The Minister for Utter Hypocrisy

[Guest]

The Minister for utter hypocrisy: Tory who attacked tax dodgers invested in firm that did just that

In 2004 Mr Mitchell talking about a tax avoidance scheme said: ‘It is disgraceful that anyone should try to perpetrate such a scheme'

Multi-millionaire Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell was accused of hypocrisy yesterday after investing in a company that avoided millions of pounds in tax.

The former investment banker put cash into a network of property firms that used a loophole to dodge paying £2.6million in stamp duty.

The property deal is at the centre of a major tax avoidance case – and the International Development Secretary’s financial involvement provoked embarrassment for the Government.

In last week’s Budget, Chancellor George Osborne described ‘aggressive tax avoidance’ as ‘morally repugnant’ and warned he would come down ‘like a ton of bricks’ on anyone who sought to evade stamp duty.

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Mr Mitchell himself, talking about one particular tax avoidance scheme in 2004, said: ‘It is disgraceful that anyone should try to perpetrate such a scheme. These people should pay the right amount.’

Labour MPs were quick to attack the minister, one of the Cabinet members who has refused to say if he would benefit from the cut in the 50p tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 a year.

Scathing: Labour MPs, Steve Rotheram, left, and John Mann, were quick to attack Mr Mitchell

Bassetlaw MP John Mann said: ‘This is another example of Tories being hypocrites as well as “morally repugnant”, as the Chancellor describes this behaviour. Yet again what’s good enough for the rest of us is not good enough for them.’

Steve Rotheram, MP for Liverpool Walton, said: ‘This is hugely embarrassing for the Tories, coming just a week after George Osborne condemned the exact same behaviour Andrew Mitchell now stands accused of.

‘George Osborne needs to make clear whether he thinks his millionaire Cabinet colleague has acted in a morally repugnant way, or if Tories are exempt from the rules that they want to apply to everyone else.’
Investment: In 2006 Mr Mitchell he invested in Ingenious Film Partners, which partially funded hit movies including Avatar and Shaun Of The Dead, pictured

Investment: In 2006 Mr Mitchell he invested in Ingenious Film Partners, which partially funded hit movies including Avatar and Shaun Of The Dead, pictured
Scrutiny: Mr Mitchell was a shareholder in DV3 Ltd in 2006 when the legal loophole was used to avoid paying stamp duty on the purchase of the Dickins & Jones department store building in London

Scrutiny: Mr Mitchell was a shareholder in DV3 Ltd in 2006 when the legal loophole was used to avoid paying stamp duty on the purchase of the Dickins & Jones department store building in London
How they avoided 2m stamp duty.jpg

Mr Mitchell – under fire for insisting on maintaining a massive overseas aid programme funded by the British taxpayer – was a shareholder in DV3 Ltd in 2006 when the legal loophole was used to avoid paying stamp duty on the purchase of the Dickins & Jones department store building in London.

The lease of the 150-year-old Regent Street store was bought for £65.1million by a subsidiary of DV3, which a month later sold the lease to a partnership – also controlled by DV3 – for £65,100.

The company maintained that stamp duty was calculated on the lesser amount, reducing the rate from 4 per cent to nothing.

The transaction, while legal, is described by Revenue and Customs as ‘aggressive tax avoidance’. The Revenue lost its case over the Dickins & Jones stamp duty at a tax tribunal last year but is appealing against the decision, which it fears could set a dangerous precedent and lead to millions more lost tax.

Dickins & Jones closed a year after the DV3 deal and the lease was sold for £225million in 2010 – a massive profit on the original investment.

There is no suggestion that Mr Mitchell, who bought his DV3 shares in 2003, the same year he became the Tories’ economic affairs spokesman, is responsible for the stamp duty avoidance or that he has done anything illegal.

He was not involved in DV3’s day-to-day operations.

He declined to say how much he had invested in the firm or how much profit he made, but some shareholders boasted they had doubled their money on some investments by the firm.

