An astute reader just sent us this – they spotted Ashcroft’s jet parked at Lyall Bay on Saturday August 30 and managed to snap a quick pic. The photo below is from TV3’s coverage. Looks like the same plane.
Maybe Ashcroft was meeting with the SFO, who leaked information to him, which he later passed on the Key.
And then the SFO can say that they didn’t leak the details to Key.
You guys are free to post on whatever you like, and I say this at the risk of having my comment deleted, but there have now been 15 posts at least since Helen Clark alleged the SFO leaked to National without a mention of it — the biggest story of Monday.
a_y_b,
Do you think this information — whose plane was where at what time — is more important than the PM’s allegations?
[lprent: It isn’t a news site – it is an opinion site. Posters write on what they consider is interesting. Same as the other sites. What was it – DPF on kiwiblog did 34 posts on Winston last week. Almost obsessional. ]
he must have been there to meet with the SFO, he then jetted to Auckland to meet with John Key. Classic C/T, right from the play book etc etc etc.
Can you actually see the numbers on the tail of the plane in the bottom photo? I am assuming each air craft has unique numbers/identifying marks on the tail/wings?
Actually, it carried Owen Glenn to also see JK in Auckland so he could back the winner with a $500K donation.
Rumour also has it that Lord Lucan and Shergar were also present.
My point is that he was evidently in Wellington as well as Auckland. I suspect there is someone out there to whom that information might be useful. Let’s wait and see eh? 😉
What is the requirement for large donations these days under the EFA. 2 weeks to report to the electoral commission. There is also a cap on overseas donations as well.
A secretive conservative political funder jets into at least two NZ airports…and secret payments to political parties are top of the agenda at the moment…I certainly find this intriguing news…
Of course, maybe he was just in Welly to visit the zoo. And Te Papa.
The photo tells us that he left Wellington soon after 8.48 AM, Saturday 30th August, likely for Auckland.
Given that 8.48AM (~ + 30 min) is a pretty inhospitable time of day, the question arises how long had he been in Wgtn. up till then.
Long enough to watch the Owen Glenn affaire break, catch up with Wgtn-based National party apparatchiks, and hand over the number of a Swiss bank account ?
Who else was on that plane .. Crosby & Textor ? Conservative Party Central Office ?
lp, I believe the limit on overseas donations is $1,000. I very much doubt that Lord Ashcroft flew all the way to New Zealand, and then onto Wellington, to give a secret one thousand dollar cheque.
I thought Labour was running the line that National had a secret stash of many millions of dollars. Suddenly the line is that they’re short of money and need to take money from foreign billionaires illegally. In Chris Trotter’s words, that is an example of “projection”. Just because Labour takes really big pots of money from foreign billionaires, and tries to cover up its coalition partners doing likewise, doesn’t mean National is doing it.
Tim Ellis – I also very much doubt that Lord Ashcroft flew to other side of the world just to have a general chat about british politics as John Key claims.
here’s a substantive point. JOhn Keys was all over the news this morning about New Zealand Firsts 2005 election spending. When is Keys going to front up with some policy?
It’s a Dassault Falcon 50. Quite a nice aircraft – one that I fully enjoyed flying in MS Flight Sim 2000. Other than that – I have NFI what this post is about.
hs: Yes – but on the other hand Labour are implementing policy and promising more of the same careful management that they have been doing since 1999. NRT was bemoaning that in this post.
Labour don’t quite have the credibility gap that the Nay’s have after the abrupt policy changes over the last few years. So far what we’re hearing from the Nay’s is at best incoherent. Sounds like an choir singing from different songbooks.
Hope you guys don’t mind me pinching the images (let me know if you do and I’ll remove them). I think the more interesting thing here is how Key supposedly believes in climate change now but is still more than willing to welcome his rich mates who come to him aboard luxury corporate jets: http://newzblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/planespotting/ .
Grow up, illuminatedtiger. By the same argument Helen Clark, who wants to lead the world on climate change, welcomed her “rich mate” Owen Glenn, who actually donated large amounts of money both to her own party and a coalition partner. Where do you think Owen Glenn lives? I’ll give you a clue: not New Zealand. How do you think he arrived in New Zealand? I’ll give you another clue: he didn’t swim here.
