'Brown Nosing' Baron

David Owen is a rather self-important 'noble', a former Labour MP and one of the original 'gang of four who established the SDP, before being elevated to the House of Lords in 1992 as Baron Owen of the City of Plymouth.    

In recent times Lord Owen has been flirting with re-joining the Labour Party and recently gave Labour a financial donation if I remember correctly, which he can well afford according to this report in Private Eye.

So for the past 20 years as well as enjoying his very generous MP's retirement pension and lump sum,  this noble peer is drawing £300 per day (tax free) for turning up in the House of Lords and is still allowed to hawk himself around as a hired gun to Russian oligarchs.

As I've said many times on the blog site before, if people want to retire on the public payroll then they shouldn't be allowed to come back on to the public payroll - because it makes complete fools of hard working taxpayers.

And that's quite apart from David Owen's offensive and oleaginous 'brown nosing' on behalf of President Putin.

FAVOURS OWEN......

Former foreign secretary David Owen has called on western leaders to work with Valdimir Putin to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.

"It would be a massive mistake to believe that Putin is approaching the summit in a mood to be humiliated," he wrote in the Guardian. "Any agreement must be accompanied by the immediate lifting of US and EU sanctions."

He also suggested that Russia be given an "indefinite international lease" on Crimea, along the lines of the US-Cuba agreement over Guantanamo.

If this all sounded a bit pro-Russia, Owen did at least acknowledge: "I do business in Russia and have done so for nearly 20 years."

Too modest, my dear David! 

Doctor Death is on the payroll of Russia's richest man, Alisher Usmanov, earning a handsome retainer as the acceptable British face of the controversial Uzbek-born oligarch's business empire. Usmanov owns a stake in Arsenal FC, where Owen is regularly seen in his box.

As Russia's richest man, Usmanov's business interests have been hit harder than anyone's by the impositions of sanctions. One of those interests s the Moscow-based Kommersant Vlast, whose editor Usmanov sacked after the publication of a feature criticising Putin during the 2011 protests about the legality of the Russian elections.

PS: The great social democrat Owen is paid by Usmanov through Epion Holdings and USM Holdings, both of which are based in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands"    

Double Dipping (13 February 2012)

Lord John Prescott's decision to stand for election as Police Commissioner in Humberside - provides the perfect opportunity to illustrate what's wrong with the present system of public sector pensions.

As regular readers know - the present set up works to the advantage of people who are already well paid - the 'rules' are skewed towards those at the top - not the bottom.

So let's use Lord John (73) as an example - a good socialist example - and unpick the various issues one by one.

First of all Lord John was a Westminster MP for 37 years - before standing down in 2007.

But his pension will be calculated using his final salary as deputy Prime Minister - even though he spent only 10 years in that job - which meant that in his retirement  Lord John received a huge and artificial boost to his pension from the public purse.

So what's that worth?

I don't know for sure is the honest answer - but if LJ's final salary was worth around £140,000 a year - then a maximum pension would pay him £70,000 a year or so - plus a tax free lump sum of around £210,000 (three times his final salary).  

Maybe even more - because the MPs' pension scheme is especially generous.

Anyway not content with retiring and taking up painting or fishing - Lord John has  also been ennobled and sent off to the House of Lords - where he can claim £300 a day in tax free allowances just for turning up at 'work'.

So what's that worth? 

I don't know - but let's say £50,000 a year - tax free of course.

Now what Lord John wants all this money for is unclear - maybe it's an expensive business running Two Jags - who knows?

The big issue for me is that Lord John is being paid his generous public sector pension - while effectively continuing to work - yet this has no effect on the money he receives from the state.

Which strikes me as a rather odd way to use public money.

Because if Lord John wants to continue working, that's fine - and if he wants to stop working altogether, that's fine as well. 

But why should he - and many others - have their cake and eat it at the same time.

If Lord John manages to become the Police Commissioner for Humberside - he'll cop another £100,000 a year from the public purse - to coin a phrase.

After a lifetime of doing very nicely thank you very much - out of a very well used public purse in his case.

So I would bring in a new rule which would prevent people who are already retired on generous public pensions - to benefit financially from other sources of public money. 

If they want to volunteer their services for free - then that's fine by me - that would be admirable in the present economic climate. 

But why do we pay this old phoney anything other than his expenses - for traipsing back and forwards to the House of Lords.

The principle underpinning the system ought to be that you don't get to double dip the public purse - if you're retired already and receiving your pension.

Me Maw, Me Maw, Me Maw