, and I include “positive” discrimination in that. The problem with so-called “positive” discrimination is that the one selected, is sadly tarnished with the accusation that they are not necessarily the best candidate. Quite possibly true in this case.

The local community and telephone numbers also seem somewhat confused, in that it supplies the number for Turning Tides. Now, as far as I am aware, Turning Tides does not actually operate in the St Luke’s ward. Given Ms Jones claim to be on the board of Turning Tides, you would imagine that this is a piece of information she would have been familiar with.

My favourite section of the literature is entitled “Anne Jones has an even chance of winning St Luke’s”. Ms Jones is relying on a letter written back in June 2010 and signed by Cllrs Burdett and Robin, Conservative Councillors in Kursaal. Ms Jones claims to have received “an early boost when Conservative Councillors Louise Burdett and Blaine Robin wrote to the newspapers”, amongst other things, saying Ms Jones chances of winning were “even”. In a no shit Sherlock moment of epic proportions, Ms Jones appears delighted that she has a chance of winning, in what has been a marginal seat between the Conservatives and Labour for a while now. The simple fact is that until the past three local elections, this was one of the few remaining Labour heartlands in Southend. All in all, there was nothing revelatory in the letter.

Apparently, Cllrs Burdett and Robin also said that Mrs Jones was “a bright and enthusiastic person”. Apart from the fact that this is the sort of thing a teacher would say to a child, this really is no ringing endorsement of Anne Jones. Clutching at straws to say the least, but I suppose necessary when you are unknown in the ward you are trying to win.

The most intriguing part is the sheer audacity Labour has in using this letter, given that they complained to the Standards Board about both Cllr Burdett and Cllr Robin. Although the claims were rejected, the time and effort of investigating the two councillors cost us, the taxpayers, thousands of pounds, all because of the hurt feelings of the former councillor Judith McMahon and the Deputy Mayor David Norman. Nothing to do with the fact that Judith McMahon is still bitter about being ousted by Cllr Burdett, I’m sure. Sadly, it appears Labour have it in for Cllr Robin for some reason, given that this is not the first spurious complaint Labour have made about him.

Update 28/02/11: Turns out Ms Jones is unable to even supply the residents of St Lukes with the correct number for reporting Anti-Social Behaviour. If you ring, all you will get is a dead tone. It does not bode well for her.

Van Looy’s latest attempt at literature is no different:

Claim 1: Independents have successfully campaigned against Councillors claiming excessive travelling expenses.

Sadly, it doesn’t appear that all Independent Party councillors got that memo, as the accounts for the years ending 2009 and 2010 clearly show several of their number claiming travel expenses.

Claim 2: In some cases the claims were doubled up so that a day in the Civic Centre cost you, the taxpayer 3 times what it should have done.

Apart from the inaccuracy of the claim, he proves maths is not his strong point. If we double a payment, it means we have multiplied it by two, not by three.

Claim 3: Independents successfully argued against cuts to refuse collection services.

Erm, no you didn’t. The weekly bin collection policy has been Conservative policy for some time, even when the last Labour Government recommended fortnightly collections.

Claim 4: There is already a giant mudslinging session as the political party’s blame each other.

Poor grammar apart (it should be parties) Mr Van Looy is an expert in the mudslinging field given his previous disgraceful rants in his literature. The words pot, kettle and black spring to mind.

Claim 5: We don’t need lectures from David Cameron on his BIG SOCIETY, we already have it and have had it for years. Independent Councillors have been holding clean up days in various parts of the town. I want to bring this enthusiasm to St Luke’s

He seems to be suggesting that whilst he doesn’t need “lectures” on taking responsibility and helping the community (debatable), the residents of St Luke’s do. The fact he only wants to bring the enthusiasm to St Luke’s hints that; i) he thinks the residents of St Luke’s aren’t keeping their streets clean; and ii) he’s not doing so right now either. This is further supported by the “When elected I will start a clean up campaign…”. What happened to proving yourself first?

Claim 6: Conservatives insisted on giving themselves a further increase in basic allowances at a Council meeting. This was forced through by the Conservative Group but opposed by Independents.

Unfortunately, Mr Van Looy appears to have become confused in the course of writing his literature. Yes, it is true that the Conservatives voted in favour of increasing their allowances by £100 or about 1.2%. However, as part of this proposal, Councillors are no longer able to claim for in-borough travel expenses, as far as I am aware. So, he started by claiming the Independent Party “campaigned against Councillors claiming excessive travelling expenses” but finishes by saying the Independents opposed the changes which included the restriction of travel expenses. Confused? Yep, me too!