The suggestion about an anthology of prostitutes is part of a joke I heard years ago:
A group of specialists in collective nouns was in bar an observed such a group of professionals and came up with the following:
A jam of tarts
A flourish of strumpets
An anthology of English pros
hs it seems like your favourite tactic is telling others what to do. in the meantime while the victims of your overbearing assertions are figuring out your fallacies you have netly evaded the issue. Key does say he is going to win the election when everybody else plainly knows that he wont. in the meantime he offers no policy and and a whole parcel of obfuscatory meaningless trivial garbage that says nothng and I suppose that is a reflection of his intellect. I say that because we know what his agenda is. His party is the party of those who believe they are HARD DONE BY and now believe it is their right to grab everything by force instead of waiting in turn for a fair distribution of society’s fruits. take three thorazine and go to bed.
1. Thorazine is no longer available in NZ
2. I can’t remember one instance of either Key or Clark saying they were going to win the election.
3. You are a clearly a deluded moron
I think I know what Ashcroft was doing here. Hasn’t Key been wanting to buy a private jet for a while now?
hs:
“Could this discussion be any more fatuous ?”
I believe your last comment to randal proved that yes, it can be. Don’t you have some pretend patients to attend to?
[Tane: And banned for a month for your smears. Such a pity, we’d just started linking to you too…]
[lprent: Looks like he didn’t like getting linked to this morning. I put this comment on his post about getting banned. I was wondering why he’d gotten himself banned – obviously was better to be a martyr.
Dave that is bullshit. You got banned because you wrote a smear against the site or a writer on it. Moreover based on this post I’d guess that you repeated an unsubstantiated, unproven smear by that pathetically technical incompetent Whale.
You have lied all of the way through this post. Why comes to mind. I’d guess this little effort comes because I actually linked to one of your posts this morning.
Are you having to re-establish you credentials. You know exactly what our policy is about smearing the posters or the site. You’ve been putting comments up there for long enough.
]
“here’s a substantive point. JOhn Keys was all over the news this morning about New Zealand Firsts 2005 election spending. When is Keys going to front up with some policy?”
A few policies have been released, which is a few more than the Labour Party – unless you can show me where to find the links to current policy on Labour’s website.
“It’s a Dassault Falcon 50. Quite a nice aircraft – one that I fully enjoyed flying in MS Flight Sim 2000. Other than that – I have NFI what this post is about.”
The thing on top of the tail appears to make it a Falcon 900, which is a variation of the 50.
I saw a red van parked outside the brothel on Wakefield st today. Trevor Mallard has a red van – must have been him eh…. The number plate was different and it wasn’t the same model van that Trevor has but I’m so sure it was him because I wish it was….
Do I get a [standard-super-snoop] chocolate fish now ?
first things first…where is the national party policy besides…”I am like Barack Obama” and “what is the SFO number” and “how much money can I screw out of this rich Pom withour being busted?”
“I wouldn’t point out to The Standard that the photo above is not actually Ashcroft’s plane.
You are likely to face a two month ban for baseless smears.
Its not as though you are insinuating something true like the SFO leaks to John Key ”
I’d imagine that ayb will take the SP option here – simply ignore the comments and pretend the post he made doesn’t exist.
Besides, neither of them could possibly talk about Clark’s allegations regarding the SFO. Word on the street is that Helen can do no wrong. It’s election year, you see.
dave got banned for suggesting that the site was run from the 9th floor. That is an allegation that we’ve had for a while along with various attributions for contributors or that it is run from the NZLP. It isn’t correct as stated in the About.
In fact the only person that really seems to be determined to prove it is Whale. So far he has been ineffectual and hasn’t managed to prove bugger all that wasn’t in our About. We can’t do much about the bloated ego’s allegations because of our anonymity policy. That requires we neither confirm or deny for exactly the same reasons that the US does about nuclear weapons.
As for the plane. a_y_b described why this post was here
If it isn’t the same plane, well there should be enough detail to pick off the numbers on the tail. A detailed description of the differences between the models would probably assist that. I can’t see a difference myself from these cruddy photo’s.
I’d still like to know what in the hell Ashcroft is doing here. We’ll probably find out when Hager writes his next politics book from sources inside the sieve.
Last time I post here. This blog has become 1984, where yesterday is rewritten to prove tomorrow is correct. Its really a polite way of saying what I can’t say without getting this post deleted.
[lprent: Please promise. It’d make me so happy because you contribute buggerall, and I have to read them. ]
It’s so strange how it’s never smart people who have the type of trouble sweetd describes above. Smart people seem to be able to discuss issues on this site from all sorts of points of view without being censored.
