Bozza’s Bollo

Boris who?

Well Mayor Boris Johnson got some sound bite headlines as he claimed he was planning to confront President Obama over millions of pounds owed by the US embassy in congestion charges, during his visit to London. But as is so typical with Bozza this turned out to be sound without substance or all “piss and wind” as they say in the parts of the country Bozza is unfamiliar with, like Liverpool.


Boris Hall

Several embassies refuse to pay the charge for driving in central London, claiming they are exempted from local taxes. The total bill stands at £51m. "Maybe when President Obama's hors d'oeuvre plate is whisked away he will find a bill for £5.5m," he said. The US embassy said it considered the charge to be a "direct tax".


Bozza signing a petition against Tube Ticket Office closures

Speaking to Vanessa Feltz the mayor said he may be "shepherded away" from Mr Obama but added: "If I get the chance to I will remind him that the US owes us £5.5m in congestion charge.”I think if they are going to have the representation here in London then they should pay the charge for driving and using our streets.


The Con Charge

So 'No representation without a congestion charge' is the slogan." Several embassies refuse to pay the £10-a-day charge and the £120 fine incurred through not doing so. The charge was £8.00 a day when Boris was elected in 2008 promising not to increase it. But Mr Johnson said: "It is not a tax, it is a charge for services and I think we should test this in the courts. That of course is NOT what Boris said when running for election as on this clip;



The American Embassy says;

"Our position on the direct tax established by Transport for London in 2003, more commonly known as the congestion charge, is based on the 1960 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which prohibits the direct taxation of diplomatic missions."

I once had a Law Lecturer who said the best guide to the Company’s Act was to read it so in the same spirit I actually read Article 23 of the Vienna Convention;

Article 23

1. The sending State and the head of the mission shall be exempt from all national, regional or municipal dues and taxes in respect of the premises of the mission, whether owned or leased, other than such as represent payment for specific services rendered.

2. The exemption from taxation referred to in this article shall not apply to such dues and taxes payable under the law of the receiving State by persons contracting with the sending State or the head of the mission.

Seems plain enough to me but unlike Bozza I’m not an Oxford educated Classics Scholar – maybe our fearless Mayor, that scourge of burglars, Greeks, piccaninnies, Scousers and embassies would understand it better if it was in Latin?


Boris who?

So file this one away along with all the other Bozza Bollo entries like I’m going to get a strike free deal on the Tube, I’ll introduce the Bicycle scheme at zero cost to Council Tax payers (£43 million and rising), I’ll get rid of Bendy Buses ditto and I won’t increase fares above inflation. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Bozza’s Bollo

Boris who?

Well Mayor Boris Johnson got some sound bite headlines as he claimed he was planning to confront President Obama over millions of pounds owed by the US embassy in congestion charges, during his visit to London. But as is so typical with Bozza this turned out to be sound without substance or all “piss and wind” as they say in the parts of the country Bozza is unfamiliar with, like Liverpool.


Boris Hall

Several embassies refuse to pay the charge for driving in central London, claiming they are exempted from local taxes. The total bill stands at £51m. "Maybe when President Obama's hors d'oeuvre plate is whisked away he will find a bill for £5.5m," he said. The US embassy said it considered the charge to be a "direct tax".


Bozza signing a petition against Tube Ticket Office closures

Speaking to Vanessa Feltz the mayor said he may be "shepherded away" from Mr Obama but added: "If I get the chance to I will remind him that the US owes us £5.5m in congestion charge.”I think if they are going to have the representation here in London then they should pay the charge for driving and using our streets.


The Con Charge

So 'No representation without a congestion charge' is the slogan." Several embassies refuse to pay the £10-a-day charge and the £120 fine incurred through not doing so. The charge was £8.00 a day when Boris was elected in 2008 promising not to increase it. But Mr Johnson said: "It is not a tax, it is a charge for services and I think we should test this in the courts. That of course is NOT what Boris said when running for election as on this clip;



The American Embassy says;

"Our position on the direct tax established by Transport for London in 2003, more commonly known as the congestion charge, is based on the 1960 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which prohibits the direct taxation of diplomatic missions."

I once had a Law Lecturer who said the best guide to the Company’s Act was to read it so in the same spirit I actually read Article 23 of the Vienna Convention;

Article 23

1. The sending State and the head of the mission shall be exempt from all national, regional or municipal dues and taxes in respect of the premises of the mission, whether owned or leased, other than such as represent payment for specific services rendered.

