Tuesday 19 May 2009

Flipping and Separating and $600,000

David Mills, lawyer - scion of a Labour 'family', married to New Labour Minister Tessa Jowell - Mills was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for perjury and false witness by the Milan Court. He had lied under oath and for payment of some $600,000 to allow Silvio Berlusconi to escape the criminal and civil consequences of tax evasion.

Today the judgment was published in full. Mr Berlusconi is now Prime Minister of Italy but, rather as Mr Speaker Martin has been abandoned by those he thought were his friends and would defend him in his dubious defences of their acts, Mr Berlusconi did not include David Mills in the law that he had passed to protect high officeholders in the Ialian government and state from prosecution while in office.

The $600,000's appearance in Mr Mills' bank account in England coincided with the remortgages of the Mills/Jowell London house when Tessa Jowell was in the Cabinet. She signed two applications to remortgage the Kentish town property, as co-owner, but later denied that she understood what she was doing. The Mills/Jowell union was declared to have broken down and the couple separated. This 'separation' enabled Tessa Jowell to remain in office at a time when it was inconvenient for New Labour to lose yet another minister for housing and mortgage shenanigans.

Perhaps the Daily Telegraph will be able to tell us whether the Kentish town house was declared as first or second home by Ms Jowell, and whether its designation has been flipped. The Kentish town house was sold shortly after the separation of the couple was announced.

Mr Mills is appealing his conviction. Italians are calling for an explanation from their Prime Minister over the judgment's revelations.

6 comments:

Elby the Beserk said...

And dear Tessa is another of those Labour MPs who had NO idea they had paid off their mortgage. Odd that, when it is a day for dancing in the streets for most of us...

hatfield girl said...

I'm astonished he could bring almost two thirds of a million dollars into the United Kingdom without facing all kinds of procedures and enquiries.

At the very least his wife might have queried the provenance of such an amount, particularly as she is a government minister and presumably would want to be above any suspicion in financial dealings, both hers and those of her husband. And considering the Parliamentary expenses angle to mortgages and mortgage interest on first and second houses, how could she have signed two mortgage applications at her husband's request without discussing them fully with him? Was she claiming nothing in expenses?

Elby the Beserk said...

Complete free-for-all. First they take our liberty, then they take our money. Good old fashioned Eastern Bloc stuff, really. Raedwald has a good post on Brown the Grotesque.

hatfield girl said...

Everybody's got Brown's number now, haven't they Elby? He'll be misrepresenting what was discussed, what was agreed and pretending what he wants is in place forthwith I expect.

He's really the most serious mistake Labour have EVER made.

Sackerson said...

"First they take our liberty, then they take our money."

Elby hits the nail on the head. THAT is why the expenses thing has exploded: we could just about tolerate the tyranny and cultural and financial destructiveness, in the belief that there was some principle (however misguided and odious) behind it, and in the hope that they'd all go away one day; but when they were revealed as merely cheap, venal and guiltily secretive, that was the spark.

After 400 years, Parliament re-enacts the Catesby Conspiracy (deliverance of our governance to a foreign power) starring the MPs as terrorists-for-money. Speaker Martin as scapegoat has not broad enough a back to bear away all the sins of their House.

hatfield girl said...

You are right, S, it was not all his doing. How could it be? Tell me, do you think they didn't understand what they connived in, or did they really want what we have so very nearly been delivered into?

And will the conspirators be stopped? Brown is at bay now. And Lisbon will be reconsidered if a general election is held before Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ireland are whipped into line.

Apart from that, the passing of time is itself a gamechanger for what Lisbon was designed to do. It's now years behind schedule and main players, particularly Germany, have begun to want other things, and stopgap measures and policies have taken on their own importance and permanence.

Not least relations with the Russian Federation, the resources grab going on in the Caucasus, the US change in policy direction towards the EU, and the shift in weight give to financial, and economic activity...

But if Brown is to be correctly labelled and identified for what he is, we must keep our eyes on the smaller picture.

Brown has run out of time and out of usefulness.