The second page of his leaflet is almost entirely dedicated to an Evening Echo article that inaccurately portrayed Cllr Waite’s views on the housing situation in Southend. The correct version of Cllr Waite’s views can be seen on her blog at www.seasidenews.net.

Overall, Mr Van Looy’s literature is pretty poor, though very much consistent with his previous attempts.

Incidentally, I only received a copy of this after it was put through the door of a house in the neighbouring Kursaal ward. It seems Mr Van Looy has a long way to go before being able to offer the residents of St Luke’s anything of use. Just learning the ward boundaries may be a good start.

On a lighter note, when writing this blog, Word’s spell checker wanted to replace Looy with Loony. Certainly not the most inaccurate spelling suggestion I have seen.

On Friday 18 February, The Guardian generated an enormous amount of public interest in the tax affairs of Barclays with an article that suggested that, in 2009, Barclays paid UK corporation tax at a rate of 1% instead of the statutory 28%.  This caused inevitable howls of anguish from their left-wing readership. The timing was particularly unfortunate, as it came on the eve of a mass demonstration against Barclays arranged by UKuncut. It added a considerable amount of fuel to an already tense situation.

Even more unfortunate was the fact that the article was founded on five total howlers that mean virtually the entire content of the article is complete nonsense.

Here’s where the article went wrong:

1) Cash paid in 2009 largely relates to earnings from 2008

The article compares the cash paid to HMRC in respect of UK corporation tax in 2009 (£113m) to the profits generated by the consolidated Barclays group in 2009.

In the UK, tax is paid in arrears, subject to a payment on account system. A large company like Barclays would certainly be making a payment on account. But, even so, a large slug of money paid in 2009 would relate to 2008, not 2009.

2) Barclays only pays UK corporation tax on its UK sourced profits

Multinational companies such as Barclays pay tax in a number of jurisdictions. Carving up the profit between the various countries in which it operates isn’t a trivial exercise and, in some cases, profits may end up getting taxed twice – a nightmare for any CFO. However, generally speaking, Barclays only pays UK corporation tax on profits it generated in the UK.  Anything earned outside the UK doesn’t get taxed here.

So it’s a howler to compare the UK corporation tax payment to the global consolidated profit. Most of that profit isn’t taxed here in the first place.

3) Barclays 2009 consolidated profits include a significant disposal which is taxed differently under UK law

In arriving at a profit before tax figure of £11.6bn, The Guardian has added the profit from the ongoing business (£4,585m) to profits from a disposed business (£726m) and the gain made on disposal of that business (£6,331m) to reach a total of £11,642m.

In 2002 (yes, under Gordon Brown), the UK government introduced the Substantial Shareholdings Exemptions, a corporation tax exemption for UK businesses disposing of a substantial shareholding in part of their business.  The idea was that businesses should be more able to restructure their businesses without having to worry about unfortunate chargeable gains implications.

As explained in note 39 to the accounts, this means that the bulk of the gain on disposal isn’t chargeable to UK corporation tax at all.

4) Barclays has brought-forward losses which alleviate the income that’s taxable in 2009

It’s a general principle under UK tax law that companies get much less favourable treatment of tax losses than of profits. At first glance this might be a bit counter-intuitive. When a company makes a profit it must make a tax payment. If it then makes a loss, shouldn’t it get a tax refund to help it out?

Not so long ago, companies that made UK taxable losses were allowed to look back up to six years and ‘carry back’ those losses to a prior period. They could then demand a refund against tax already paid to HMRC. Over time, reflecting perhaps Gordon Brown’s desperation for tax revenue, this has been tightened so that there is now only an unlimited carry back for one year.  Losses above that must be carried forward to offset against future tax liabilities.

And that’s what Barclays has done. In 2008 it offset global losses worth £859m against its tax bill. This isn’t tax evasion; it’s not even avoidance. It’s a company that’s made horrific losses being given some relief for those losses by tax authorities around the world. The utilisation of those losses will have reduced the amount of tax it handed over to HMRC in 2009.

5) Chuka Umunna is complaining about tax law introduced by his own party

The campaign of righteous anger being led by Chuka Umunna, a Treasury Select Committee member, is seeking to mobilise public protest against the Coalition.  This rather overlooks the fact that Barclays made these profits in 2008 and paid tax on them in 2009. At this time the Labour party were in power.

Umunna should be writing to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling to ask them why they did nothing at the time.

Conclusion

It’s rare that an apparently reputable broadsheet newspaper such as The Guardian would allow itself to be associated with such a poorly constructed article as this. It’s been picked up in the Daily Mail too.  In fact, there are very good reasons why the cash payment to HMRC in 2009 might be substantially smaller than the global profits delivered in that year. In fact, the same is also of the apparently ethical Co-Op bank.

