Month: August 2014

Good Riddance To The Rotten Parliament (2005-2010)

Good Riddance To The Rotten Parliament (2005-2010)

Time to reflect upon the criminal activities of Westminster politicians. Much change? Not a lot. Scotland deserves better than to be subjected to the rule of law that is Westminster. It is time that Scotland removed itself from the sleaze. Vote, “Yes” in the referendum so that Scotland can be a nation again. Free to decide it’s own future. With a written constitution guaranteeing the rights of all it’s citizens.

How will it be known in years to come? The Rotten Parliament? The Duckpond Parliament? The Flipping Parliament? It has certainly been a long Parliament. The final year has been a traumatic experience. But notwithstanding the calamity that it brought upon itself, this was not a Parliament that achieved a great deal beyond further restricting the freedoms of the people that elected it, by failing to stand up to an over-mighty executive.

What great and lasting reforms will the parliamentarians of 2005-10 be able to point to with pride? The ban on smoking in public places, perhaps, or the introduction of identity-card legislation for the first time since 1952, or restrictions on free speech and the further erosion of personal responsibility while more national power drained away to Europe.

It is hardly a Parliament that historians would consider worthy of study were it not for one factor that will mark it out from all others. The great expenses scandal of 2009, whose consequences have been, and will continue to be, far-reaching.

Not only did it lead to the first removal of a Speaker in more than 300 years, it has also subjected the body that makes the law to outside scrutiny for the first time since the Glorious Revolution, because the public can no longer trust its elected representatives to behave in a proper way. As legacies go, that is a pretty shameful one. Full article here;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7573025/General-Election-2010-Good-riddance-to-the-Rotten-Parliament.html

Carrillion – £Billions of UK Taxpayers Hard Earned Cash Gifted to Obscenely Rich Shareholders with Offshore Accounts – Time to Get Shot of the Lot of Them

 

 

 

 

30 Oct 2017: PFI firms avoid tax despite £2bn profits – Carrilion shareholders should be held accountable – No Public Money to be used for any bail-out

Five of the largest listed offshore Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funds have paid    little or no corporation tax despite making billions in profits

The five companies, including Guernsey-based funds HICL Infrastructure Company (HICL), John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF) and International Public Partnerships (INPP), own hundreds of public assets including schools and hospitals, a European Services Strategy Unit (ESSU) report has shown.

Between them, the funds made a profit of £2.9bn over a five-year period from 2011 to 2017, and paid £13.5m in taxes.

Nothing was paid in corporate tax by the funds, which have been registered in offshore territories for the past six years.

ESSU director Dexter Whitfield told BBC that offshore companies were profiting massively from buying public assets, having annual returns as high as 28% from their PFI investments.

Calling PFIs a “private sector profit machine”, Whitfield said that if the government had built public infrastructure through public investment and ran it through in-house services, the whole “edifice” would not be happening.

Research from the ESSU showed 12 offshore infrastructure funds had equity in 547 PFI/PPP projects, amounting to 74% of all 735 PFI/PPP projects in the UK.

Additionally, it was found that 45.4% of all 735 current projects was owned by 9 offshore infrastructure funds.

Projects in education and health accounted for two-thirds of PFI/PPP projects which offshore infrastructure funds had 50% to 100% project equity in. (Economia)

 

 

 

20 Nov 2017: Don’t believe the hype Carrilion is far from finished

The financial difficulties at Carillion and other construction groups has prompted the HSBC offshoot, offshore registered HICL Infrastructure to take steps to ensure it is not hit by the failure of a contractor at one of its many UK public sector investments.

As an operator of schools, hospitals and other buildings in the UK under public private partnerships (PPP), HICL has service arrangements with many facilities management firms.

Half-year results from the £2.8 billion infrastructure fund on Wednesday revealed 15% of its assets are linked to contracts involving Carillion, which is fighting for survival after a series of cost-overruns on projects in the UK and the Middle East and the ousting of its chief executive and the axing of its dividend in the summer.

Carillion’s plans to sell its healthcare division to Serco will reduce HICL’s exposure to the company to 8%, with Serco increasing to around 6%.

Outside healthcare, Carillion will continue to work with HICL on defence projects, such as Allenby and Connaught, a 35-year private finance initiative (PFI) providing four garrisons to the army in Salisbury Plain and Aldershot.

