Farage Faces Questions Over Who Funded £885,000 Clacton Constituency Home
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage faces pressure to account for how his partner paid for a £885,000 home after a BBC investigation raised further questions about his previous explanation.
These two introductory paragraphs, give more details.
The Clacton MP has denied avoiding more than £44,000 in additional stamp duty on the purchase of the constituency home by putting it in his partner Laure Ferrari’s name, saying that she bought it with her own funds.
He suggested that she was able to afford to buy the four-bedroom home, which was bought without a mortgage, because she comes from a wealthy French family.
The BBC appears to have fully investigated the deal and doubt the veracity of some of the tale, that Farage told.
I notice, that the house in question is in Frinton.
My late wife was a barrister and once acted for the Co-op to get an off-licence in the town.
- Up until this action the town had been dry.
- C told me, that the Co-op had appointed a charming Asian gentleman as a manager.
- She used all her legal charm to get the action through.
- She also joked afterwards about hate mail, but I don’t think it was serious.
It appears that you can still buy alcohol in Frinton.
HMP Highpoint Launches Rail Engineering Apprenticeships To Reduce Reoffending And Address Skills Gap
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
This is the sub-heading.
A programme of railway engineering apprenticeships has been launched at Highpoint prison in Suffolk in partnership with The Co-operative Group retail and consumer services business and the City & Guilds Foundation.
These first two paragraphs add more detail.
From August, the training programme will allow prisoners to complete full apprenticeships and end-point assessments before release.
The initiative has been set up partly in response to Co-op members’ requests at its AGM for the business to focus on reducing re-offending and supporting prisoner rehabilitation. It is intended to give offenders the chance to earn a Level 2 qualification as Rail Engineering Operatives, with the aim that they can move straight into employment and into trackside roles on release.
I should say, that I know HMP Highpoint well, as it was close to where I lived in Suffolk and I had the occasional drink with some of the prison staff at a local pub. One even encouraged me to apply to be a member of the Internal Monitoring Board for the prison. Sadly, I had the stroke and was unable to follow it through.
I am all for this initiative, especially as it seems to offer employment on release. A similar train and employ policy doesn’t seem to have done Timpsons any commercial harm.
The only problem of running this course at HMP Highpoint, is that the prison, is not near a railway line.
In the selection process for the Internal Monitoring Board, I had a tour of the prison.
One member of staff, who ran a course on recycling told me that his course was the most popular in the prison.
- The main part of the course was about sorting rubbish into what can be recycled and what couldn’t.
- The course was popular, as most companies, who were involved in recycling, needed operatives who do this efficiently, so it helped getting employment on release.
It also had a big side effect, in that the prison was very clear of litter.
This course surely had similar objectives to the new Rail Engineering Operatives course and the Timpsons training.
We need more initiatives like this in our prisons.
Shawton Energy Joins Up With The Co-Op For Rooftop Solar
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Solar Power Portal.
These two paragraphs describe the agreement.
Renewable technology developer Shawton Energy has signed an agreement with the Co-Op group to help support the retail giant’s rollout of rooftop solar PV.
Working with Sol PV as a delivery partner, Shawton Energy will design, develop, fund, and manage rooftop solar PV systems at key Co-op locations using a power purchase agreement (PPA) model. This allows Co-op to make significant energy and cost savings without having to put forward any upfront investment. Co-op will now purchase the power from Shawton Energy at a flat, discounted rate. While this rollout currently only covers some of the Co-Op’s over 2,500 retail locations, there remains potential for expanding this partnership in the future.
This looks to me to be a deal, where all parties benefit.
- Co-op have thousands of locations, that could have solar roofs, which would be good green publicity.
- I suspect that the Co-op own a lot of their properties, so the collateral is there, if the deal goes wrong.
- I suspect many buildings are very similar, so design and installation costs could be reduced.
- Co-op get reduced-cost electricity.
- Shawton Energy can add other technologies like batteries and rooftop turbines to the deal.
From my experience of both sides of the leasing of multiple systems, I believe, that this would be the sort of deal, that reputable banks and finance houses would be very happy to fund.
It looks like the sort of deal that can be replicated.
Especially, as Shawton Energy have already done a deal with the Bannatyne Group, according to these two paragraphs from the article.
This is not the first significant deal with a well-known British chain that Shawton Energy has agreed this year. The company announced in March of this year that it had made an agreement with health and wellness club operator the Bannatyne Group, which has installed solar panels on the rooftops of a number of its health clubs, hotels and spas under a similar PPA agreement to that Shawton Energy has made with the Co-Op.
According to the Bannatyne Group, the installations, which consist of 967 panels and 11 inverters across eight sites around the UK, have already provided significant energy savings to the group. Since their completion, each of the eight sites has reportedly secured energy savings of up to 25%.
Savings of 25 % are worth having.
