Ukip leader Nigel Farage may appear to have the Midas touch when it comes to appealing to voters fed up with the main political parties, but there are questions about his business acumen.
The MEP, whose previous career was in the City as a trader of commodities such as tin and cocoa, has run into trouble with a company called Farage Ltd.
Six weeks before the Revenue lodged a High Court petition to wind up the firm, Mr Farage resigned as company secretary.
Not such a Midas touch: MEP Nigel Farage, whose previous career was in the City as a trader of commodities such as tin and cocoa, has run into trouble with a company called Farage LtdHis son, Andrew, remains the sole director of the business, which is the subject of a ‘voluntary order’, which is one step from bankruptcy.
The company has liabilities of £135,677 and the taxman is the biggest creditor. It has also failed to file its annual return and accounts on time, which will lead to automatic financial penalties of thousands of pounds.
In his party’s recent by-election address in Eastleigh, Farage explained that UKIP wanted to ‘reduce everyone’s taxes, reintroduce free student grants, increase the size of the military and the police, put more people in prison, and enhance pensions’.
Such policies would cost the State a handsome sum and UKIP’s promises are unrealistic at the best of times — but they depend on all companies paying their taxes.
Bouncing Boris Making a comeback? If Andrew Mitchell is made an EU Commissioner, the door could be open for Boris Johnson to take Mitchell's rock solid Tory seat of Sutton Coldfield in the resulting by-election Westminter is awash with rumours that Tory MP Andrew Mitchell, who was forced out of his job as Chief Whip after the ‘Plebgate’ affair, will be made an EU Commissioner in 2014. Such a decision would have to be made by the Prime Minister. But it would result in a by-election in Mitchell’s rock solid (17,000 majority) Tory seat of Sutton Coldfield. The perfect springboard for Boris Johnson to make a comeback as an MP?The No 10 Downing Street website has an e-petition calling for a postponement of the date when Bulgarians and Romanians are entitled to work and claim welfare in Britain.
If 100,000 people sign the document, ministers will be compelled to have a Commons debate on the issue.
If that happens, the public might then find out how many more East Europeans are expected to come here. To add your name, go to: epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/41492
A law divorced from reality At a time when so many Lib Dems are bickering with their Tory bedfellows, one policy should unite them. Back in 2010, when the Coalition agreement was drawn up, both parties pledged to reform the banking industry. ‘We will bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the financial services sector; in developing these proposals we will ensure they are effective in reducing risk,’ they promised. What’s stopping them embark on a policy that has 100 per cent public support outside the City of London?If Defence Secretary Philip Hammond needs ammunition to switch spending cuts from his department to welfare, he should remind the PM of the contents of a 2006 booklet called Aims And Values Of The Conservative Party. It says: ‘We will be hard-nosed defenders of freedom. That means maintaining strong and efficient Armed Forces to guarantee our national security.’
Labour's Jack Straw said last week that even if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb, it will not be worth having a war. This is the same Jack Straw who, as Foreign Secretary, took us into an almost certainly illegal war with Iraq . . . to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction that never existed.
Tweet of the week from Tory MP Michael Fabricant: ‘Baby born on commuter train to Maidstone tonight. Fairly confident that Ann Widdecombe (former MP for Maidstone) was not the mother.’