Following profits warnings from other construction and facility operators, the issue of counterparty risk has risen up HICL’s agenda. ‘Contingency plans are in place to ensure continuity of operations if one or more of the group’s PPP projects are affected by the failure of a subcontractor,’ the company said.

Harry Seekings, infrastructure director at Infrared Capital Partners, HICL’s investment adviser, said: ‘This is not just about Carillion.’ He declined to give more details but said the company had a range of options, according to circumstances, from switching to another contractor or managing a facility itself.

 

 

But senior managers at Carrilion have no need to be worried financially

Financial clawback conditions for executive bonuses were significantly relaxed by the Tory government in 2016 with result that top managers gain financial benefit from the collapse of the organisations that they are responsible for.

 

 

 

 The PFI Scandals, (Blair, Brown and the Unionist Tory Party)

Ah !!! The Private Finance Initiative, (PFI). Lest we forget.

PFI is one of the greatest financial cock-ups in modern times. Recklessly committed to by a Labour government, all smitten by the spell of Thatcher John Major and their acolytes Blair and Brown.

The sell-off, (at knock down prices) of public owned building assets,  to private enterprise was a disgrace then and is even more so now.

Selection of one deal for a closer examination, from a huge number of sell-offs was difficult. But the contract quoted is atypical of arrangements put in place by the labour Government led by Blair and Brown:

Mapeley Steps, (a foreign owned conglomerate)  purchased in excess of 1000 properties within the UK, from the Inland Revenue,

The Inland Revenue then signed off a PFI contract with the company committing government to handing over vast amounts of taxpayers money in rent money, (leasing back the formally government owned assets almost without limit of time.

Adding insult to injury Mapeley Steps, (having bought the properties at a knock down price) immediately transferred ownership, title and all other aspects of the contract to a Caribbean tax haven so that all revenue gathered from the UK government would be free of any form of UK tax liability.

Embarrassing indeed, but there’s more. The property sell off, included the entire HM Revenue and Tax Office estates UK wide, who, at the time of the sale were officially committed to the closure of tax haven loopholes.

£Billions of taxpayers hard earned cash is being siphoned off to offshore trusts.!!!!! (RT)

Click to access 553.pdf

 

 

 

Nowhere is government-corporate collusion in tax avoidance more worrying than in the UK Private Finance Initiative (PFI) industry.

 

So as to realise maximum return on investment,  “special purpose vehicle” shell companies were registered ‘offshore’ for maximum ‘tax efficiency’ in a growing number of tax havens as subsidiary outlets of the main contractors and these have been have been major players in the PFI game from the outset.

An example is HICL, an offshoot of HSBC which provides backing for nearly 43 UK infrastructure projects – mostly NHS hospitals and schools.

The situation is that very many publicly treasured infrastructure assets, paid for by UK taxpayers, are now in the hands of the super-rich and the bankers.

 

 

 

Why does any of this matter?

It begs the question- “who would you rather was in charge of your hospital, a local health authority or a financial investment company?”

The NHS, for all its flaws, is organised around some noble principles such as universal access and the highest possible quality of treatment, but private ownership seriously threatens these. Investment companies are concerned only with profitability.

The ownership of hospitals by on and offshore investment funds sharply reduces accountability and transparency so monitoring the performance of PFI hospitals becomes problematical.

The veil of ‘commercial confidentiality’ prevents government from understanding and thereby solving any problems that arise.

Admittedly contractors can’t make any changes to previously signed PFI contracts they purchase but the practice of buying and selling PFI contracts has ensured the UK has ended up in a situation where the majority of the public infrastructure is owned by an oligopoly of offshore investment funds and banks.

This gives them disproportionate market power and provides them with a very real influence over the provision of public services in the UK.

But crucially the ownership of public infrastructure by private financiers is another indictment on the PFI system itself, which has consistently proven to be inflexible, bad value for money and impossible to regulate.

PFI contracts are also legally protected from cuts, which ensures their sustained profitability and when faced with shortfalls in revenue,

PFI contracters force hospitals to re-shape around contractual needs, rather than clinical ones. This means that front-line services like beds, doctors and nurses are cut before non-essential items like maintenance and service work.

 

 

 

Scamming the Taxpayer – selling public assets

This is achieved when a number of companies form a single bidding entity (known as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV).)