In fact the only person that really seems to be determined to prove it is Whale. So far he has been ineffectual and hasn’t managed to prove bugger all that wasn’t in our About.
I’m not trying to be pedantic lpren, I just want to clear something up, a language thing.
In the context of trying to prove something you call Whale “ineffectual”. Calling him “ineffectual” you are saying something very different than if you said ‘He’s barking up the wrong tree’. It comes down to is he failing to prove it or is there noting he can prove?
I don’t really care either way, but this subject has been hotly debated and denied, people banned etc ever since the Happy New Year post.
Cyber-Santa came a little late to The Standard this year but we’re certainly not complaining – evidently we’ve got a New Year’s present instead.
He and the techno-elves have moved us to a brand spanking new server cluster that should give us plenty of breathing room and make those pesky traffic congestion problems we were having a thing of the past.
Seriously though, it wasn’t really Santa. Just like James Bond apparently we have our very own M and it’s him we have to thank instead.
We’re still secretly hoping for the pimped out Austin Aston Martin but this should tide us over in the meantime. Thanks M!
Next time Key wants to meet unwelcome wealthy foreign donors, for gongs, Cash-for-Honours or otherwise, he should just take a leaf out of Mike Williams book and meet them in the South of France. The weather, Languedoc and Lobster Thermador are so much nicer than in Cibo’s….
About the only thing that can be noted as being unequivocal in this thread is that there is no visual evidence, to the readers of this blog, that the two aircraft shown in the two photos above are the same aircraft, since the one shown taking off is too fuzzy.
Ashcroft owns a company (Flying Lion) that owns a Falcon 900 registered VP-BMS. All I can really tell from the photo at the top of this page is that the aircraft shown parked doesn’t appear to have that registration and appears to be a different aircraft (different number of windows). Since I can’t actually read the tail number I don’t actually know who owns that aircraft.
Perhaps the original poster can read the number better from the (presumably) larger photo they were originally sent?
Come on lp, give me a break! I understand your reasons for making standard authors anonymous and I don’t care where they come from, but comparing your reasoning to the US neither-confirm-nor-deny policy is pretty ludicrous. A simple “we don’t have to, and we’re not gonna” would suffice.
As for the plane, I don’t like visiting whale’s site (call me pompous, but I think the language and tone he uses is a bit excessive) but if the second plane photographed in Auckland really is Michael Ashcroft’s plane, then the one that appeared at the Standard in Wellington clearly isn’t.
The one at the Standard has fourteen windows, versus twelve in the one that Whale says is Ashcroft’s plane. They have different numbers, different livery, and the Standard’s one is longer. According to a google search, others in the past have identified Ashcroft’s plane registration number as VP-BMS, which is the aircraft in Whale’s picture. The one pictured here clearly doesn’t have that registration number.
So it looks like there isn’t any evidence that Ashcroft came to Wellington, based on this picture. I don’t know anything about airplanes, apart from how to fasten my seatbelt and fall asleep before the hostesses try and put revolting food trays in my lap, but I’d be happy owning either of those planes. As an aside, wouldn’t it be a wonderful irony if it turned out that the owner of the Wellington plane did actually meet a New Zealand politician while in Wellington?
Details details details. Such unnecessary things in the world of perception is reality. The blurry makes the clarity in the hands of the spins. Perhaps the plane belongs to Owen Glenn?
Whale has a picture comparison that is easier to play ‘spot the difference’ between the stated model that is owned and the clearer picture as displayed here in Wellington.
burt: You’re correct and incorrect. The girlfriend keeps criticizing my use of language.
What I meant was that there are certainly union members, definitely NZLP members (me for instance), probably green members, maybe feminists, etc writing on this site. Whale has proved that this is the case for unionists, although why he didn’t just look at the About which implicitly says that is beyond me. The trade unionists have been the heart of the labour movement for a long time.
Whale’s main thesis is that the site is run by one or more of EPMU, NZLP and/or 9th floor. That he hasn’t proved. He is wrong in his basic assumption because the site is run and paid for by me – as my credit card shows each month. I’ve stated that many times and I do it so the left has a place to post and talk about issues. It is a bonus that we can also get them discussed by people from all over the political spectrum, I think that is useful, and try to maintain that attribute of the site. Obviously Whale thinks I’m lying so I think he is a fool because that is what you see in the comments on the site.
