Panama leaks and expense fiddles show dodgy government

Ms Miller

Op-ed: As Del Boy David Cameron ducks and dives his way around the panama papers data leak can we really believe a word he or his ministers say?

A day ago, as the PM of Iceland was forced to resign after been caught up in the off shore tax haven scandal, Number 10 said there was nothing to say and Mr Cameron's father's off shore tax haven links were a private family matter.

It was a case of 'move along now nothing here to see'.

But it did not take long for that statement to be superseded. And Wednesday on it goes.

The latest from the BBC is "Downing Street has been forced to further clarify David Cameron's financial affairs after questions about his family's tax arrangements. No 10 said there were "no offshore trusts or funds" that the prime minister or his immediate family would benefit from "in future"" but is that an adequate response?

[Thursday edit -More taxing questions for the PM: How Cameron's father stashed a fortune in Jersey that Dave could inherit from his mother Daily Mail]

Many people are asking about the past and Labour say questions still remain and want him to publish his tax returns.

21st Century western citizens are told to suck up austerity measures and slashed budgets to help pay off some vague national debts and deficits while the rich appear to have stashed their wealth away from the taxman or woman.

This tax limitation has a negative knock on effect on those same debts and budgets.

Cameron may have some of the mainstream media running scared of the Tories but the Conservatives are finding it difficult to make people move on and ignore revelations.

And when you have Chancellor George Osborne cutting short interviews when tax avoidance is mentioned people smell a rat or two. Again it is the Telegraph reporting this time "George Osborne terminates BBC interview when asked twice if he benefits from offshore funds."

But then George has also been under the Telegraph microscope in the past - Chancellor George Osborne reportedly "sold his constituency home, which has been part-funded by his MP’s expenses claims, for an estimated £400,000 profit" was also a Telegraph report.

The MP Expense scandal

Previously various MPs have been shown to abuse the political expenses system available for them.

Following explosive revelations in the Telegraph a couple of years ago a handful of MPs were jailed after losing court cases. Most as I seem to remember where Labour MPs but fiddling expenses was a cross-party phenomenon.

So MP expenses were overhauled and they were awarded hefty salary increases which allegedly would prevent further fiddles; that assumption of course works on the premise that the fiddles were legal within a flawed system and maybe even that some MPs were struggling financially; it takes no account of personal greed.

In January we remembered Maria Miller who was embroiled in the expense scandal but never faced justice and is still an active MP.

But in 2014 the "House of Commons authorities have destroyed all evidence of MPs' expenses claims prior to 2010, meaning end of official investigations into scandal" reported the Telegraph.

One British politician that could be heard breathing a sigh of relief across the UK was Tory Maria Miller.

We followed the Maria Miller saga as it twisted and turned before she came up smelling of roses.

She quit her cabinet role of culture secretary after claiming she was forced out by Number 10 but she was never held to account or proven innocent or guilty of the dodgy expenses allegation but she remained in parliament. It illustrates how unfair and biased even political expense scandals can be.

And now there is Tory Geoffrey Cox QC:

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A Conservative MP who failed to declare more than £400,000 of outside earnings will only have to apologise to the Commons after Parliament's Standards Committee decided not to formally punish him for the breach.

In a judgement that will increase criticism over the body, Geoffrey Cox QC will be asked to make an apology, but no formal action will be taken.

The Standards Committee found that Geoffrey Cox QC had committed a "serious" breach of rules, although it accepted he had not "intended to hide" the payments for hundreds of hours of legal work......Telegraph

That Cox ruling was in early February 2016.

What is a Tory apology worth? Is it worth as much as a Tory saying 'honestly'?

The Torridge and West Devon MP [Geoffrey Cox] referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner and stepped down as a member of parliament's sleaze watchdog last October after it emerged he had repeatedly missed the 28-day deadline.

Sleaze watchdog?

British parliament is still in recess and there is little wonder that Cameron ignored calls for a recall due to the Tata Steel crisis; while he is away from the Commons he is left unaccountable simply drip feeding a little information to the media; information that most people do not believe.

The dodgy off shore but somehow legal tax havens have other family links to the Cameron's though this time in the shape of wife Samantha Cameron. In February 2015 the Daily Mirror reported:

David Cameron has come under more pressure over his wife Samantha’s family affairs after it emerged they have links to tax havens across the globe.

The PM’s mother-in-law Lady Astor’s luxury furniture store Oka Direct is more than 50% owned by anonymous ­shareholders through accounts held in Guernsey, we can reveal.

She has a 22% stake in the firm she founded in 1999 and which has ­benefited from the offshore investment.

And Samantha’s step-dad Viscount Astor is linked to a firm in a Caribbean tax haven which owned his family’s 19,000 acre Talbert Estate in Scotland.

The revelations come amid the furore sparked by further criticism of Mr Cameron’s wife’s job with plush stationery firm Smythson, whose owners are based in Luxembourg.

And the PM was branded a ­“hypocrite” after boasting about clamping down on tax dodgers, insisting he wants all British firms to be ­“headquartered” in the UK.

This piece could roll on and on but we will leave it there, at least for now.

But now that we know we are being governed by crooks and liars the big question has to be - what are we going to do about it?