The SPV contracts to provide, construction, maintenance and services of the assets over their lifetime, (usually up to 30 years).

Companies within the SPV are free to sell their equity stake in the contract in a secondary market.

It is a fact that, after the construction phase of a project is complete, the financial risk associated with the project plummets and the project can be re-financed, making it very attractive to investors.

Construction companies have been exploiting the foregoing earning themselves a small fortune.

Reports are that Construction giant Carillion plc sold its stake in 24 contracts for £278 million, making an average profit of 40%.

When considered against Carillion’s average operating profit between 2003-2009 of 1.2% this figure is astonishing.

Other construction companies are enjoying similar levels of profit in the secondary market and reports estimate they have made in excess of £350 million in profit between them.

The contracts represent a sound investment and are being snapped up by banks and offshore investment funds in a market that has swollen over the past decade.

Although PFI is paid for ultimately by the public purse, there is no regulator in the secondary market or mechanism by which the public share any of the massive profits being reaped.

 

 

 

Massive sums of money supposedly ring fenced for patient care in the English NHS handed over to PFI private contractors

The English NHS will pay approximately £70bn to private contractors for PFI schemes originally valued at £11bn.

Many NHS trusts’ PFI repayments take up in excess of 10% of their annual turnover with many contracts lasting around 30 years.

And the annual payments continue to rise.  Currently, the English NHS pays £1.5bn per year. But, this figure is expected to rise annually until 2030 when it will reach £2.5bn. payments which are due to be a financial drain on resources until 2048.

The result is chaos within the NHS in England. With fees rising every year, and taxpayer cash being handed to private companies funds are not being spent on patient care or hospital staff.  And, as budgets are cut and NHS trusts are forced to look for “savings”, these payments bring about ever more closures and cuts in services to patients.

 

 

 

Labour Controlled Glasgow City Council guilty of financial mismanagement

In Glasgow, the 3ED consortium, (involving the Miller Group construction company, the Halifax bank and Hewlett Packard computers) signed off on a contract with Glasgow City Council to construct and retain operational control of the Council’s school buildings for 30 years.

The city council rents the buildings from 3ED for an annual adjustable fee initially at £40.5 million.

600 ancillary staff were removed from Council employment and transferred to a private employer.

At the end of the 30 year contract the assets will return to city council control.

Nice earner for the private contractors who, against an outlay of between £2-400m will recoup, in excess of £1.5bn – three or four times the initial outlay

 

 

 

 

 

UK Trident – Off the Shelf Lease of a Redundant Nuclear Weapons System That Does Not Deliver

 

 

Image result for trident faslane images

 

 

 

Trident Nuclear Deterrent Rent or Buy?

The much vaunted truly independent UK nuclear deterrent is in fact totally reliant upon American missiles (built by Lockheed Martin) and is administered by a private consortium which is two thirds controlled by American companies (Lockheed Martin and Jacobs Engineering) to the cost of over £600 million a year to the British taxpayer, (plus vast cash injections for nuclear infrastructure and design programmes) is nothing short of a scandal.

How on Earth can it be considered an independent nuclear deterrent when the delivery system is an entirely American off-the-shelf missile system and the private company that is responsible for every aspect of the British nuclear programme, including the design of the warheads themselves is two thirds American? Take it away from Scotland

http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/uk-nuclear-weapons-privatisation.html

 

 

Image result for trident faslane images

 

 

The Euro & Scotland

The Euro and Scotland

The matter of an independent Scotland, (within the European Union) being forced to Join the Euro surfaces, from time to time, usually in the, “Blether Together” supporting press. This is another example of the lies, “Blether Together” routinely spreads, sewing seeds of doubt in the minds of those who might yet be undecided. The fact is that Scotland cannot apply, nor can it be forced to apply for membership of the Euro.

When a Member State enters the euro area, its central bank becomes part of the Eurosystem made up of the national central banks of the euro area and the European Central Bank, (ECB), which conducts monetary policy in the euro area independently from national governments.

Should Scotland express a wish to join the Euro, after membership of the European Union is complete, it would first need to meet the convergence criteria for entry to the euro area. This requires voluntarily participation in the, “Exchange Rate Mechinism 2”. (ERM2).