His second thesis is that the posts are written from work by various contributors. There even I have limits. They aren’t written from parliament IP’s because I’d see that. Most of the large posts are written out of work hours from their log histories and the scheduled times. A lot of the smaller ones are written at are what a roughly break times. I wrote quite a long one today at work in small breaks over a hour or so while I was waiting for things to happen.
Am I going to bother to prove any of this? Absolutely not because the only way to do it is to look at the full logs, and that would identify not only the posters but also the commentators – see the Policy.
Take the blogs as they are written by the writers. They will use material from other people. The material they are written from turns up in the mailboxes from all over the place (I get a lot which I pass on to the mailing list), links to other sites, speculative ideas, post suggestions, photos, PDF’s, etc. It is a way for people to get things aired in public.
Am we going to confirm or deny peoples identities – nope. It’d be pretty easy even for a incompetent like Whale to simply work through a list of politically active leftie people (there aren’t that many in NZ). So we don’t discuss identity, and I don’t even know who most of them are in real life. They are just gmail addresses.
The bloated ego can keep jerking off in his number inflated corner of the blogosphere. He is ineffectual in proving his speculations and will continue to be so because even I can’t prove them true or false, and I run the site. The site was set up that way because that made it impossible to hack it and to break into peoples real identities. That is why the blog posters here can operate with a degree of freedom that will not impact back onto their real life. All of Whales crap is just smear designed to detract from the content of the posts using an irrelevant speculation that is impossible for him to prove and impossible for me to disprove. Besides it gives the pathetic bugger something to write about, and he really needs it as his writing is appalling – sort of like the Truth on P and with about the same level of content.
But if his speculations get repeated here even by inference on this site – I’m going to boot people permanently and with extreme malice. I’m tired of it, it is only used to try to distract from a post or comments, and it is a waste of bandwidth that I’m paying for. Besides I could do to reduce server loadings.
The little stats server here runs noon-noon Noon-midnight page views are just below the page views for the whole of yesterday. Yesterdays page views were a record. Throwing idiots off the system may lessen the load – it is cheaper than the next server upgrade.
“If it isn’t the same plane, well there should be enough detail to pick off the numbers on the tail. A detailed description of the differences between the models would probably assist that. I can’t see a difference myself from these cruddy photo’s.”
You can’t see the difference, therefore it must be his plane?
Like I said, it’s election year. You NZLP activists will try anything, won’t you.
“I’d still like to know what in the hell Ashcroft is doing here. We’ll probably find out when Hager writes his next politics book from sources inside the sieve.”
There was a little matter of the medals that were returned. But I suppose that doesn’t make a good book.
Honestly, you need to be more objective, if you can find the time between pretending nobody’s noticed Clark smearing the SFO.
Thank you so much for promoting my Blog. I might actually go up a few places in the blogosphere because of you. I am currently number 35 whereas your hero Slippery John is number 54. Not bad for a single blogger only out to inform people and give them some real news for a change.
About the conspiracy thing you seem so hung up on let me enlighten you about the terms you use so loosely and erroneously.
So when John Key and other people from National secretly meet with Lord Ashcroft who is known for his right-wing secret funding, who is known for supporting secret donations, who is a ruthless wheeler dealer and who helped Howard change election laws to make undisclosed donations possible and we only found out because a journalist actually did his job, the above synonyms apply.
Fact no 1. Lord Aschroft came to Auckland
Fact no 2. John Key and Lord Ashcroft met
Fact no 3. They tried to keep it secret
Facts combined = Conspiracy
We don’t know what they conspire about but two powerful men meeting secretly with a known penchant for wheeling dealing and secrecy spells a conspiracy.
Do we know if they are conspiring something criminal or something which would be disapproved of by the general public? No we don’t but we do know that politics often are about back room deals and the deception of the voting public.
From the fact that Lord Ashcroft has a history of secret donations and John Key and National through another bit of intrepid civil journalism we do know that the like to keep secrets and do not want the voter to know their real agenda. What we don’t know is what that secret agenda is.
So in order to point out a “conspiracy” we do not have to prove what it is that the conspirators are conspiring about. Just two or more people keeping secrets for reasons only known to them is a conspiracy. The fact is that News 3 caught a politician, who wants to be trusted and voted for, doing something he wanted to keep secret from the people he wants to vote for him.
When an event occurs and it is clearly the result of people planning and conspiring to perpetrate this event and a theory about why and how this could have happened without a sound criminal and crimescene investigation is announced as the truth without actual proof as to their involvement than that is a Conspiracy theory.
