Category: Uncategorized

Commentators are quick to automatically criticise the activities of trade unions. Their activities can cause inconvenience, apparently portray the country in a negative light or show that society is about to crumble through their undemocratic powers.

A positive role is often ignored. A weak group of workers-immigrant Asian women tried to acquire union recognition in the workplace-in the 1970s. An infamous time. The photo shows the power of the State brought to bare during the Grunwick dispute.

But middle class unionisation is OK.

Taken from that well known communist mouthpiece The Economis:

Lord Ashcroft’s tax status
Out of the closet
The Conservative donor ends a decade of speculation
Mar 4th 2010 From The Economist print edition
DAVID CAMERON’S fluency deserts him when he is forced to talk about Lord Ashcroft. The Conservative leader rarely sounds as ill at ease as he did on March 2nd, when he was asked to respond to the admission by the Tories’ deputy chairman that he is non-domiciled in Britain for tax purposes. Lord Ashcroft (shown below) may have clarified matters because the government, prodded by a freedom of information request, was about to.
What price glory?
The vexed question of his tax status goes back a decade, to when he got his wish and became a peer of the realm. He had twice been rebuffed due to concerns that he spent much of his time in Belize, a former British colony. On March 23rd 2000 he gave a written assurance that he would “take up permanent residence in the UK again” by the end of that calendar year.
To many, this implied that he would be taxed in Britain on all his income, not just that which is generated domestically or remitted from abroad. William Hague, then Tory leader, had earlier written to the prime minister, Tony Blair, saying that this change of residence would cost the businessman “tens of millions a year in tax”. After his written promise, however, Mr Ashcroft had what he calls a “dialogue” with the government that resulted in “permanent residence” being taken to mean “long-term residence”. This let him continue paying tax on his British income only.
Currently non-doms can be peers (though a bill now going through Parliament would change that). Labour and the Liberal Democrats also have non-dom donors. But Lord Ashcroft and firms associated with him have at times been the Tories’ biggest. Bearwood Corporate Services and Flying Lion gave a total of almost £4.2m ($6.3m) in cash and kind (such as research and travel) between the first quarter of 2006 and the last quarter of 2009. Another firm, Lanners Services, lent £3.6m in 2006.
Lord Ashcroft became the party’s deputy chairman in 2005 and has joined Mr Hague, now the shadow foreign secretary, on foreign business. Importantly, he runs Tory campaigns in critical marginal seats.
A pressing question for senior Tories is just when they discovered his tax status. On March 3rd Mr Hague said vaguely that he has known about it “over the last few months”. A more basic conundrum is why they cling to so controversial a figure at all. After investigating Bearwood to determine whether it carries on business in Britain and is thus entitled to fund political parties, on March 4th the Electoral Commission cleared its donations—a total of £5.1m since February 2003. But Lord Ashcroft is often at odds with the Belize government over his business activities there.
As the Tories have wooed other donors, Lord Ashcroft’s financial importance has dwindled. He provided just over 1% of Tory funds (including public money) in 2009. But Mr Cameron has kept him close. One theory is that the influential Mr Hague feels a loyalty to Lord Ashcroft, whose money was useful during his own leadership. Another is that Mr Cameron himself feels indebted. Soon after the general election of 2005, Lord Ashcroft published a study showing that voters were repelled by the party’s image rather than its policies. The information was crucial to the cause of Tory modernisers and helped one of them, Mr Cameron, to be elected leader.
On March 4th the House of Commons public administration committee said that it would hold a hearing on Lord Ashcroft’s ennoblement. He has hinted anyway that he will renounce his non-dom status to stay in the chamber. The real headache is for Mr Cameron. What he knew and when about Lord Ashcroft is a big question, but perhaps a less interesting one than why the normally ruthless Tory leader has tolerated this thorn in his side for so long.

Legal but dubious use of democratic process. So who is clean?
I am legally able to vote in the forthcoming UK election. Does the Conservative Party want me to exercise my right as well?