ERM2, mimics the Euro conditions thereby helping non-euro area Member States to prepare for them. Successful participation in ERM2, for at least two years is considered as confirmation of the sustainability of economic convergence and that the Member State can play a full role in the euro-area economy. It also provides an indication of the appropriate conversion rate that should be applied when the Member State qualifies and its currency is irrevocably fixed. See attached article;

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/euro/adoption/erm2/index_en.htm

Money Where Does it Come From?

But how did the nation get to this state. “Easy answer”, said the Chancellor, “Alistair Darling” sitting in one of his 3 taxpayer funded homes watching television as the, “City of London” burned. Blame the bankers not me or my friends. But surely our highly paid politicians, of all persuasions should have been aware of the impending financial disaster, since the, “Sub-Prime Mortgage Scandal” had surfaced in the USA 6 weeks before impacting on the UK.

A recent survey of Westminster politicians, of all persuasions revealed one of the key reasons contributing to the disgraceful lack of action which should have ensured the UK would be protected from the excesses of a financial market that, (with the full support of UK politicians) was operating against the interests of the UK taxpayer. The survey, commissioned by the reform campaign group, “Positive Money”, found that of the total number of politicians;

1. 80% lack basic understanding of where the UK’s money comes from.

2. 71% believe that only the government has the power to create money.

3. 9% said they didn’t know who creates the nations money.

4. 12% only, correctly responded, “Yes” in response to the statement, “New money is created when banks make loans, and existing money is destroyed when members of the public repay loans”.

Summary

Positive Money, reported,

1. “the troubling findings show that the UK government is still ill-prepared to see the warning signs of another financial crisis.”

2. “MPs have no chance of understanding the house price bubble unless they know these basic facts about money.”

3. “The financial crisis was caused by banks that created too much money and lent it recklessly. We’re now in danger of repeating the same mistakes.”

4. “Prevention of a second financial crisis can be achieved but the risk of a, “housing bubble” needs to be constantly monitored and addressed.

5. “The government should introduce measures stripping banks of their power to make new money.”

But Scotland need not remain in, “the madhouse” that is Westminster. We have an opportunity in the, September referendum to break free and regain our rightful place in the world as an independent nation. Vote, “Yes” to independence.

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2014/08/19/poll-three-quarters-of-mps-dont-understand-how-money-is-made/

The Demise of the United Kingdom

Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One The Demise of the United Kingdom

Benjamin Franklin, one of United States of America’s founding fathers, loved Scotland and the company of it’s highly respected philosophers of the, “Great Scottish Enlightenment.” Had he lived in these times he would have encouraged Scotland to vote, “Yes” to independence. In discussion with, Thomas Jefferson, (a fellow founding father and friend) referring to a nation’s right to be free he said;

“He who sacrifices Freedom for security deserves neither”

His advice is clear and unambiguous. Do not succumb to the, “no” campaign’s patronising unspecified promises of jam tomorrow, (remember 1979.) Have confidence take the opportunity and elect for freedom.

He also wrote, “Rules By Which A Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One”. Clearly Westminster politicians either did not read it or choose to ignore the advice, which is possibly the reason why Scottish independence will bring about all that is predicted therin.

“http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Rules_By_Which_A_Great_Empire_May_Be_Reduced_To_A_Small_One

The NHS England Health Reform Act and the Involvement of USA Management Consultancy McKinsey & Company

The NHS England Health Reform Act and the Involvement of USA Management Consultancy McKinsey & Company

In June 2011, the head of NHS regulator, “Monitor”, recently armed with a massively expanded remit, including regulating health service contracts potentially worth many billions, flew business class to New York, where he stayed at a five-star hotel and attended a lavish banquet, all paid for by McKinsey and Company, the international management consultants. A government employee he may not have broken the law in the strict sense. But as a former McKinsey executive, he should have known he was displaying questionable judgment – because of, “Monitor’s” role, implementing Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley’s controversial Health and Social Care Bill, together with McKinsey and its clients .

Many of the Bill’s proposals were drawn up by McKinsey and included in the legislation wholesale. One document says the firm routinely used its privileged access to ‘share information’ with its corporate clients – which include the world’s biggest private hospital firms – who are now set to bid for health service work. McKinsey’s involvement in the Bill is so great that its executives attend the meetings of the ‘Extraordinary NHS Management Board’ convened to implement it. Sometimes McKinsey even hosts these meetings at its UK headquarters in Jermyn Street, Central London.

