The grotesquely overblown build-up to Boris Johnson’s pathetically inadequate tinkering with Covid 19 restrictions was designed to serve a purpose dramatically removed from the Pandemic; it was a classic ‘Dead Cat’ distraction to divert our attention away from the exploding FinCEN scandal. Will closing pubs early make a difference, while most of the working poor must continue travelling on packed public transport to non Covid secure work places and sending their children to school to reinforce the vector pool? No, but it is not intended to quell the spread, as it targets the most deprived, the vulnerable elderly and disabled in a continuation of ‘Herd Nerd’ eugenicist Cummings favoured project for a ‘Herd Immunity’ cull of the ‘economically inactive’ and weakest members of society. A BBC Panorama special featured a general overview of this cancer of corruption that generates the money to steer politics and most MP away from enacting sweeping reforms to shutdown the London Laundromat: this dirty money runs the UK!
It is a great pity that this highly respected BBC documentary series has let their brand become so severely tainted by allowing the sensationalist hack John Ware to produce his hatchet job on fantisemitism in the Labour Party. This will seriously harm the BBC when his smears are exposed in Court in the near future. In the Panorama Documentary entitled, “Banking secrets of the rich and powerful” Richard Bilton lifts the lid on the corrupt financial transactions that are so readily attracted to the city of London and UK territories overseas. In describing their presentation the BBC write that, “It’s the leak that reveals the secrets of British banking. Panorama uncovers secret reports that expose how banks have failed to tackle crime and how terrorists, money launderers and crime bosses are able to use the same banks as us. Reporter Richard Bilton also exposes the double life of the man who funded the Brexit Party, secret deals at the top of British football and the business deals billionaires would rather you didn’t know about.”
It seems that even after the disaster of crash-out Brexit adds to the devastating impact of Covid 19 spiralling out-of-control, the filth flies will still be buzzing over the festering corpse of our corrupt dirty money capital: the ‘London Laundromat’. The Tories are well connected to access this grubby cash; it helps stuff Party coffers with donated bribes to gain undue influence: there is no incentive for this PM to ever shut it down! Buzzfeed News on “FinCEN” they report, “The FinCEN Files investigation is based on thousands of ‘suspicious activity reports’ and other US government documents that BuzzFeed News has shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and more than 100 news organizations around the world. It offers an unprecedented view of global financial corruption, the banks enabling it, and the government agencies that fail to stop it. Prior to this reporting, very few SARs had ever been revealed. The FinCEN Files encompass more than 2,100. Read what the investigation has uncovered.”
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project have a short, enlightening YouTube Video posted online. They say that, “London is one of the biggest financial centers in the world, and it is becoming an increasingly attractive place for criminals to hide their wealth, says David Clarke, the chairman of the U.K.’s Fraud Advisory Panel and former director of the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. Every month, businesses acting as ‘formation agents’ register thousands of new companies in the U.K. Some of these companies are used to commit serious financial crimes, such as money laundering and fraud. We spoke with Clarke about financial crime and how formation agents can enable illegal activity. The interview is part of an investigation by OCCRP, the Times, Finance Uncovered and more than 20 other media partners, into Formations House, a London-based formation agent that has registered companies for alleged and convicted criminals around the world. Read the full investigation here.”
People are understandably resentful of the wealthy dodging their responsibility to society by using tax havens, but the pervasive shock, horror stories in the tabloid press would have you believe that our generous Government was haemorrhaging far more money to benefit fraudsters. What is the truth? Fullfact documented, “About £2 billion was lost to benefit fraud last year: In 2018/19 the DWP estimated £2.3 billion was lost from fraudulent overpayments of benefits. The figure has increased every year since 2013/14 (the last time it was estimated at £1.2 billion). That’s about 1.2% of all benefit spending, and just over half of all the money overpaid that year (£4.1 billion). However, some of the money lost through overpayments is reclaimed. £1.1 billion of the total £4.1 billion lost was reclaimed in 2018/19. Money lost to fraud can only ever be estimated. The DWP investigates a sample of benefit claims to identify overpayments and underpayments, and decides whether to count them as fraud, claimant error or official error.”
Fullfact report that, “It’s tricky to put a number on tax fraud. In 2017/18 HMRC estimated the ‘tax gap’, money that should in theory have been collected in taxes but wasn’t, at around £35 billion , or 5.6% of the total estimated tax. Not all of that is due to fraud or deliberate evasion. £12 billion is attributed to tax evasion, avoidance and organised crime. The rest is due to ‘failure to take reasonable care’ by the taxpayer, errors, the ‘hidden economy’ and differences in legal interpretations. 40% of this ‘tax gap’ is due to small businesses, and the most common taxes are income tax, national insurance contributions, capital gains tax, and VAT. Again, these are estimates of the loss. HMRC also estimated that its compliance division collected £34 billion in 2017/18 that would have been lost ‘through fraud, tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance’.”