Prominent Tory donor and property tycoon James Ritblat controls the network of companies which purchased Dickins & Jones.

They are ultimately owned by a parent company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.

Mr Ritblat donated £50,000 to the Tories two days before the last election via his firm Delancey, the Mayfair-based parent company of DV3 and DV4.

In 2007 Mr Mitchell also invested in DV4 Ltd, part of the consortium that this year paid £550million to purchase the Olympic Village in London.

A year earlier he invested in Ingenious Film Partners, which partially funded hit movies including Avatar and Shaun Of The Dead.

Ingenious Film Partners has recently asked a tax tribunal to set a timetable to end a seven-year investigation by the Revenue, which wants to ensure the investment schemes were used to invest in films intended to make a profit and not primarily as a way for wealthy investors – who included David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Sir James Dyson – to avoid tax.

In 2009 Mr Mitchell stepped down from his six directorships at investment bank Lazard, where he was thought to be paid several hundred thousand pounds a year, before rules came in requiring MPs to reveal how much they earn from outside interests.

Last night his spokesman said: ‘In 2010 Andrew Mitchell resigned from Ingenious Films and gave instructions to exit from his investments in DV3 and DV4.

‘DV3 is now in liquidation and his investment in DV4 is still in the process of being sold. All of this has taken place under the supervision of the Cabinet Office. All of Andrew Mitchell’s other financial assets are in a blind trust.

‘Andrew Mitchell believes everyone should always pay their tax. Indeed, following DV3’s liquidation he pays full UK tax on any resulting profits; and the sale of his DV4 investment is at a substantial loss.’


The words were pious, if not a little pointed, as International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell was forced once again last month to defend the Government’s heavily criticised commitment to increasing the overseas aid budget from £7.8billion to £11.5billion by 2015, writes ANDREW PIERCE.

‘We think it’s part of Britain’s DNA to be generous to people who are in very extreme circumstances,’ he intoned.

If only this moralising multi-millionaire minister, one of the richest men at Westminster, upheld such high standards when it came to the redistribution of his own personal wealth.

It would be bad enough for any minister to have been exposed as investing in a network of companies that, according to Revenue & Customs, indulged in ‘aggressive tax avoidance’.

But for Andrew Mitchell, who lectures us so readily on the moral imperative of handing over our hard-earned money to help the poor, it is far worse.

Mitchell is hardly the most popular member of the House of Commons, and this will not have helped his standing there.

‘He is conceited, egotistical, and always lectures us about why we have a duty to keep shipping aid overseas, even though we know some of it goes into the personal bank accounts of African dictators to fund their private jets,’ claimed one senior Tory MP.

‘How does he square his promise to ensure transparency in the aid budget with his own tax affairs? It’s outrageous conduct for a minister.’

Today, Andrew Mitchell – currently in the Congo on a tour of Africa – comes across very much as the modernising Tory, a Cameroon to his fingertips. The walls of his Whitehall office, which overlooks the gardens of Buckingham Palace, are decorated with no fewer than six Rwandan newspaper front pages.

They all feature photographs of Mitchell at work in the country’s capital Kigali. He devised Project Umubano, now in its fifth year, in which he leads teams of Tory volunteers on week-long trips to Kigali to help deprived villagers.

Visitors to his office are often confronted by the unedifying sight of the minister padding around the office in his stockinged feet – a nod, perhaps, to Steve Hilton, one of Cameron’s closest friends, who was the blue skies thinker in 10 Downing Street and the first person in government to pioneer the shoeless approach.

This is all very different from the Andrew Mitchell many Tory MPs remember when, back in 2005, he was an aggressive Right-winger and campaign manager for the heavyweight David Davis in the leadership contest against Cameron.

At the time both men openly derided Cameron’s leadership pitch to rebrand the Tories to try to shed their ‘nasty party’ image.