The company is already benefiting from contracts worth undisclosed millions with GPs arising from the Bill. It has earned at least £13.8million from Government health policy since the Coalition took office – and the Bill opens up most of the current £106 billion NHS budget to the private sector, with much of it likely to go to McKinsey clients. More information here;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2099940/NHS-health-reforms-Extent-McKinsey–Companys-role-Andrew-Lansleys-proposals.html#ixzz1mA8EAyJy

As sure as night follows day, Scotland will be next for the chopping block unless the September Referendum returns a, “Yes” vote. The world’s money men are after rich financial pickings, after they have cleaned up NHS England. Their beady eye’s are on Scotland.

The Blairs Are Everywhere

But There’s More Cherie Get’s in on the Action

Cherie Blair is being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for a few months’ legal work by Kazakhstan, whose autocratic president employs her husband as an official adviser. Mrs Blair’s law firm Omnia Strategy agreed a deal with Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Justice earlier this year to conduct a review of the country’s “bilateral investment treaties”. The first stage of the review, which was expected to take as little as three months, is worth £120,000, sources have told The Sunday Telegraph.

A second phase of the project is worth a further £200,000 to £250,000 for another three to four months’ work, it is understood. Omnia Strategy, which Mrs Blair set up in 2011, also has an option to complete a third stage of the legal project for the Ministry of Justice at a fee to be decided, according to the source. Mrs Blair is understood normally to charge clients £1,150 an hour but will bill the Kazakh taxpayer at a reduced rate of £975 an hour if the Ministry of Justice, based in the capital Astana, continues to employ Omnia on the legal review into its third stage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/kazakhstan/11038772/How-Cherie-Blair-earns-1000-an-hour-from-the-Kazakh-taxpayer.html

But there’s more – Tony & Cherie Blair, the oil tycoon and jobs for Blairites in poor Albania

On the face of it, Albania, once the most hardline of Stalinist states and still one of the poorest countries in Europe, seems unlikely to hold much attraction for Tony Blair. But The Telegraph can disclose that the Balkan country, recently discovered to be abundant in oil and gas, appears to be providing rich pickings for a dynasty of Blairites.

This newspaper has already disclosed how Mr Blair is a consultant to Albania’s Labour government. Now it has emerged that his wife Cherie picked up a lucrative legal contract with the previous government; while even the nephew of Alastair Campbell, Mr Blair’s former spin doctor, has landed himself a job advising the new Albanian prime minister.

Mrs Blair was awarded a contract worth £300,000 to advise the Albanian government after making friends with the wife of the Balkan country’s then prime minister while in Downing Street.

Mrs Blair, best known in the legal world as a human rights lawyer, acted for Albania in a billion dollar oil dispute with an American energy firm.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10822268/Cherie-Blair-the-oil-tycoon-and-jobs-for-Blairites-in-poor-Albania.html

There’s even more – Tony Blair strikes gold in Mongolia

The former prime minister has negotiated a contract to advise the Mongolian government just as the country strikes it rich from a vast copper and gold mine in the Gobi desert. The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that Mr Blair spent two days in March in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia’s capital, striking the deal with the country’s president and prime minister.

His diplomatic skills will be needed in a country undergoing a rapid economic transformation. The Mongolian government has been in dispute with Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian mining conglomerate, over the operation of the country’s biggest mine. Sources have suggested Mr Blair was called in to mediate between the two although Mr Blair and Rio Tinto both denied that last night.

The addition of Mongolia to Mr Blair’s portfolio will bolster the income of Mr Blair’s Government Advisory Practice, which operates as part of Tony Blair Associates, “the umbrella organisation” for Mr Blair’s “commercial operations”.

Sunday Telegraph investigations have shown Mr Blair and a team of consultants are now paid millions of pounds to advise governments in;

Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Colombia, Brazil, Albania, Malawi, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Liberia, Guinea

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10108005/Tony-Blair-strikes-gold-in-Mongolia.html

http://uk.b2.mk/news/?newsid=r2v

 

Tony Looks After Himself

By Richard Heller, (former adviser to Denis Healey and Gerald Kaufman): A Private View

It could become a pub quiz question: who was the first British prime minister to sell himself to a foreign power?