When a perpetrator or perpetrators are accused and even in light of the impossibility of them having been involved in the way the theorists claim than their conspiracy theory becomes a “mad Conspiracy theory”.
When it becomes clear that their theory falters in just about every single claim they make and they still hold on to that theory you are looking at “crazy Conspiracy nutters”.
The 911 truth movement is a movement of millions of people around the world who come from an amazing different variety of walks of live. We don’t profess to know the truth. We are in search of the truth. That is a big difference.
What we do know is that the Anthrax used in the Anthrax attacks after the 911 Attacks was a US military grade weaponised strain only produced in one location in the US. Fort Derrick. So it could not have been 19 hijackers or other “terrorists” who send this to News paper outlets and two vehemently anti war Democratic senators.
What this group has been able to prove is that the chemical signature of Nano thermite (a military quality incendiary and explosive used to blow up buildings) and nano sized iron spheres indicating a far higher temperature than was possible with Kerosene and office fires was abundant in the dust of WTC 1, 2 and 3
What this group has been able to prove is that the biggest crime scene ever in New York was destroyed in an unprecedented fashion and much to the distress of the police, fire-fighters and other crime investigation professionals.
What we have been able to establish that a crime has been committed but it could not have been done by 19 hijackers with box cutters.
So in order to find out who perpetrated the atrocities on that day we urgently ask for a new and independent investigation based on science and sound criminal investigative protocols by a commission of professionals and surviving family members with subpoena power and proper funding so that we may find out what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and perhaps even who did it.
We want real answers and justice for the people who died on that day, who are still dying because of the dust and the toxins they breathed in on that day, for the family members, for the soldiers who died in the wars and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq who died and suffered as a result of the events of that day.
[lprent: Spam engine caught it. TE: I’ll give you leeway (this time) – but please do this size of ‘comment’ on your own site and link to it.]
Yes Tara – In fact it is likely that Ashcroft had his plane repainted between Auckland and Wellington.
When AYB’s whole post is based on a photo of a plane though, and that photo is shown to be of the wrong plane, the least one could do is to acknowledge the error.
“None of the above excludes the possibility that Ashcroft visited Wellington.”
None of the above excludes the possibility that Ashcroft is one of David Irving’s lizard men either, but in rational circles we put the burden of evidence on proof.
Unfortunately AYB doesn’t see the world the same way, or he would have retracted by now.
Comment for Burt and everyone – has anyone actually proved which plane Ashcroft flew to New Zealand in?
Just because he owns BMS, does that prove he came to NZ in it this time around? It could be sitting in a hangar with the engines being overhauled.
There is a very interesting point about the other aircraft, and BMS, that they both have the initial registration letters VP, which means a British colony, most VPs seem to be Carribean islands. Could be they are both registered in the same country.
I have consulted the source and he has replied as follows:
Swampy’s reference to VP-BMS and 12 windows seems to have been taken from googling by ‘Falcon 900’ and ‘Ashcroft’ to give
and similar sites.
VP-BZE photographed in Wellington appears to be a later, slightly extended model, consistent with what a billionaire ex-Treasurer of the British Conservative Party would fly.
The pool of executive jets in Aotearoa is very small so it is unlikely that another Falcon Dassault 900 would just happen to be passing through.
The CAA should have a record of aircraft movements.
Unfortunately, the resolution of the shot from TV3’s footage was not great enough to count the windows. Could someone nicely ask TV3 to count the windows on that jet if there are any better images ?
It is unlikely that he was travelling such great distances alone at considerable cost. Who else was on the plane ?
Could Key’s conservative reforms in NZ be a model for those mooted in the UK after the next election ?
Tara Swampy, those are interesting points. Except Lord Ashcroft is known as only having one plane, which is the one featured by TV3, and is consistent with the registration numbers. The plane in Wellington is not a Dassault Falcon 900. It is a Dassault Falcon 7x.
Now, given that we know Lord Ashcroft came to Auckland, and that his plane, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, with Ashcroft’s registration numbers, was filmed at Auckland airport, what do you think the chances are that a second plane, a different model, filmed at Wellington airport, also belonged to Ashcroft?
Pretty close to nil, I would say. I am not saying that Ashcroft didn’t go to Wellington. I have no idea whether he did. All I am saying is that the picture of the plane at Wellington airport, which appeared at the Standard, does not belong to Ashcroft, and is not any evidence that he was in Wellington, which is what the Standard claimed.