But while Davis has stayed true to his beliefs, ambition has encouraged Mitchell to come round to Cameron’s way of thinking. For he is a man who will stop at little in his determination to climb the greasy pole of politics.
History: In the past, Andrew Mitchell was considered an aggressive Right-winger and was the campaign manager for David Davis during the 2005 leadership race

History: In the past, Andrew Mitchell was considered an aggressive Right-winger and was the campaign manager for David Davis during the 2005 leadership race

Even his admirers note that he can be sycophantic to whoever is in charge. And Gyles Brandreth, the former Tory MP turned author, describes Mitchell as: ‘The most ambitious man I know, almost crazy with ambition.’

When Liam Fox resigned as Defence Secretary last autumn Mitchell boasted to friends that he was offered the post. Whether there was any truth in this is not clear. But he added, to general derision among Tory MPs, that he turned down the opportunity because he believed International Aid was the right launch pad for his next intended job in government – replacing William Hague as Foreign Secretary.

Mr Mitchell, 56, claims he was always destined to pursue a career in politics from an early age.
He grew up in an affluent household in Hampshire. His father, Sir David, was a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government. He had two 18th century ancestors who were MPs for the Liberal Party.

Educated at Rugby school, he was nicknamed ‘Thrasher’ when he was head of house because he was a stern disciplinarian. He went to Cambridge, where he studied history, and was President of the Union in 1978, the year before Margaret Thatcher came to power.

In an interview last year, he said: ‘Politics is like the priesthood or teaching. It’s a vocation. I am the fourth Mitchell who has been an MP. I remember growing up and hearing about politics around the kitchen table. I absorbed it.’

After a spell at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst he served briefly in the Royal Tank Regiment before joining Lazard, the investment bank, working with British companies seeking large-scale overseas contracts.

In the same interview Mitchell said: ‘The best advice I got was, if you want to go into politics do something else first. I joined Lazard the investment bank. I became a member of the two most hated professions in the country – bankers and politicians.’

He held a number of senior posts for Lazard in Africa and the Far East, and was highly successful. He now lives in a £3million house in one of the most fashionable squares in Islington, North London, with his wife Sharon, a doctor, and their two daughters.

He also has a £500,000 property in his Sutton Coldfield constituency and a house in the French ski resort of Val d’Isere which he lets out.

Until a year before the general election, he was raking in hundreds of thousands of pounds on top of his £64,000 MP’s salary. He was a director of no fewer than six subsidiaries of Lazard, he worked for a City PR firm, and had a £40,000 post with a firm of management consultants.

At the same time he fell foul of the increasingly tight regime over MPs’ expenses. He was ridiculed two years ago when he claimed 13p for Tipp-Ex and also submitted a 45p invoice for a stick of glue.

Responding to criticism over the Tipp-Ex claim, he said: ‘This is a perfectly normal office expense, the likes of which any office up and down the country might use.’

It wasn’t the first time his expenses had come under scrutiny. In 2009 it was revealed he claimed £19,000 for furnishing and decorating his constituency home.

Mitchell’s wealth is not just the result of his lucrative work in the City. In 1879, his forebears founded El Vino wine merchants, which has two wine bars in London and which have long been the favoured watering hole of lawyers, journalists and City types.

In 2002 El Vino was sold in a £7million deal and Andrew Mitchell reportedly pocketed £630,000 from his 9 per cent stake.

His political career has not all been plain sailing. After becoming an MP in Gedling, Nottinghamshire, in 1987 he lost the seat in 1997 in the first Blair landslide. He was finally returned as a Tory in the safe seat of Sutton Coldfield in 2001.

It was in 1992 that, as a young MP, he asked a senior colleague whether he should second the Loyal Address which precedes the opening of the debate on the Queen’s Speech.

Mitchell later recalled his senior colleague’s reply: ‘He told me, “The motion is always proposed by some genial old codger on the way out and seconded by an oily young man on the make”.’

And, of course, Andrew Mitchell had no hesitation in making the speech.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1qa7sysax

This from the newspaper fo the year for utter hypocrisy.

[jack sparrow]

Boredom alert.

[Cannydc]

"Oily oiks on the make"

Describes the modern Tory party to a tee.