2. The exemption from taxation referred to in this article shall not apply to such dues and taxes payable under the law of the receiving State by persons contracting with the sending State or the head of the mission.

Seems plain enough to me but unlike Bozza I’m not an Oxford educated Classics Scholar – maybe our fearless Mayor, that scourge of burglars, Greeks, piccaninnies, Scousers and embassies would understand it better if it was in Latin?


Boris who?

So file this one away along with all the other Bozza Bollo entries like I’m going to get a strike free deal on the Tube, I’ll introduce the Bicycle scheme at zero cost to Council Tax payers (£43 million and rising), I’ll get rid of Bendy Buses ditto and I won’t increase fares above inflation. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

Old Etonian cries “Power to the People”

Everybody here saw PR Dave deliver his vacuous “Power to the People” speech launching the Conservative Manifesto in front of Battersea Power Station. Unfortunately I saw him deliver it in front of a White Elephant bought for £400 M with debt from Irish Banks to Treasury Holdings and which is now owned by that long suffering individual, the Irish Taxpayer.

http://www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?storycode=3154094



The Conservatives launch of their manifesto at Battersea Power Station was just like their policies, nice looking on the outside, and hollow on the inside.
The last Tory launch at Battersea power station was when Margaret Thatcher fired a laser gun to signal the start of a theme park that, in the end, was never built. Worked stopped a year later, in 1989, leaving the building in its current derelict state.





So launches by Tory leaders in Battersea power station seem like a good idea at the time. They tend to have impeccable PR. But costs soon escalate, the foundations decay, and the whole edifice is left in a state of dereliction.

Let us remind ourselves what we must not do;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/lest-we-forget.html

Is David Cameron the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Conservatives?

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/lord-cashcroft.html

And of David’s Statesmanship with his blood curdling cry to fight the Russians at Selfridges!

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-will-fight-them-selfridges.html

Old Etonian cries “Power to the People”

Everybody here saw PR Dave deliver his vacuous “Power to the People” speech launching the Conservative Manifesto in front of Battersea Power Station. Unfortunately I saw him deliver it in front of a White Elephant bought for £400 M with debt from Irish Banks to Treasury Holdings and which is now owned by that long suffering individual, the Irish Taxpayer.

http://www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?storycode=3154094



The Conservatives launch of their manifesto at Battersea Power Station was just like their policies, nice looking on the outside, and hollow on the inside.
The last Tory launch at Battersea power station was when Margaret Thatcher fired a laser gun to signal the start of a theme park that, in the end, was never built. Worked stopped a year later, in 1989, leaving the building in its current derelict state.





So launches by Tory leaders in Battersea power station seem like a good idea at the time. They tend to have impeccable PR. But costs soon escalate, the foundations decay, and the whole edifice is left in a state of dereliction.

Let us remind ourselves what we must not do;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/lest-we-forget.html

Is David Cameron the Leader or the Deputy Leader of the Conservatives?

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/lord-cashcroft.html

And of David’s Statesmanship with his blood curdling cry to fight the Russians at Selfridges!

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-will-fight-them-selfridges.html

Lord Cashcroft

Biggles and his Co-Pilot

Conservative donor and deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft has admitted he does not pay UK tax on earnings outside Britain. His statement ends years of questions from opponents about whether he was "non-domiciled" in the UK for tax. He said he agreed with Tory leader David Cameron's call for anyone in the Lords to be "resident and domiciled".

Labour's Jack Straw accused the Tories of "concealing the truth" for 10 years. The Lib Dems said the Tories had been "bought like a banana republic". BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the 63-year-old, who is estimated to be worth £1.1bn by the Sunday Times Rich List, was one of the biggest ever donors to a political party and was at the centre of the Conservatives' election campaign.


Lord Ashcroft of Tax Exile in the County of Belize

Lord Cashcroft is in a long tradition of Great British Patriots who are too patriotic to pay taxes, such as "Union" Jack Hayward who bankrolled the Tories from the Bahamas! Why do we stand for this nonsense? Have a British Passport or live in Britain, pay British Taxes on your worldwide income, period. That's the way it is in the Good 'Ol U. S of A where you are liable to US Federal Income Tax no matter where you live once you have a US passport. This is why there is no such thing as an American Tax Exile. Who does the Great British legal nonsense of "Domiciled", "Ordinarily Domiciled”, "Resident" and "Resident but non-Domiciled" suit? Certainly not those who earn their living (and pay taxes) on the fruits of honest labour?