Even worse, “facts” like those in the article tend to travel faster and more widely than the rebuttals which follow them. However, that’s not going to stop me from reinforcing the facts of the UK tax system ahead of the UKuncut rhetoric.

Please comment below if you wish to challenge or reflect on any of the material above.

And please share this article with your friends and enemies. Spread the word!

Tim Worstall’s blog is also well worth a read on this issue.

I am not in favour of relaxing our current stance on prisoner votes and do not think the ECHR has the right to tell us otherwise. The whole issue has come about because of an appeal by vile axe murderer John Hirst. This was a man who put an axe through his landlady’s head, then had a cup of tea. Just the sort of man we want electing our MPs.

When you commit a crime, are found guilty in a court of law and are sentenced to prison, you lose many rights including the right to liberty, freedom of association and the right to vote. Perhaps, the ECHR would like to rule on whether the loss of liberty is against a person’s human rights?

First though, let’s get this issue straight, all prisoners have the right to vote but they chose to offend, thereby suspending that right.

However, in the grand scheme of things this issue is small fry, given that even if we allowed all prisoners to vote, it would only affect about 80,000 people. The bigger issue here, and the one that is subject to the debate, is the interference in national issues by the ECHR. Lets not forget, when Britain signed up to the Convention the aim was to prevent the atrocities that had occurred in the Second World War. In fact, when the French attempted to enshrine the right to vote by ‘universal suffrage’, Britain and other nations rejected the wording on the grounds it was vague and could lead to people gaining the vote who were otherwise denied it under British law.

As David Davis has said in a ConHome piece today: “Do we allow an international court to exceed the remit we agreed over fifty years ago, or do we assert the right of the British people to make their own decisions about their democracy through their own democratic institution, Parliament?”

I would answer with a resounding “NO” and hope our MPs agree when debating today.

Southend Labour is not immune to this hypocrisy, and I have written previously about one of their number in particular. Their faux outrage over the scrapping of EMA is the latest example of this behaviour. On their website, Cllr Gilbert, as Leader of their four councillors, speaks of his dismay at the abolition of EMA having joined a group of students at South Essex College.

One wonders whether Cllr Gilbert mentioned what Labour had planned should they have been re-elected last May. Would he have been brave enough to admit that not only would Labour have removed EMA, they would have also made education compulsory up until 18 years of age.

Luckily for us, Alan Johnson was.  Speaking to the Education and Skills Select Committee back in 2007, Mr Johnson stated: “The EMA is there as an incentive to stay on. We will not need to incentivise after 2015”, when the rise in compulsory education would kick in.

Personally, I am delighted that EMA is being abolished given the huge sums wasted each year. However, we do need targeted assistance for those not able to afford to stay on.

I was lucky enough to pass my 11+ and go to one of Southend’s very fine grammar schools. Due to my parents financial circumstances I would not have been able to take up that place, due to the high cost of the bus fares, had it not been for the free bus pass I received. That is the sort of targeted assistance we need to give our students from poorer backgrounds. My parents weren’t given the cash direct, so why should we do so today?

EAW Submission by TFA

Anyone who is serious about protecting the civil liberties of UK citizens needs to read this piece which includes case studies on the now infamous case of Andrew Symeou.

The question I once again pose; how can anyone in support of the EU also claim to have an interest in protecting civil liberties?

That’s to be expected though, given that the resident in question is former Labour councillor, Judith McMahon. The blog itself does not confirm it is McMahon writing it, but a little investigation easily gives it away. The posts are written by Judy, the name is a copy of the site Victoria Voice, run by Labour Councillor Ian Gilbert and only anti-Conservative posts and comments are allowed.

I have experienced the last point, as I took the trouble to make a comment about one particular post some time ago, and it still has not appeared on the blog. I would have left it alone there, but there are a number of points coming out of that one post that really need addressing and McMahon’s hypocrisy highlighted.

The blog post in question starts by mentioning the arrests of Somali gang members, but this is merely a screen for her usual attack on Kursaal Councillors Blaine Robin and Louise Burdett (not that McMahon is bitter!).

McMahon points out that neither Cllr Robin nor Cllr Burdett live in the Kursaal ward and goes on to say:

“If you don’t live here, how do you know what it’s like? Tory councillors don’t live here.”

The implication being you can’t represent a ward properly if you do not live there.

Personally, I don’t really have a problem with this, as long as the councillors work hard for the residents, which I know both do. Quite frankly, wards like Kursaal are so diverse that living in one part of the ward is in no way a help if dealing with an issue in other parts of the ward.

