The rumbled fraudster Hazel Blears has written out a cheque for over £13,000 to the Inland Revenue to pay the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on her taxpayer-bought property. She had avoided CGT by telling the Inland Revenue it was her main residence, after getting the taxpayer to pay her mortgage on the grounds it was her second residence.
Rather peculiarly, she did not post the cheque to the Inland Revenue, but handed it to a Sky News reporter. I know she is a supporter of the privatisation of the Post Office, but this is ridiculous. Plainly this stunt is meant to improve her image. But the sight of a “Public servant” who can at the drop of a hat dash off a current account cheque for over £13,000 is deeply unedifying. For more than half her constituents, that cheque was for more than a year’s income after tax and national insurance. It was nearly three years of the state pension.
There remain some questions. There will be interest and late payment charges due to the Inland Revenue. Has she agreed the sum with them? And has she calculated the sum due correctly? At the time of the sale, the rate applicable was 40%. £13,000 would indicate it was paid on profit of £32,000. But I am told by a Commons staff source the profit was actually “significantly more” than £32,000.
And she came across as all sweetness and light and how she was paying it back as didn’t want to be hated by the public (even though what she claimed was legal under the rules|, little liar!
Craig,
The last three pieces were all absolute crackers. My treat for the day.
I was about to declare that you should get married and have children more often, if it puts you in such rare form, but I suspect that your missus might not find the thought so appealing. Anyway, bravo.
She supports Royal Mail privatisation, then?
So she does have some common sense, even if she is bent!
Being married to the head of a ambulance chasing firm of solicitors, writing a cheque for that amount would present no problem.
http://www.halsalls.com/partners_michael.php
Blears is burned beyond redemption. Moreover, if she really believes her stunt will work, then she is also utterly self-deluded.
They all knew this was coming, they also knew that it would piss us all off something rotten, but this really is taking the mickey, after taking hundred of thousands for years, they are waving penny’s at us trying to make out all is good and ‘see, I’m a good girl, I’m paying it pback’.
Sod Hazel and her ilk. Decentralise power I say, introduce PR, whichever AMS or STV, make all politicians accountable via a re call system and disband unelected quango’s, including the privvy council, that would give us all a nice new start.
Oh yes, vote independent if you get a chance, because it is party dogma and the whiup system that has forced politicians into this expense frenzy, they were challenged into claiming, just as their fellow MP’s, so non of them would push against the carts direction.
I’ve been doing some canvassing, oh boy are people angry, it is to be approached with great care and diplomacy, making the whole exercise a chore, something you don’t really need.
If its to go by any of the voters I met at the doorstep, our ‘basil brush on speed’ would be torn in half feathered and tarred, they would nail that cheque to her bare cheeks.
And then some say she might be the next prime minister of this country because she is sooo like Tony Blair. *#*#*#*# (sounds of wretching)
best to you all
What price credibility?
Money comes and goes, along with politicians; but I feel we have just irrevocably lost our parliament.
I found her performance just embarrassing – like a child being caught with something they should have throwing it, in temper at their accuser saying “I didn’t want it anyway.”
Of most importance to her is what her electorate will think (of course) and this flamboyant display was for their benefit and theirs alone.
So now she has publically confessed to fraud what time will plod be knocking on her door?
When I buy from my own business, I have to pay market price not cost price. In other words; and pay tax on profit I made from myself!!! this is how Inland revenue works and I dare not violate this because I know if IR went through my papers they will check even my emails and the invistigation could cost you thousands in accountacy costs!!
Why don’t IR invistigate those fraudstars??????
who is Blear to avoid paying tax openly while I pay tax for staff I buy from myself?????????
It certainly was a cunning stunt to wave that cheque around. How do we know whether or not it was torn up immediately after the photo opportunity. She reminds me of one of those party poppers which, when popped, showers everyone with confetti.
Scum.War criminal.
Fake cheque torn up immediately afterwards, OMG, that’s brilliant! Whips Office, here I come with a brill idea. But – OMG, why didn’t she treble the amount? Stupid, stupid, stupid! No promotion for her!
cunning stunt. LOL.
She sussed she’d be worse off in the long run not paying it back. Good try Hazel. Shame no one will fall for it.
Is Hazel Blears unique in being the only cabinet minister to volunteer that “hundreds of thousands of people had died” in the Iraq war, apparently unprompted. Check out her recent internet video interview with George Monbiot, about 1:50 into it. She generally comes across as rather lightweight in that whole interview:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/video/2009/apr/25/monbiot-meets-hazel-blears