What the Standard’s picture does show is that a Falcon 7x was in Wellington. We know this is not Ashcroft’s jet. It is a very nice jet though, worth about US $40 million. I have no idea who owns it. Probably not a New Zealander. The Brazilian Foreign minister was in New Zealand at that time. Could be his.
.. but I’m not clear that TV3 shows a 900 or a 7X taking off at Auckland with Ashcroft in it. It would be nice if someone could count the windows to prove or disprove it .. but at this point its a bit academic.
It is certainly interesting that he was around at the time of the Owen Glen saga which has yet to play itself out.
“Lord Ashcroft has become a significant figure in Australian politics having been identified as the single largest individual donor to any Australian political party during the Financial Year 2004/2005. The Australian Electoral Commission reported in February 2006 that Ashcroft (who gave his address as “House of Lords, Westminster, London”) had donated $1,000,000 to the Liberal Party in September 2004 just before the 2004 Federal election. It was the biggest single disclosed private donation in Australian political history.[10]
Over the last weekend of August 2008, Lord Ashcroft flew into Auckland, New Zealand in his private Lear Jet. While there he was confirmed to have met with senior figures from the New Zealand National Party; the main opposition party in the upcoming New Zealand general elections.”
VP-BMS is recorded at airliners.net and other sites as being owned by Flying Lion, a company owned by Ashcroft which according to some other sites “has only one major asset…a Falcon 900”.
Is there any recorded footage that positively identifies that BMS was here last weekend? It was here when Ashcroft came over in April in conjunction with the VCs.
1. There is no footage of which I am aware that BMS was here last weekend. It appears that he used BZE on this trip
2. Did Labour ask Ashcroft for a donation ?
Dunno. I don’t think they’d bother given his history.
“In the UK, he was a major donor to and Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 1998 to 2001, under William Hague. His tenure was marked by a number of controversies: he was seen to pay little UK income tax due to his domicile in Belize; and he was at the centre of a debate about openness and accountability of political funding.
Unsubstantiated speculation about his business affairs was concluded when he pursued a libel action against The Times. This was settled on 9 December 1999, when The Times issued a statement that “[…] Litigation between the parties has been settled to mutual satisfaction, with each side bearing its own costs.”[8]
In 2004 he clashed with Conservative leader Michael Howard when he offered a £2m donation on the condition that it should go to his specified candidates, rather than into general Conservative Central Office funds.
In December 2005, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.[9]
On 12th October 2007 he was accused by Labour MP’s for being allowed to heavily fund the local Conservative organisations in marginal seats of his choosing. The Electoral Commission is investigating and changes to the rules are predicted.
During the “Cash for Peerages” controversy, on 31 March 2006 he was named by the Conservative Party as having loaned it £3.6m.”
It’s a Dassault Falcon 50. Quite a nice aircraft – one that I fully enjoyed flying in MS Flight Sim 2000. Other than that – I have NFI what this post is about.”
The registration code VP-BZE was previously used by a Falcon 50 that has since been re-registered in the US.
Since the Falcon 7X is such a new aircraft (RTM about a year ago) the current usage BZE must be fairly recently registered in Bermuda.
“Welcome aboard Air Ashcroft, the Tories’ favourite airline”
David Hencke, The Guardian,
Saturday November 3 2007
When Gordon Brown does his weekly commute between Edinburgh and London, he flies with British Airways or BMI on scheduled flights crammed with other passengers. By contrast, when David Cameron touched down in Khartoum last November for a fact-finding mission to Darfur, his relaxation was due in no small part to a journey spent on the supple leather couches of a Falcon 900 private jet.
Courtesy of millionaire donor Lord Ashcroft, shadow cabinet ministers have enjoyed the use of the luxury jet on trips to Israel, China, Mali and the Czech Republic, according to information in the Parliamentary Register of Interests and declarations to the Electoral Commission.
The trips – 32 so far – have already attracted questions from Labour MPs and led to a complaint to the commission that Michael Ashcroft’s largesse has been significantly underestimated, possibly by as much as £500,000, in declarations of the perk’s value to the Tory frontbench.
Altogether shadow cabinet ministers and aides have flown 184,000 miles on the Ashcroft jet over the last five years with Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, flying 65,453 miles and shadow foreign secretary William Hague flying 49,670 miles.