Furthermore, if McMahon has such a big issue with this, why does she not raise this within the Labour group in Southend? The current Labour Councillor in Kursaal, Stephen George, lives in Leigh-on-Sea, several miles from the Kursaal ward. Not only that, but none of the three Labour Councillors in Victoria live in the ward they represent. I would be interested to know their response to McMahon’s concerns and opinion that they can’t represent their wards.

The rant that really takes the piss however, concerns the increase in the councillor’s allowance that was recently voted through. In fairness, I disagreed with the decision taken but in the grand scheme of things, it only represents around 1.2% increase in their annual allowance. According to McMahon the reason that Cllrs Burdett and Robin voted for this increase was “because now they cannot claim expenses to travel to the place where they don’t live”.

This takes the biscuit for three main reasons. First, the accounts available show that during his time as councillor, Blaine Robin claimed a total of zero for travel expenses. Second, Cllr Burdett has not been elected long enough to be included in an up to date set of accounts, so where did McMahon find the figures for the travel expenses that it is suggested Cllr Burdett has claimed? So to say that Cllr Burdett and Cllr Robin voted because they could not claim travel expenses is a complete lie perpetrated by a candidate in the 2011 Local Elections. Neither has claimed travel expenses from what I can gather.

Last, and by no means least, is McMahon’s own record as Kursaal ward councillor. Of course, McMahon would never claim travel expenses. It would be the height of hypocrisy, had she claimed travel expenses during her time as a Kursaal councillor. But wait. What’s this? Turn to page 100 of the accounts of Southend Borough Council for the year ended 31 March 2008. What do we learn? That one Judith McMahon claimed £228.80 in travel expenses!

A liar and a hypocrite!

Passion makes the Premier League the best in the world and guys like Ian Holloway have passion in spades!!!

It seems that ex-councillor Judith McMahon is attempting to take credit for the work of Cllr Burdett, not for the first time. The Rose claims: “As a result of Judy’s action, more signs about dog fouling and dog waste bins can be placed in and around the ward”.

Cllr Burdett launched a campaign against dog fouling at the beginning of 2010. The petition proved very popular, attracting over 200 signatories from people in Kursaal and across Southend.

McMahon claims that she “met with the council in June to request action”. As it happens, Cllr Burdett submitted the petition on behalf of the residents in June at the full council meeting. The petition called for more action on dog fouling.  

It is so sad to see that ex-councillor McMahon is trying to use this issue for her own ends, completely ignoring the work of Kursaal residents in putting the petition together. It’s hardly surprising though, given that Anne Jones, now Labour candidate in St Lukes, questioned in the Evening Echo on 22^nd June 2010 what petitions can achieve.

McMahon knows full well that the council has begun taking more action on the issue as a result of Cllr Burdett’s campaigning and the resident’s petition. Besides, what did McMahon do about the issue in her nine years as a councillor? Nothing. Funny That!

Having watched the Ryder Cup from that awful Friday through to the end of Sunday’s play, I thought it only right that I “worked from home” on Monday to watch the conclusion of the 2010 competition at Celtic Manor.

I am very glad I did as the golf was amazing, the players putting on a real spectacle for the fans. A lot of credit must go to the US team for their efforts on the final singles day. Having started the day 3 points down, following an amazing day of European golf the previous day, they finished just 1 point behind the victorious Europeans.

The fans were also pretty amazing, turning up in huge numbers again to cheer the golfers home. The Ryder Cup has become one of my favourite sporting events but I’m not sure I will ever get used to chants of “Europe, Europe”. Despite my loathing of the European Union, my stomach was still knotted as GMac, as Graeme McDowell is fondly known, stood on that 17^th tee, two up with two to play. Maybe though, that’s because I can separate supporting the continent of Europe with the European Union.

Nigel Farage, in a Channel 4 News interview, seemed to suggest he finds it a little bit more difficult than I:

“I love the Ryder Cup, I’ve followed it all my life and of course I’ll be supporting the continent of Europe but I have to confess I’ll be doing so through gritted teeth.”

Nigel is, of course, referring to that blue flag with stars that gets draped all over the tournament. In many respects I agree with Nigel that this is yet another case of the European Union hijacking an event. After all, both Swiss and Norwegian golfers are eligible to play despite those two countries not being in the EU.

However, as I said above, I can look past all of that and support the team. As usual, the team spirit within the Europe camp looked fantastic and no doubt contributed to their tremendous win, bringing the cup back to Europe after the disappointment of Valhalla. I would also suggest that most of the players look beyond the EU element, given that the flags they draped themselves in were those of their home nations.