Posts Tagged ‘UK’
Captains of Industry and Business Leaders are Backing the Conservatives UK
Top Business Leaders Back Tories On Tax
9:42am UK, Thursday April 01, 2010
Ruth Barnett, Sky News Online
A group of business leaders have written a letter backing the Conservatives’ proposal to halt a planned rise in National Insurance.
David Cameron described it as a “very important moment in the election campaign”.
The executive chairman of Marks and Spencers, Sir Stuart Rose, and easyJet entrepreneur Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou are among the 23 people to have signed the letter, which is published in the Daily Telegraph.
The signatories employ around half a million workers between them.
They agree with shadow chancellor George Osborne that increasing NI by 1p next April, as Labour plans to do, is bad news for the economy.
“The Government’s proposal to increase national insurance, placing an additional tax on jobs, comes at exactly the wrong time in the economic cycle,” the letter says.
The Labour Party feel that the Conservatives’ plan has not been properly costed and not properly thought through.
Sky’s political correspondent Joey Jones
“In a personal capacity, we welcome George Osborne’s plan to stop the proposed increase in national insurance by cutting Government waste.”
Mr Cameron told BBC Breakfast: “These household names – people like Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Mothercare – are saying that Labour’s plans to put up National Insurance contributions are the biggest threat to the recovery.
“They are saying there is no threat to the recovery from cutting waste in 2010 but there is a threat to the recovery from putting up National Insurance contributions.
“Labour have said the whole thing is that we can secure the recovery. Well, today that plank of their whole approach has been removed.”
Chancellor Alistair Darling pledged to introduce the rise as a way of paying off some of the nation’s debts.
But Mr Osborne said he would axe the increase for people earning less than £45,000 if his party wins power at the next election. He said he would pay for this by finding efficiency savings worth £12bn.
Mr Darling counters that Mr Osborne’s policy is at odds with the Conservatives’ claim they would cut the deficit sooner and deeper than the Government plans.
Treasury Chief Secretary Liam Byrne said the Conservatives were not able to fund their promise on NI.
“No business goes to its shareholders with unfunded promises – but that’s exactly what the Tories are doing,” he said.
The captains of industry and top business leaders are fully aware of the failure of this Labour Government. They are giving their full backing to the Conservatives, because they know we have the experience and common sense, to get rid of Labour’s crippling debt, but not at the expense of putting more businesses out of action, or risking the creation of new jobs.
Members of the public whose jobs are hanging by a thread need to take note and ensure their vote is for the Conservatives. Another term of Labour could spell disaster for them and everyone else in the United Kingdom.
Jim Ferguson
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Brown caught misleading people again with wrong immigration data UK
The figures Gordon Brown gave in a podcast about immigration were wrong, the statistics watchdog has told the Prime Minister in an open letter.
The PM’s speech was correct but his podcast was not, the letter says
Mr Brown “did not use comparable” sets of data when he discussed the number of people who had come to Britain in recent years, the note the chair of the UK Statistics Authority said.
A statement from Downing Street said it accepted some of the numbers used were unclear and not strictly comparable.
The Prime Minister used the podcast to talk about his points system and reassure working families that the system is fair.
“Some people talk as if net inward migration is rising. In fact, it is falling – down from 237,000 in 2007, to 163,000 in 2008, to provisional figures of 147,000 last year,” he said.
“Some people talk as if all immigrants stay here forever. In fact, most come for short periods and then return to their own country.”
But the chair of the statistics authority, Sir Michael Scholar, said the figure for 2007 should have been lower – the official number was 233,000, not 237,000.
It means the scale of the fall is less dramatic than Mr Brown implied.
There is an urgent need for immediate steps to properly control immigration instead of the free for all flood of migrants some with no skills and many who cant even speak English.
Labour systematically ignored the warnings just to rub the rights nose in it and in the hope of getting more votes. They betrayed the interests of Britain and the British people and now growing pressure mounts on all major frontline services with education, healthcare and the prisons bursting under the strain of an endless flood of people invited into the UK by Labour.
Labour lied to us all.