Use your British vote to get rid of Labour, Australian party urges expats
Australian Liberals attempt to increase Conservative chances in general election



guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 March 2010 15.39 GMT

The Conservatives’ sister organisation in Australia has turned its hand to recruiting expatriates eligible to vote in the UK in order to oust “Gordon Brown‘s tired government”.
In an email to its supporters, Australia’s right-of-centre Liberal party asks members if they know any of the 1.3 million British citizens living in Australia, and urges them to alert British friends to “bring about the change the UK needs so badly”.
Any Briton on the electoral register in the UK within the last 15 years can vote in the general election, wherever they live.
The party says: “The choice at this election: five more years of Gordon Brown’s tired government making things worse, or David Cameron and the Conservative party, with the energy, leadership and values to get Britain moving.”
There is nothing illegal in the move by the Liberal party although, if it conducted such an operation in the UK, it would be required to register funding with the Electoral Commission and be subject to spending rules. In the 2004 general election, Lord Ashcroft gave $1m to the Australian Liberal party.
There are strong links between the British Conservative party and the Australian Liberal party, with both trying to unseat incumbent Labour governments. The Australian strategist Lynton Crosby was part of Boris Johnson’s successful campaign to become London mayor. On the Labour side, the former British health secretary Alan Milburn wrote speeches for Kevin Rudd, Australia’s current Labor prime minister, in 2007.
While Cameron’s Conservatives will take all the votes they can, they will want to distance themselves from the Liberal party’s views on climate change as they fight for the green vote.
In November, Tony Abbott, the Liberal party leader, described climate change as “complete crap“, and his finance spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, recently described home insulation as “the fluffy stuff that sits in the ceiling for rats to urinate on”.

The State versus the rest.

For a more rounded presentation of of the dispute between BA and Unite try here.

The Test match is now over, and Australia won by a wide margin. No surprises there then.

I must document the attendance of the Quirke cricket devotees though. Joe and I were there on Sunday, day three of the match, and the Black Caps were already in serious trouble. They had already made a hash of batting, after Australia had shown that there were “no demons in the pitch”, as the people on the telly are fond of saying.

I was expecting a day of attritional batting, and so it transpired at first, though the action did warm up a little later in the day. The top batsmen were not able to cope with the speed and aggression of the quicks, who were sending it down at close to 90mph.

Joe and I were there from before lunch to close to the end of play. We did not sit there drinking from our thermos flask. Joe had his ice cream and chips (not at the same time), and I had my quota of beers. The taxi arrived promptly at the arranged spot.

It was good to fit in the game amongst everything else in the weekend. Joe had already been to basketball practice, and Saturday had been wall to wall cricket. The end of the season has already arrived for the boys as we are away this weekend in the Marlborough Sounds.

The only down side of the visit to the mighty Basin Reserve…… the cost. I am so used to paying $10 to get in, and often children are free. As the opposition was a marquee team, normal prices applied-ouch.

It is now official. Autumn is here.

Yesterday the world celebrated the day of the patron saint of Ireland-because when it comes to it, the world loves the Irish.

Of course, being St. Patrick’s College Wellington, and being a Catholic school, the day is celebrated with vigour. The afternoon consists of the whole school walking to St. Mary of the Angels for mass, which happened to get a mention in the Dom Post today with photo supplied.

The day began early, with Joe and I waking at six in order to get to the school early for the “Big Boys Breakfast”, an annual father and son event at the school. I have been once before and thought it a great event. This time the event pulled in some big guns.

The main speaker was the Governor General, who to those not in the know, is the Queen’s official representative in New Zealand. The current man is the 19th to fill the post. He is of course a New Zealander. The other speaker was a ex-pupil who is the actor, Grant Roa, who of course has been in LOTR and “Whale Rider”.

Also, in the audience only in the role of dad was New Zealand’s finance minister and deputy Prime Minister, who did not appear pleased when he was mentioned. Of note, was that it was the GG who had the protection and not the deputy PM.

On Friday the country, but especially wellington was hit by a freak storm. The weather changed rapidly, with huge black clouds approaching, gale force winds and deluge of rain. It droppes 10C within 30 minutes. I was caught in it on the way home, and missed out on my planned swim, as the outdoor pool was closed because of lightening strikes.(not my photo)


However, it did have an upside. We had had a couple of quotes to have a tree on our section lopped because it was blocking the view from the house towards the harbour. About $1000 worth of work.
But the wind did its work. It blew the top of the tree to 90 degrees and so no need in the short term to get the man around. It will delay the cost for 1-2 years, and give time to negotiate with the neighbour to go half and half!

More mystical events on the cricket field. Isaac produced a wonder game. He bowled two batsman in his three overs for about 6 runs. Botham lives!

Its been nearly three seasons in its gestation but Isaac finally won the “player of the day” award. His moment arrived yesterday when Dad had already left to sort out getting the older sibling to his game.

Isaac bowled a couple of fine overs, having a player caught behind and was steady with the bat.

So congrats to Isaac and let’s hope for some more wickets in the last few weeks of the season.