So how many people are on the case? Fullfact say that, “The DWP employs the equivalent of 1,400 full time investigators. As of July 2018 the DWP employed 1,405 full-time equivalent specialists to investigate benefit fraud. Data from 2017 suggests another 2,000 or so full-time equivalent staff may be doing related work. HMRC employs 26,000 staff in tax compliance. In February 2018 HMRC employed around 26,000 people ‘tackling all forms of non-compliance in the tax system’. The 300 figure may be a repeat of a claim we checked in 2016. Back then around 300 people worked in one team called the ‘Affluent Unit’; around 500 people worked in this team in 2017. The Affluent Unit investigated people with an annual income of at least £150,000 a year, or wealth of £1 million or more. A similarly-sized team investigated people with assets worth over £10m.” The real issue for me is when massive
Corporations like Google get to negotiate a payment ‘deal’ of £138m to settle back-taxes; congenially settled over drinks no doubt.
What really hurts ordinary citizens is the way DWP routinely treats members of the public as worthless scroungers who deserve serial harassment. When a member of the working poor has diligently paid into the system for years on end, but then, through no fault of their own, suddenly loses their job – as a low wage earner they might not have a reserve of funds to tide them over while they wait for a first payment. There is no legitimate reason why the process should take weeks or why emergency funds can be paid, but are taken in hefty chunks from the already paltry benefit when that’s paid. Then there are sanctions that trip up those who are struggling to find work in a way that is nothing short of punitive and demoralizing. Disability claimants are so unfairly evaluated that hundreds of people have died trying to prove their case. When there is an innocent mistake leading to overpayment, sorting it out is a torturous exercise even when the error is the fault of DWP. The wealthy negotiate down; the poor are ‘Decimated Down.’
BBC News this morning featured a Report into misuse of Kenya’s Covid funds delayed The wait for answers for Kenyans – frustrated and angry at claims that hundreds of millions of dollars of Covid funds have been misappropriated – was meant to be over today with a report being published. But now the Auditor General says she needs more time for a full audit of KEMSA, the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency. KEMSA had told lawmakers that there was enough funding for Covid related equipment – but many nurses and doctors were still left without adequate protection. Doctors have also said the price being paid for protective equipment was set too high. The Kenyan Senator Sylvia Kasanga is the Chairperson for the Committee on Covid-19. At least they are investigating this misappropriation of funding. Here in the UK all of the exact same issues mentioned in the report are an acceptable part of the course for the totally unaccountable Tory Government. Covid 19 is another money making opportunity for the Tories, but the rip us off with impunity.
In my last Post I wrote, How was the Covert 2019 Rigged Election somehow justified as valid to the point where the public actually bought into the scam? A truly obscene amount of donated money bought political influence, enabling Tories to use their wealth to solidify their perpetual stranglehold on power. With all that money came grotesque corruption: I firmly believe that it funded the industrial scale fraud of Idox rigging of the postal votes, the PsyOps propaganda campaign to warp minds, which along with the deregulation and neutering of our compliance and monitoring organizations, left our democracy totally defenceless. Numerous corrupt individuals, with money to burn acquiring influence to keep their illegal activities and the source of their great wealth hidden found a friendly and receptive home in the Tory Party. The unprecedented suppression of the Russian Report fuelled suspicions that wealthy Oligarchs were buying political influence at the behest of Putin while Corbyn was being smeared as a Commie spy!
We knew the extent of Tory corruption way back before that catastrophic vote; why are so many still clinging to the Tory ‘borrowed votes’ lie? In a November 1st London Economic Article, printed before the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, entitled, “Tories misuse taxpayers’ money on Government-funded Facebook ads targeting marginal seats,” we were alerted to the scandal. They reported that, “The Government has been accused of misusing taxpayers’ money to target voters in key swing constituencies with Facebook ads. At least 17 adverts promising up to £25 million investment in various towns across the UK went live on Tuesday — the day the General Election was announced. These ads paid for by the public purse appear on a My Town Campaign Facebook page run by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and invite local people to have say over how the money is spent.” The scandal was reported on by several of the major news outlets including the Guardian, Daily Record, Huff Post…..
London Economic report that, “MP Ian Lucas called the promotion an ‘outrageous’ misuse of public cash. He has written to Michael Gove demanding to know how data was gathered to target people; how much public money has been misused and whether there was any discussion about them breaking political purdah – the convention that civil servants must remain neutral in an election period.” A copy of Ian Lucas’s letter appears in the article that notes, “The Facebook ads are aimed at Tory target towns with MPs who have a majority of less than 5,000 votes. The adverts ran without a political disclaimer, so were taken down by Facebook shortly after 8.30pm on Friday evening after the scandal broke. They targeted voters in marginal seats, such as Newcastle-under-Lyme, which has a Labour majority of just 30 votes.”
A Government spokesman told the Huff Post: “These posts were published before the election was called and Parliament has not yet been dissolved.” They claim that, “All towns selected were chosen according to the same selection methodology, including analysis of deprivation, exposure to Brexit, productivity, economic resilience and investment opportunities.” Among several other comments from Ian Lucas reported on by the London Economic, he is quoted as saying of the Toy Party: “They were put up on the day the Government indicated we would be having a General Election. To say the Government did not know is an insult to our intelligence. This is public money. This is taxpayers’ money. If the Conservatives want to run a political campaign, they should be doing it themselves with their own money. It’s entirely inappropriate to be using public money in this way. They are pretending these are public information ads but they are not.”