It would be too easy to guess the answer — Tony Blair, who recently signed a multimillion pound contract to advise President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. He has reportedly opened an office in the capital, Astana. Other than the president, no-one knows what advice Mr Blair is giving. His client does not need any advice on winning elections: grateful Kazakhs gave him over 95 per cent of their votes in their last presidential elections in April this year. His party already holds all the seats in parliament. Some media reports suggest that he is advising on financial institutions. According to other reports, he is helping the president prepare a bid for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Again, Tony Blair seems a strange source of advice, until one remembers that the prize was once given to Henry Kissinger.

As with other British ex-politicians, Tony Blair’s paid activities in Kazakhstan are virtually beyond any public scrutiny or control. They are not mentioned on the website of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), the fangless watchdog over ex-ministers who sell their services in the marketplace. Since Tony Blair is not a peer, he did not have to supply the minimal and haphazard information required for the Register of Lords Interests. He did not have to notify the Foreign Office of his Kazakh appointment and it is not mentioned on the website of our local embassy.

Curiously, Tony Blair may face greater scrutiny in the United States than in our own country. If he helps the Kazakhs there in any way, he is potentially liable to register as their agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938. This wide-ranging law was originally designed to combat Nazi and Soviet agents: it is piquant to think that it might catch Tony Blair and positively delicious to imagine him receiving a late-night visit from the FBI.

Whatever Tony Blair is doing in Kazakhstan, he should stop it and hand back the money. It does no good to our country and our political system — and it is in very bad taste.

Whether he likes it or not, Tony Blair is taking sides in the internal politics of Kazakhstan, which are murky and dangerous for an amateur outsider. He has become a trophy for the ruling president and a figure of contempt for the opposition.

As North Africa has proved, even very long-running rulers can eventually fall, and if that happened in Kazakhstan (a country of great strategic importance) Tony Blair will have harmed our country’s relationship with the replacement government. But while President Nazarbayev is in power, it must strengthen his ego and his authority in any discussions with our country to have a former premier in his pocket. Whether he likes it or not, Tony Blair will diminish the authority, and in all probability the access, of our ambassador in Astana, David Moran.
If Tony Blair gives the president any advice on how to deal with this country he will be approaching the frontiers of treason. Selling himself to a foreign ruler for any purpose at all seems hard to reconcile with his lifelong oath of loyalty to the Queen and her successors as a privy councillor. Its language is orotund and opaque but its tenor and general purpose are clear.

It ends: “You will to your uttermost bear faith and allegiance unto the Queen’s Majesty; and will assist and defend all jurisdictions, pre-eminences, and authorities, granted to Her Majesty, and annexed to the crown by acts of parliament, or otherwise, against all foreign princes, persons, prelates, states, or potentates. And generally in all things you will do as a faithful and true servant ought to do to Her Majesty. So help you God.”

Tony Blair does not care much about history unless he can invent it, but if he did take this oath seriously it would warn him against trying to serve two sovereigns and putting himself in the pay of any foreign state or potentate. If the oath means nothing to him, Tony Blair should reflect on the impact on the image of our country when a holder of its highest office hawks himself about to foreign governments. What message does it send to disenchanted British voters who already believe that their politicians are only interested in money?

In recent articles I have called for the strengthening of ACOBA and of the Lords Register of Interests to give the British people more information about ex-politicians’ money and more influence over how they can earn it. After Tony Blair’s Astana adventure, I think we need to go one step further. No ex-minister should be allowed to work for any foreign ruler or government or state agency without the prior approval of the Queen-in-Council, including the prime minister and foreign secretary of the day.

There should be a presumption against any approval, although an ex-minister should be allowed to do voluntary service in a poor country, or to serve as an independent peace envoy or for other humanitarian purposes. That would not bar any ex-minister from joining an international body or a non-governmental organisation.

Without such reforms, our country will see an uncontrolled marketplace for ex-ministers. On second thoughts, maybe that’s no bad thing. Given the recent record of British government, with many more failures and disasters than success stories, it is surprising that such a market exists. Plenty of voters might be happy to sell ex-ministers to any foreign country to make a bid for them. Or even current ones. If Kazakhstan wants to take anyone from this government, I’ve got a little list and they’d none of them be missed.

A former adviser to Denis Healey and Gerald Kaufman, Richard Heller’s advice has never been sought by any foreign government.