Choose Your Energy Company With Care
This tale from the Observer is entitled Co-operative Energy didn’t bill us, but claims we owe it nearly £1,500.
It probably shows how various get-rich-quick and incompetent groups are entering the energy market.
I wouldn’t have chosen the Co-op, as on their record over the past few years, they seem incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery.
This is said in reply to the request for help.
Frankly, Co-operative Energy hasn’t had the systems in place to issue coherent bills for nearly a year after botching the launch of a new computer system last summer.
Surely, there is a case for withdrawing the licence of Co-operative Energy.
I wouldn’t touch them with Nigel Farage’s barge-pole, let alone mine!
Especially, as I’m very happy with Ovo Energy and have no possible reason to change.
They now even pay me for the energy I generate with my solar panels.
Water In Glasgow City Centre
In this hot weather, I like to travel with a small bottle of water, so I went into this Co-operative store by Glasgow Central station.
It was the weirdest shop I’ve ever been in as everything was behind glass partitions. As I couldn’t find any water and a couple of other things I needed, I gave up.
So I went round the corner to a Tesco Express. That was weird too, as it seemed to be full of alcohol and chocolate. I did get my bottle of water though, and I was able to eventually find some EatNakd bars and some tissues.
As in the Co-op, there seemed to be several visitors to Glasgow, wandering aimlessly around looking for what they needed.
Rats And Sinking Ships Come To Mind
This story on the BBC today, that the Labour party is cutting its links with the Co-op Bank made me think of the headline of this post.
On the other hand, perhaps the owners of the other 70% of the bank, that the Co-operative Group doesn’t own, aren’t those who wear red underwear?
On the other hsand moving to a bank controlled by the Trade Unions, might not bode well for those who want the Labour party to think pragmatically and outside the box.
A Disastrous Year
Not my words, but those of the the Chief Executive of the Co-Operative Group, Richard Pennycock, as reported on the BBC after the groups £2.5billion loss. He went on to add this.
These results should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who doubts just how serious the challenges we face are.
“The scale of this disaster will rightly shock our members, our customers and our colleagues,
The Co-Operative Group of 2015, will be a totally different organisation to what it is now! If it still exists! \which I seriously doubt!
There is one truism in any business that always applies. Unless you are totally professional in all things, then your venture will not succeed, as those that stick to professional principles will put you out of business.
Was This What Really Annoyed The Board At The Co-op?
Prufrock in The Sunday Times looks into the trouble at the Co-op and has this interesting paragraph.
Apparently, certain senior members of the Co-op movement first decided Sutherland had to be stopped after he cut a long-standing entitlement to first class travel for the 20 board members, whose number includes a farmer, a university lecturer and a nurse. Free travel is a perk that disappeared years ago from all but the most lavish plc boards.
So I conclude that to really live well as a socialist, it has to be at the expense of others.
The Co-Op’s Fancy New Headquarters
One Angel Square is the Co-Operative Group’s new headquarters.
It may have won lots of awards as a green building, but it’s surrounded by a see of that very green symbol, surface level car parks.
I had had difficulty finding the building too, as it wasn’t on any maps in the city centre. To get to the building, you needed to cross a busy dual carriageway.
If it’s a really green building, then surely it should have its own tram stop, but that was a rather shabby walk away.
With the news from the Co-Op this morning of Lord Myner’s resignation, it strikes me that the Co-op these days is a vanity institution and a gravy train and ego trip for some of those who control it.
Will Lord Myners Get Co-Operation?
The BBC has reported on Lord Myners review of the Co-Operative Group. Here’s the start of the BBC report.
The Co-operative Group spent too much time on takeover deals that proved “breathtakingly value-destructive,” an initial review has found.
Lord Myners’ review is highly critical of the group’s takeovers of Britannia building society and supermarket chain, Somerfield.
Just up the road from me is a new Co-Operative convenience store at Dalston Junction.
The Co-Operative Store At Dalston Junction
From the outside it looks good.
I regularly come home via Dalston Junction station, from where I catch the bus home to avoid a walk, so you’d think I’d be one of their target customers.
But when I did and I was wanting a bottle of wine for dinner at my son’s, there was only one person on the tills, no self-service ones and several people in the queue.
At another time, I went in looking for a Genius loaf. They did have one, but it was like a plastic bag full of dog biscuits.
The management obviously couldn’t possibly organise a piss-up in the brewery.
I have three convenience stores from the main chains and several independent ones too, all within a short walk from my house. And if pushed, I can walk to the much bigger Sainsbury’s on Kingsland High Street!
I doubt, I’ll buy anything in that Co-Operative store in the next few years.
If that is the best they can do in a thriving retail area, no wonder they’re going down the drain.
I do hope that when they finally decide to jack it in at Dalston Junction, that this store becomes a littleWaitrose. After all, in the next couple of years, the nearby Sainsbury’s will be getting a makeover, which will put more pressure on this Co-op store.
The Anonymous Widower 