Jim Ferguson
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Conservatives to offer real help for small business UK
I am pleased to see some real help being promised for small business. Its encouraging that small business is being recognised for the part it plays by the Conservatives who understand the importance of the fact that we are a nation of traders and that small business accounts for 80% of the revenue raised.
Jim Ferguson
Conservative tax reform to aid self employed
Wednesday, March 31 2010
Mark Prisk, the Shadow Business Minister, has announced that a Conservative Government would undertake a full and fundamental review of small business taxation, including IR35.
The aim will be to provide a simpler, clearer and lasting tax regime, so businesses can plan with confidence.
“For the last 13 years, Labour have constantly meddled with the tax rules for freelancers and self-employed, Prisk said. “IR35 has especially proved to over-complex, uncertain and often unfair”.
IR35 has cost business £73 million over 10 years but it has barely raised revenue for the Treasury. Prisk criticised Gordon Brown for making it harder to be self-employed at a time when Britain should be open for business.
“This is why a Conservative Government would mandate the independent Office of Tax Simplification to undertake a fundamental review of current arrangements with the aim of providing a clearer, lasting and fairer tax regime”.
This announcement is in addition to previous plesges to simplify the tax system, cut Corporation Tax for small firms, and make small business rate relief automatic.
“Small businesses cannot afford 5 more years of Gordon Brown”, Prisk added. “Only the Conservatives have the energy and the ideas to get Britain working by boosting enterprise”.
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Labour addicted to union cash while Libdems get bought off by Labour UK
Secret papers reveal Labour’s dependency on union cash
Tuesday, March 30 2010
Previously unpublished papers reveal the true scope of Labour’s dependency on union cash.
Following Conservative pressure, the Government will publish the previously confidential minutes and papers of the Inter-Party Talks on the Funding of Political Parties.
Francis Maude, Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, led the Conservative delegation in the Talks. “Gordon Brown wrecked the opportunity to clean up politics because he wanted the unions’ votes to become Labour Party leader”, he said. “These documents expose the Labour Party’s addiction to union cash”.
The Talks were chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips and were suspended without substantive agreement in October 2007.
Peter Watt, then Labour General Secretary and a delegate on the Talks, has subsequently written how the Talks failed since “the Labour Party could not resolve its internal issues”, “my own party was the biggest block to reform” and Gordon Brown “repeatedly warned the Prime Minister [Tony Blair] that he would block any attempt to reduce the unions’ power.”
Peter Watt also notes how the Liberal Democrats were bought off by Labour: “[Labour] managed to clinch a deal with the LibDems by promising that Menzies (Ming) Campbell would get a taxpayer-funded car and driver if the reforms went through.”
The newly published papers today reveal the true extent of the union funding of the Labour Party:
- Many union members would not pay a political levy to the Labour Party if given a choice.
- Some trade unions affiliate more individuals to the Labour Party than they have union members paying a political levy (only money from the political levy can be used for political purposes).
- From 2001 to 2006, the unions gave the Labour Party £45 million in cash.
- Trade unions pay £1 million a year to the Labour Party at a local and regional level, tying in local Labour Party branches through binding “Constituency Development Plans”.
Sir Hayden Phillips drew up detailed option papers on how the political levy could be reformed to give union members genuine choice. The Labour Party objected to these proposals. This was the key stumbling block that led to the Talks failing.
It’s wrong that union barons, not rank-and-file union members, decide how much to give to Labour”, Maude added.
“A Conservative Government will seek an agreed long-term settlement that would introduce an across-the-board cap on donations to end the big donor culture. As part of that reform, union members must have real choice on whether they want to pay a political levy and where it goes.”
Interesting to see how easy it was to buy off the Libdems. I suppose some things never change.
Jim Ferguson
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‘Special Relationship’ With the U.S. Is Dead, Say British MPs UK
The UK should be “more willing to say no” to America.
There is no special relationship between the United States and Britain, a House of Commons select committee said March 28. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee concluded that the term is “potentially misleading, and we recommend that its use should be avoided.”
“The UK must continue to position itself closely alongside the U.S. but there is a need to be less deferential and more willing to say no where our interests diverge,” said the committee’s chairman, Mike Gapes.