[jack sparrow]

Morning tranny. Did you enjoy your election result last night?

[Cannydc]

Yes.

A few short years ago Galloway was regarded as left-wing Labour.

His win simply indicates a shift of popular support to the left, which I welcome, and will result in a Labour majority within 36 short months.

[jack sparrow]

Yes.

A few short years ago Galloway was regarded as left-wing Labour.

His win simply indicates a shift of popular support to the left, which I welcome, and will result in a Labour majority within 36 short months.

Hmm, I take a different view. Labour's "wonderful multicutural society" has come back to bite them. It is proof that we will never have a multicultural society, only a collection of unicultural ones. Pakistani muslims will only vote for a pakistani muslim, or a white man who prostitutes himself to their cause.

[Cannydc]

No, it certainly hasn't.

British Pakistanis vote for the candidate who suits them best.

For very much the same reason, we have Barmy Boris as Mayor of London.....

[Guest]

Yes.

A few short years ago Galloway was regarded as left-wing Labour.

His win simply indicates a shift of popular support to the left, which I welcome, and will result in a Labour majority within 36 short months.

Hmm, I take a different view. Labour's "wonderful multicutural society" has come back to bite them. It is proof that we will never have a multicultural society, only a collection of unicultural ones. Pakistani muslims will only vote for a pakistani muslim, or a white man who prostitutes himself to their cause.

We had a multicultural society in the 1960s. Did you know this? Do you think it all started on May 1 1997 and that there were no immigrants living here before then?

Do you know anything about British history?

[jack sparrow]

The term "multiculturalism" was not used before labour in 1997. We had border controls before 1997. We did not have the human rights act before 1997. We had an act of treason before 1997.

[Guest]

The term "multiculturalism" was not used before labour in 1997. We had border controls before 1997. We did not have the human rights act before 1997. We had an act of treason before 1997.

We still have border controls. Have you ever been abroad? Don't you think you should have any human rights? I do as I am human.

In the Western English-speaking countries, multiculturalism as an official national policy started in Canada in 1971, followed by Australia, where it has since been displaced by assimilation, in 1973.[16] It was quickly adopted as official policy by most member-states of the European Union. Recently, right-of-center governments in several European states—notably the Netherlands and Denmark— have reversed the national policy and returned to an official monoculturalism.[16] A similar reversal is the subject of debate in the United Kingdom, among others, due to evidence of incipient segregation and anxieties over "home-grown" terrorism.[17]

1973. Now was the before OR after 1997?

You will note the LEFT wing Govts of Holland and Denmark have reversed the policy. We haven't had a left wing Govt in charge here ever so maybe in 2015 if sensible people keep away from the stupid Right then we can get it reversed.

[jack sparrow]

Oh you forgot this bit:-

In 2004 the number of people who became British citizens rose to a record 140,795 — a rise of 12% on the previous year. This number had risen dramatically since 2000.[61] The overwhelming majority of new citizens were born in Africa (32%) and Asia (40%), the largest three groups being people from Pakistan, India and Somalia.[62] In 2011 Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron said in a speech that "state multiculturalism has failed".

You are offering australia up as a prime example of multiculturalism?

[Guest]

Oh you forgot this bit:-

In 2004 the number of people who became British citizens rose to a record 140,795 — a rise of 12% on the previous year. This number had risen dramatically since 2000.[61] The overwhelming majority of new citizens were born in Africa (32%) and Asia (40%), the largest three groups being people from Pakistan, India and Somalia.[62] In 2011 Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader David Cameron said in a speech that "state multiculturalism has failed".

You are offering australia up as a prime example of multiculturalism?

they've been a multicultural society since we went there and raped an pillaged in 1787 or whenever it was

[jack sparrow]

It was never. We sent some of the worst examples of our culture, who quite easily managed to improve theirs.

[Guest]

It was never. We sent some of the worst examples of our culture, who quite easily managed to improve theirs.

How did we improve Aborigine culture?