“We need to know how they have chosen to target these towns. What do they mean ‘exposure to Brexit’? Surely everywhere is exposed to Brexit. ‘Where have they got this data from? Have they used the data from other Government-run campaigns — like Prepare for Brexit — and are now using it for political purposes?’ MP Ian Lucas who has investigated Vote Leave’s illegal campaigning in Parliament’s DCMS Sub-Committee on Disinformation, told The London Economic: ‘We know Facebook was used as a political weapon by Johnson, Cummings and Gove in the Vote Leave illegal campaign. ‘The same people are now using the same techniques in the 2019 General Election because we still have the same outdated electoral laws, despite all the DCMS Select Committee, the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner have said about essential reform being required’.” Cummings refused to appear before the DCMS to answer questions and was found in “Contempt of Parliament.”
On the Parliament UK website it details the “Conduct of Mr Dominic Cummings” that should have precluded him from the role he took and still holds as Chief Adviser to the PM, but it seems Cummings is not just unelected and unaccountable he is above the law. It documents that, “On 28 June 2018 the House referred to the Committee of Privileges the matter of an alleged contempt of Parliament by Mr Dominic Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. The allegation was that Mr Cummings had committed a contempt by refusing to obey an Order of the House that he should attend a meeting of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee, he having previously refused to comply with an order of the Committee itself to attend.” No reason is given for his refusal to submit to the reasonable scrutiny expected of anyone functioning in the powerful position that he holds that has expanded to a stranglehold on control of the PM and the Government.
The Parliamentary site further document that, “On 5 June 2018 the DCMS Committee published a Special Report concerning the conduct of Mr Cummings. The Committee reported that Mr Cummings had been first invited, then ordered by the Committee to attend it to give oral evidence as part of its inquiry into “Fake News” and that he had failed to comply with that order. The Committee set out its reasons for considering that the evidence it sought from Mr Cummings was relevant to its inquiry, and stated that his failure to attend ‘in our view […] constitutes a serious interference with the ability of this Committee to discharge the task assigned to it by the House’.” This is totally aside from his egregious behaviour with regard aggressive summary firing of Sonja Khan and his violation of Covid 19 lockdown restrictions that should rightly have seen him fired. We must continue to demand the removal of this dangerous political puppeteer if for no other reason: Cummings is the Grenade; oust him and you pull the pin!
Speaking of Ian Lewis they said, “Last month he wrote in The London Economic about the extraordinary lengths to avoid scrutiny over Vote Leave offences that Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings have all gone to. The Conservative Party has significantly ramped up Facebook spend since former Vote Leave chief Dominic Cummings took charge of its communications strategy. The party has spent around £50,000 on Facebook ads in the past 90 days and you can see a record of the ads here: on Facebook’s social and political ad library. Vote Leave’s campaign director, Dominic Cummings – Boris Johnson’s top adviser – came under significant scrutiny for the use of targeted Facebook advertising during the referendum campaign. Several members of Boris Johnson’s advisory team previously worked on the official Vote Leave campaign, which relied on Facebook targeting to reach voters and is still being investigated by the Met police for illegal overspending.” The CPS refused to act so the case was dropped.
The London Economic article was written when the scandal broke prior to the Covert 2019 Rigged Election flagging up just one area of desperately needed Electoral reform. A prominent Judge described the UK Electoral System as “wide open to Industrial scale fraud;” MPs demanded change while oversight from the Electoral Commission was further diminished by their inability to exercise any scrutiny over ballots ‘managed’ by private companies. “A Watchdog that cannot watch is just a dog!” The increasing privatization of Electoral Services has been delivered into the hands of one company with strong ties to the Tory Party, but when a highly suspicious ‘landslide victory’ result was announced no one asked questions and the Electoral Commission was powerless to act. Please sign my online Petition to “Rescue our Watchdog” as, “All votes must count;” it demands an Investigation of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election to expose the truth. Are there any potential Whistleblowers out there? Take courage, do come forward.
I reiterate my assertion regarding the result: If there was a tremendous very vocal reaction across the entire country. This would seriously challenge the legitimacy of the fake Tory win. The claims of a ‘landside victory’ manufactured by the media to prop the Tories into a position of power would be debunked. These rely on biased ‘push poles’ that have no basis in reality, but manipulate the vote. The louder, more widespread and more well publicised these nationwide protests became the more bogus such scams as “will of the people” would become. The Brexiteers are an irate minority who have been given a megaphone, but massive people power nationwide can drown them out. We have to now seriously rebel to demand the truth about the Brexit deception and just reversal of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, a full inquiry with regime change and serious jail time! I believe the EU will step in to offer an uncorrupted vote if we can demonstrate fraud in the in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election and the EU referendum as well. DO NOT MOVE ON!