The committee said it was simply mirroring the attitude U.S. President Barack Obama had taken since coming into power.
“The UK’s relationship should be principally driven by the UK’s national interests within individual policy areas,” it said. “It needs to be characterized by a hard-headed political approach to the relationship and a realistic sense of the UK’s limits. The foreign-policy approach we are advocating is in many ways similar to the more pragmatic tone President Obama has adopted towards the UK.”
In the future the UK needs to be “more willing to say no,” it concluded.
Britain has been a staunch ally of the U.S. for decades. However, repeated snubs from the new administration led the committee to conclude that Britain is considered just one of many U.S. allies—with nothing special in the relationship at all.
Right at the start of his presidency, Obama insulted Britain by sending back a bust of Winston Churchill, and giving Prime Minister Gordon Brown a gift of 100 dvds that don’t even play on British dvd players.
The latest snub is America’s refusal to back Britain’s right to the Falkland Islands, instead backing Argentina’s calls for negotiation at the United Nations. This is despite the fact that Argentina’s claim on the Falklands is about as strong as Russia’s claim to Alaska. The Falkland Islands never had an indigenous population. Its currant inhabitants came from Britain. The last thing they want is to be ruled by Argentina. Argentina’s only claim is that it had a colony on the island a few hundred years ago.
No wonder Britain has concluded that there is no special relationship. This is a trend the Trumpet has been predicting for years. For more information on the future of this relationship, see our article “The Tie That Binds America, Britain and Israel.” •
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Gordon Brown’s record – Conservative “Vote for Me” campaign
Michael Gove has launched a new poster campaign putting Gordon Brown’s record at the heart of the election campaign.
These posters arrive alongside a new analysis of Labour’s time in power, and you can view both by clicking the links below.
Speaking at the launch, Shadow Education Secretary Michael Gove said:
“Gordon Brown is asking people to vote him in for another five years but he and his tired Government will just make things worse.”
“He has doubled our national debt and squandered billions of pounds selling off Britain’s gold at rock bottom prices. He has taken billions out of our pensions system and doubled the tax rate for the poorest workers. He has let down our young people by causing record youth unemployment, and overseen an increase in the gap between the rich and poor. And he has let 80,000 criminals out of prison early, leading to 1,500 crimes being committed by people who should have been behind bars.”
“We can’t go on like this. The choice at this election is five more years of Gordon Brown’s tired government making things worse or David Cameron and the Conservatives with the energy, leadership and values to get the country moving.”
… and here are some other things Gordon Brown did…
Cut the Defence Budget at a time of war – and got caught out denying it!
Gordon Brown misled the Chilcot Inquiry, Parliament and the public when he claimed that ‘the defence budget has been rising every year since 1997’
(Hansard, 10 March 2010, Col. 291).
He was later forced to admit that ‘I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms’
(Hansard, 17 March 2010).
Figures from the Ministry of Defence show that the defence budget actually fell year-on-year in real terms on four occasions since 1997 – in 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2007.
(Channel 4 News Factcheck, 10 March 2010).
Taxed jobs as we were emerging from recession.
Last December, Gordon Brown’s Government announced a tax on jobs – a 0.5 per cent rise in the rate of National Insurance Contributions for both employees and employers. This comes on top of the
rise in NICs announced in the 2008 PBR, meaning a total planned rise of 1 per cent. This is a tax on all businesses and on every person earning over £20,000.
The Federation of Small Businesses has estimated that this could mean up to 57,000 jobs are lost. (FSB,
Press Release, 24 March 2010)
Increased spending on quangos by £10 billion.
The cost of unelected and poorly accountable government bodies has soared by almost £10 billion under Gordon Brown. In his first year as Prime Minister, total expenditure on so-called
“executive non-departmental public bodies” rose from £37.0 billion to £43.0 billion in 2007-08 – a 16 per cent rise
(Cabinet Office, Public Bodies 2007, p.10; Public Bodies 2008, p.10).
