LUDO 'FINGERS' DEZ

Ludo, The Dame's Nephew fingers....

........Dez O'Neil!

 

The Dame's utterly useless nephew, Ludovic, has been foisted upon her by worried parents with the words, 'Dame, can you find the boy a stimulating job not just using him to pick up your laundry and chauffeur you to Damien Thirst’s Retrospective at the Tate Modern?'

So pity swelling her ample bosom the Dame set Ludovic with the task of taking a peek at our councillors 'interests' and crosschecking with Companies House.                    
She completely revised her opinion of the lad when he reported back with some quite shocking news. According to dear Ludo, under the Localism Bill it is a criminal offence not to update your interests, but certain of our councillors seem to think that being members of the Rotten Borough they are exempted. And she was equally surprised to find that many councillors have 'businesses' but no business-not dissimilar to Pooter Cockell's Abingdon Cockell!

Here are a few highlights with information taken from company check, which uses Companies House data, so don't blame any errors on the Dame's boy

Cllr Palmer states Councilperson as his business, but this has no internet presence apart from his  basic off-the-shelf website, and no accounts have been tabled.

Cllr Read declares he has two businesses: Financial Academic Derivatives Inc which is worth £zero; the other Finac Group is dormant.

Cllr Paget-Brown claims two businesses, Pelham Research and UKEN Ltd; neither have any record at Companies House whatever.

The idiotic Cllr Betsy Campbell has no visible means of support, but states that she is a Board member of KCTMO, which is certainly not the case.

Cllr Rock FM declares his charming-sounding Socially Conscious Capital, but the dear thing only had £1,126 funds in it at last count.

Cllr Moylan's three businesses are all registered abroad, which certainly fostered our curiosity and the Dame has sent her intern over to Ireland to investigate further.

Cllr P Warrick has two businesses, Vincomida Ltd and Shareholder Travel Ltd; both have £zero assets.

Cllr T Buxton has Pembridge Properties Ltd, with quite a handsome bank balance.

Another one with his own v profitable business is the mysterious Cllr Mackover! Here’s one to watch, and we never thought we’d say that of him.

Most bizarrely,Pooter Cockell still says he is Commissioner at the Audit Commission, which no longer exists. No mention of his chairmanship of the LGA, which is really very naughty indeed.

Amazingly, a few of the Councillors have actual daytime jobs!

But the worst miscreant of all is Labour’s Cllr O’Neill. He hasn’t updated his Interests since 2007, which is surprising since he is the only one who actually does business direct with the Council through his Westway Project, and makes a fair few quid out of it too. Ludovic sniffed about, and tells me his business has now changed its name and is at times promoted by O’Neill at meetings where he doesn't declare an interest, and is very much favoured for contracts by his friend Paget-Brown. Surely this murky situation is precisely what the transparency rules are there to avoid?  It’s about time the Labour leadership dealt with this person as it all stinks to high heaven.