Lord Ashcroft was initially rejected for a peerage in 1999 by the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee on the grounds that he spent most of his time abroad in Belize and Florida and conducted almost all of his financial matters overseas. His company Bearwood Corporate Services Limited has been the largest single contributor to the Tories since 2005, although his millions make up less than 5% of their total donations. For a company to make a donation it must be trading in the UK and in February 2009, the Electoral Commission launched a formal investigation to determine whether this was the case.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has called for the full details of Lord Ashcroft's status to be made public and criticised "evasive and obfuscatory" replies given by senior politicians on the subject. Ashcroft is the Tory Deputy Chairman and maintains a “private” office at Conservative HQ and he personally bankrolls a campaign to unseat the Labour / Lib-Dem incumbent in 186 target constituencies.
To go back to the American example, there he wouldn’t be allowed make political contributions and would be treated under American Law as “An agent of a Foreign Power.”


Cameron Air

One aspect of Lord Cashcroft’s influence over the Tories is his splendid bankrolling of Cameron Air. Dave “Vote Blue to get Green” Cameron and his chaps travel in style: they go in ‘Lord’ Ashcroft’s Falcon jet ($30 million second hand). Altogether shadow cabinet ministers and aides have flown 184,000 miles on the Ashcroft jet over the last five years with Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, flying 65,453 miles and shadow foreign secretary William Hague flying 49,670 miles. It would be churlish to complain about all this privileged transport, given P.R. Dave’s understandable pride in his privileged background.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-will-fight-them-selfridges.html

Lord Cashcroft

Biggles and his Co-Pilot

Conservative donor and deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft has admitted he does not pay UK tax on earnings outside Britain. His statement ends years of questions from opponents about whether he was "non-domiciled" in the UK for tax. He said he agreed with Tory leader David Cameron's call for anyone in the Lords to be "resident and domiciled".

Labour's Jack Straw accused the Tories of "concealing the truth" for 10 years. The Lib Dems said the Tories had been "bought like a banana republic". BBC political editor Nick Robinson said the 63-year-old, who is estimated to be worth £1.1bn by the Sunday Times Rich List, was one of the biggest ever donors to a political party and was at the centre of the Conservatives' election campaign.


Lord Ashcroft of Tax Exile in the County of Belize

Lord Cashcroft is in a long tradition of Great British Patriots who are too patriotic to pay taxes, such as "Union" Jack Hayward who bankrolled the Tories from the Bahamas! Why do we stand for this nonsense? Have a British Passport or live in Britain, pay British Taxes on your worldwide income, period. That's the way it is in the Good 'Ol U. S of A where you are liable to US Federal Income Tax no matter where you live once you have a US passport. This is why there is no such thing as an American Tax Exile. Who does the Great British legal nonsense of "Domiciled", "Ordinarily Domiciled”, "Resident" and "Resident but non-Domiciled" suit? Certainly not those who earn their living (and pay taxes) on the fruits of honest labour?

Lord Ashcroft was initially rejected for a peerage in 1999 by the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee on the grounds that he spent most of his time abroad in Belize and Florida and conducted almost all of his financial matters overseas. His company Bearwood Corporate Services Limited has been the largest single contributor to the Tories since 2005, although his millions make up less than 5% of their total donations. For a company to make a donation it must be trading in the UK and in February 2009, the Electoral Commission launched a formal investigation to determine whether this was the case.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has called for the full details of Lord Ashcroft's status to be made public and criticised "evasive and obfuscatory" replies given by senior politicians on the subject. Ashcroft is the Tory Deputy Chairman and maintains a “private” office at Conservative HQ and he personally bankrolls a campaign to unseat the Labour / Lib-Dem incumbent in 186 target constituencies.
To go back to the American example, there he wouldn’t be allowed make political contributions and would be treated under American Law as “An agent of a Foreign Power.”


Cameron Air

One aspect of Lord Cashcroft’s influence over the Tories is his splendid bankrolling of Cameron Air. Dave “Vote Blue to get Green” Cameron and his chaps travel in style: they go in ‘Lord’ Ashcroft’s Falcon jet ($30 million second hand). Altogether shadow cabinet ministers and aides have flown 184,000 miles on the Ashcroft jet over the last five years with Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, flying 65,453 miles and shadow foreign secretary William Hague flying 49,670 miles. It would be churlish to complain about all this privileged transport, given P.R. Dave’s understandable pride in his privileged background.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-will-fight-them-selfridges.html