Figures for 2008-09 revealed quango expenditure rose by another £3.5 billion to £46.5 billion – a 7 per cent rise
(Cabinet Office, Public Bodies 2009, p.6) making a mockery of his claims to deliver a new politics.
Brought boom and bust to the NHS – which led to NHS cuts.
Despite massively increasing spending, Gordon Brown has been guilty of a ‘boom and bust’ approach to the NHS finances, forcing NHS Trusts into cuts and wasteful short-term spending. Between 2005 and 2007, 14,500 jobs were cut from the NHS as Trusts struggled to recover from deficits
(NHS Information Centre, NHS Staff 1998-2008, 25 March 2009).
And since 2004, the number of beds in the NHS has been cut by 21,500 – the equivalent of 12 per cent
(Department of Health, Bed availability and occupancy 2008-09, 30 September 2009).
Accident and Emergency departments and maternity units up and down the country have faced or are facing cuts and closures. And things are only set to get worse, as one of Gordon Brown’s own health advisers said that ‘the days of the District General Hospital are over’
(Professor Sir Ara Darzi, NHS London, A Framework for Action, 11 July 2007).
Let truancy rise to record levels.
In 1998, Gordon Brown’s Treasury set a target to reduce truancy rates to 0.5 per cent
(HM Treasury, Comprehensive Spending Review, Public Service Agreements 1999-2000, December 1998).
But the figure now stands at 1.05 per cent – up 44 per cent since 1996/7, well in excess of the Government’s target, and at a record high. 67,000 pupils skip school without permission every day
(DCSF, Pupil Absence in Schools in England, Including Pupil Characteristics: 2008/09, 25 March 2010).
Paid couples more to live apart than together.
The tax credit system penalises parents who live together, giving families a financial incentive to split up.
The IFS has highlighted the fact that a couple with children earning £20,000 between them could be more than £5,000 better off in terms of benefits and tax credits if they split up.
(The Sunday Times, 4 March 2007).
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Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs UK
We will stop Labour’s damaging NIC increase
Monday, March 29 2010
The Conservatives have announced that a Conservative Government will stop Labour’s tax rise on jobs by cutting waste.
Stopping the planned increases in National Insurance Contributions will result in 7 out of 10 working people being better off.
A Conservative Government will take immediate action to start cutting Government waste, in order to spend £6 billion less in 2010-11 than Labour’s plans.
“The re-election of a Labour Government under Gordon Brown – with more debt, waste and taxes – will bring us a new recession”, George Osborne said, speaking alongside Ken Clarke and Phillip Hammond.
“Labour will kill the recovery with their tax on jobs. We will cut Labour waste to stop it.”
Former Government advisers Sir Peter Gershon and Dr Martin Read, now members of the Conservatives’ Public Sector Productivity Advisory Board, advise that savings of £12 billion across all departmental spending are possible in-year without affecting the quality of front line services.
Having identified these savings the Conservatives can now commit to stop Labour’s tax rise on working people and jobs at the same time as reducing the deficit faster:
Labour are planning to raise Employees National Insurance Contributions (NICs) for everyone earning over £20,000. We will stop this increase altogether for everyone earning under £35,000 by raising the primary threshold at which people start paying NICs by £24 a week, and raising the Upper Earnings Limit by £29 a week.
Relative to Labour’s plans everyone liable for Employees NICs earning between £7,100 and £45,400 – which is 7 out of 10 working people – will be up to £150 better off a year under the Conservatives. Lower earners will get the greatest benefit as a percentage of their earnings. Nobody will be worse off.
Labour are also planning to raise Employers NICs for everyone earning over £5,700. This is a tax on jobs that will undermine the recovery. We will raise the secondary threshold at which employers start paying NICs by £21 a week, saving employers up to £150 for every person they employ relative to Labour’s plans. This will reduce the cost of Labour’s tax rise on employers by more than half.
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Obama rudely snubs Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu
For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.
After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.
“It was awful,” the congressman said. One Israeli newspaper called the meeting “a hazing in stages”, poisoned by such mistrust that the Israeli delegation eventually left rather than risk being eavesdropped on a White House telephone line. Another said that the Prime Minister had received “the treatment reserved for the President of Equatorial Guinea”.
