This letter seems to misunderstand the Met's role. It's not @PeteWishart's job to gather the evidence. He doesn't have power to compel the production of documents and interview witnesses. That's the Met's job. So why won't they look?
It's hard to think how you might read a piece like this and think to yourself 'nah, nothing here to investigate'. Surely, you'd at least take a look.
Once again, we are left wondering whether political interference with policing means the Tories are above the law.
It's just like PPE procurement. Everyone knows - with huge payments to politically connected middlemen - there is at least a whiff of out-and-out corruption. And yet the police are nowhere to be seen.
I'm going to keep tweeting this story - where we have gathered and published evidence from multiple sources - involving No. 10 and Priti Patel and which is fishier than Grimsby Docks on a Monday morning but which PC Plod is remarkably sanguine about. goodlawproject.org/update/patel-m…
Disappointing too that our vaunted media - which ignored* the VIP lane when we published leaked documents - chooses soft targets like second jobs than going after what has many of the hallmarks of fraud. Brave or spineless?
To an economist, the benefit of an interest free loan is the interest you would have had to pay had you borrowed the money on the open market. And the benefit of a cheap loan is the difference between the amount of interest you paid and the open market interest rate.
Putting it another way, the amount of interest the borrower pays that is less than the rate s/he would have paid had s/he borrowed on the open market is a transfer of a benefit by the lender to the borrower.
This is economic commonsense.
And it's also what the tax code says. If you are a director and you receive an interest free or cheap loan you are taxed as if you received a 'benefit-in-kind' and its value is the difference between the interest you paid and the "official rate".
You may remember Ayanda which won a £252m deal to supply facemasks of which £155m worth were unusable by the NHS.
And you may remember that civil servants were worried about not giving Ayanda a contract because of the political connections of Andrew Mills who worked for Ayanda as a consultant.
And that the Department of Health didn't consider a potential conflict of interest before giving Ayanda that £252m contract. nao.org.uk/press-release/…
Remember the public outrage when Government voted to allow privatised water companies to continue the routine dumping of raw sewage into our rivers and our beaches?
Here is what Government proposes to try and rescue itself from shit-creek.
It is a cruel trick on those of us who want to be able safely to swim in our rivers and beaches. And who don't understand why Government falls over itself to protect water companies who have taken £57bn+ in dividends whilst destroying our waterways. theguardian.com/environment/20…
The proposal isn't worth the paper it is written on for two reasons. It's a confidence trick on the public, a political ruse. Let me explain why.
Because it's Friday and I am of generous spirit I shall share with you a short story about Jim Bethell who is something of a cult figure at Good Law Project.
So some time ago, we spotted that Jim was a big user of the rocket emoji (🚀) (check out his twitter). We assume the 🚀 captured something of the Tiggerish optimism of Brexit. Perhaps, indeed the character revealed by his emoji use was amongst the reasons why he was hired?
Anyway, as time went on, and Government lawyers redacted more of the juicier bits of their disclosure, including the names of email correspondents, we came to believe we could identify Jim from the liberal 🚀🚀s. And this gave us a note of pleasure in dark times.
35c deals with visits outside the UK and says you don't need to disclose "Visits wholly unconnected with membership of the House or with the Member's parliamentary or political activities (e.g. family holidays)."