Left to talk among themselves Mr Netanyahu and his aides retreated to the Roosevelt Room. He spent a further half-hour with Mr Obama and extended his stay for a day of emergency talks to try to restart peace negotiations. However, he left last night with no official statement from either side. He returned to Israel yesterday isolated after what Israeli media have called a White House ambush for which he is largely to blame.
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Sources said that Mr Netanyahu failed to impress Mr Obama with a flow chart purporting to show that he was not responsible for the timing of announcements of new settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Mr Obama was said to be livid when such an announcement derailed the visit to Israel by Joe Biden, the Vice-President, this month and his anger towards Israel does not appear to have cooled.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, cast doubt on minor details in Israeli accounts of the meeting but did not deny claims that it amounted to a dressing down for the Prime Minister, whose refusal to freeze settlements is seen in Washington as the main barrier to resuming peace talks.
The Likud leader has to try to square the rigorous demands of the Obama Administration with his nationalist, ultra-Orthodox coalition partners, who want him to stand up to Washington even though Israel needs US backing in confronting the threat of a nuclear Iran.
“The Prime Minister leaves America disgraced, isolated and altogether weaker than when he came,” the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz said.
In their meeting Mr Obama set out expectations that Israel was to satisfy if it wanted to end the crisis, Israeli sources said. These included an extension of the freeze on Jewish settlement growth beyond the ten-month deadline next September, an end to building projects in east Jerusalem and a withdrawal of Israeli forces to positions held before the second intifada in September 2000.
Newspaper reports recounted how Mr Netanyahu looked “excessively concerned and upset” when he pulled out a flow chart to show Mr Obama how Jerusalem planning permission worked and how he could not have known that the announcement that hundreds more homes were to be built would be made when Mr Biden arrived in Jerusalem.
Mr Obama then suggested that Mr Netanyahu and his staff stay at the White House to consider his proposals so that if he changed his mind he could inform the President right away. “I’m still around,” the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot quoted Mr Obama as saying. “Let me know if there is anything new.”
With the atmosphere so soured by the end of the evening, the Israelis decided that they could not trust the telephone line they had been lent for their consultations. Mr Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, his Defence Minister, went to the Israeli Embassy to ensure that the Americans were not listening in.
The meeting came barely a day after Mr Obama’s health reform victory. Israel had calculated that he would be too tied up with domestic issues to focus seriously on the Middle East.
Its a pity that Obama is taking such a line with a country that has been a sure ally all these years. Perhaps he thinks America will be safer without Israel. Either way its a betrayal of a close friend. Then again Obama is a liberal so what do we expect.
Jim Ferguson
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Britains internal security damaged by Google street view – MI5 – UK
At a time when Britain is perceived as weak by those hostile to the British way of life thanks to Labour’s mishandling of most things to do with the management of Britain I find it incredulous to see the latest reports that suggest that Britain’s most sensitive sites are listed like this.
Surely even Cash Gordon must know the risk he is putting the United Kingdom under by not ensuring adequate protection of sensitive military sites. !
Jim Ferguson
By Gordon Thomas
LONDON – British security chief Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, has warned the Brown government that the country’s most sensitive military and security bases have been “seriously damaged by Google’s Street View.”
Agents with MI5 are satisfied that thousands of images have been downloaded by U.K.-based Muslims, suspected associates of al-Qaida. The images show close-ups of Britain’s atomic weapons research center and the nation’s doughnut-shaped eavesdropping center at Cheltenham.
MI5 has found its buildings across Britain included in the “Street View” service.
Google has been warned that placing any of the images on its website contravenes the Official Secrets Act. The penalty of any breach can carry lengthy prison sentences under British law.
“This week Google has removed most of the images. But the damage has been done. The images are now in the hands of suspect terrorists,” Evans has told the government.
One site is at Menwith Hill, in the north of England near Harrogate. Its giant “golf balls” are linked to satellites and are clearly visible. The image shows the access roads to the “golf balls.” The U.K. shares the base with America’s National Security Agency.
The golf ball shapes are the very core of the base’s role as a global eavesdropper. Known as radomes, each shape is positioned on a carefully aligned course known as the “Runway,” which allows them to intercept messages from communications from space.
Coated in toughened Teflon to shed the rain that constantly develops across the North Sea, the “golf balls” are each equipped with computers which interdict the networks as they bounce their messages around the world.
Another image that would be of “high value to a terrorist group is the Hanslope Park base near Milton Keynes, where MI6 officers analyze data from GCHQ,” said an intelligence source.
One of the most guarded entrances in London – Thames House, the headquarters of MI5, clearly is pinpointed.
“Until recently the Google Map published information only on major British cities, [giving] no more than a broadspan view of the area. Now it has clear images of almost every street,” said the intelligence source.
Another facility – secret until now – is the SAS Counter-Terrorism training center in Pontrilas in Herefordshire.
The Google site has photographed it to reveal there one of the SAS aircraft used for special forces training exercises.
Another top-secret facility on the website is the exterior of the new ORION Laser Research Facility at Aldermaston, the atomic weapons research center in Berkshire.
Across the Irish Sea, on the edge of a Belfast housing estate, is the Ulster facility of MI5′s Loughside headquarters. It is from there that the Security Service monitors Irish extremists.
“If they didn’t know where we were they most certainly do now,” said an intelligence officer in Northern Ireland.
The Special Boat Service – classified as Highly Secret in Ministry of Defense manuals – has on the website an easily readable sign in red outside. It reads: “Prohibited place within the meaning of the Official Secrets Act. Loitering, sketching, photography forbidden.”
Faced with the full fury of MI5, a Google spokesman said that, “if mistakes are made we will remove the images. We are unaware of any official concerns about security. But we are happy to discuss any issues as they arise.”
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MP’s and sleaze – more scrutiny for candidates required – Scotland UK
Gordon Brown now leads a discredited Government.
The latest revelations regarding the three Labour MP’s who were caught in a sting operation offering to influence Government policy for money is sickening. Confidence in the members of Parliament is at an all time low as people form the opinion that none can be trusted with even the basic decency of someone expected in such high office.
I find it quite embarrasing to see the greed of people surface like this and ofcourse as a political candidate I feel uncomfortable with the fact that as a political candidate people are looking at me and asking if I am the same. Would I also conduct my self in this greedy dishonest way ?
The answer is no. I am horrified at how far those we trusted to run the country have fallen but perhaps we are also to blame !
Thats right we as in the electorate are also to blame. Let me explain.
Its not political parties who elect MP’s to parliament. Yes they select the candidates but its the people who vote and give those people they elect the mandate to enter parliament.
Perhaps we need to look at what we base our decisions on not only on party policy but to look with a far more critical eye at those we are preparing to vote for.
I believe that the general public need to be very certain that they know exactly where the political candidates stand on the fundamental issues of importance to them and to the good of the country.
Why vote for someone who has never experianced the real working world for example. ? A Career politician who knows noting of the pressures or issues of everday life ? Some career politicians are perfectly capable ofcourse but the question remains valid.
Scrutiny of the candidates views is fundamental to ensuring that only candidates of good character and trustworthiness should enter parliament. If there had been more scrutiny of the candidates themselves and a hard look at what they may have already achieved in life instead of a blind vote cast purely on party lines then I believe we could have avoided a lot of the problems that we have seen.
Patricia Hewitt, Geoff Hoon and Stephen Byers are now disgraced former Labour cabinet ministers who have shown their true nature. What appals me is that these people were involved and sat at the most senior positions in Government. The question is did they conduct themselves in this way while in those positions of power and influence.
Are there more Government ministers on the take ?
As for myself I will stand with the people of the Highlands in this region and give every support and assistance in a truthful and honest way. If I am elected to Parliament then the trust that has been invested in me will not be wasted but I will lead this region with strength and integrity.
I have been involved in business and hold positions of the highest order in other organisations where truth and honesty are beyond doubt.
There would be no distinction made as far as my views on parliamentary affairs are concerned.
The people require politicians who can be trusted and who will assist the country to go forward with honesty, hard work and above all who they can trust.
Jim Ferguson
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