Analysis conducted for the Guardian reveals that Tory globetrotting has racked up 1,289 tonnes of carbon emissions. The biggest footprint was made by Michael Ancram when he was shadow foreign secretary and shadow defence secretary, according to environmental consultants Carbon Footprint. Mr Ancram’s flights emitted 372 tonnes, including trips to Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt and Poland. The plane’s movements are being tracked by planespotters who logged it leaving Luton empty to fly to Khartoum to pick up Mr Cameron and return him to Britain. Indeed spotting the Ashcroft jet seems to have become a bit of cult on spotter blogs.
Lord Ashcroft’s generosity through his Bermuda-registered firm Flying Lion allows the Tory leader and his colleagues to travel in style to global hotspots. The jet features “supple leathers, glistening veneers and deep pile carpet as standard”, according to its French maker, Dassault.
It boasts a galley that “houses all the essentials for a fine dining experience 45,000ft in the air”. Comfort is generous, with a 7ft-wide cabin “so you can move easily with your head held high” and the jet has satellite communications and full conference facilities. For anyone thinking of investing in this kind of luxury, the typical asking price for a second-hand one is around $30m (£14.3m).
But it is the value placed on the flights that has drawn criticism. Mr Hague declares a trip on Lord Ashcroft’s jet to Belize, Brazil, the Falklands, Iceland and Panama as being worth £8,486, the equivalent of flying first-class. Yet to hire a Falcon with Premier Aviation would cost £55,000 for a one-way trip to New York alone.
Labour MP Tom Watson said: “There appears to be a huge discrepancy between, say, David Cameron’s declaration of £16,000 for the cost of his trip to Darfur and the cost of hiring a similar jet from a commercial firm. I got a quote of over £100,000 to hire a jet to go to Khartoum.”
Lord Ashcroft is relaxed about the plane and faintly amused that he is now the subject of interest among planespotters: “Am I becoming a cult figure like Madonna?” he said. He is also unrepentant about making it available to the Tory frontbench on a bigger scale in the future. “I hope it will be used by all the shadow cabinet over the next few years,” he added.
Lord Ashcroft is not the only person to make private aircraft available to the Tory frontbench. Mr Cameron’s carbon footprint is much higher if another 68 internal flights, including a short helicopter ride from Birmingham to Warwick, are taken into account. He has flown just over 3,700 miles on the Ashcroft jet.
The green cost
The Falcon burns about 3,000 US gallons of fuel to cover its maximum range of 4-5,000 miles. A Boeing 777 uses about 30,000 US gallons to cover the same distance. But the Boeing can carry 300 people, which significantly reduces its carbon footprint per passenger kilometre, the usual yardstick for emissions. If the Falcon flew with three passengers, then each would be responsible for 10 times as much pollution as those in the Boeing.
[lprent: Please don’t quote the whole article into a comment. Quote a few selected juicy bits (teasers) and then provide a link is usually sufficent. You’ll find that regardless of how interesting the article is at least a high proportion of the participants here will regard it as a waste of bandwidth. They usually start moaning after some repeated occourances, and I get involved.
Bugger – just found the first limit in google chrome – no dictionary. Switching back to firefox. ]
Tim, there’s no record of the Brazilian Air Force owning any Dassault Falcon aircraft. The nearest thing they have are three Learjets. They might have also used one of ten Embraers to fly the Minister in.
It’s the CIA doing a black bag secret rendition jobby. The GOP is worried that Colin Powell has gone completely off the reservation and was about to endorse Obama, see. So they’ve whisked him down here, and they’ve got the poor bugger tied to a chair with Judith bloody Collins in full on scold mode at him in 3 hr stretches.
Michael Ashcroft commissioned a programme of research, with the aim of building a clear picture of public opinion on the questions that would determine the outcome of the general election.
As well as measuring the true level of support for the parties he sought to establish the underlying attributes associated with each, and how these changed during the course of the election campaign. Crucially, he also aimed to establish whether the state of opinion in marginal constituencies reflected that in Britain as a whole.
…
including the biggest political poll ever conducted in Britain, with a sample of 10,000. This included:
* a tracking poll monitoring daily movements in opinion from January 2005 until the May election
* polls and focus groups in specific marginal constituencies around the country
* a national post-election ‘call-back’ survey to establish why people voted as they did
.. http://www.populuslimited.com/michael-ashcroft-case-study.html
During the run-up to the May 2005 general election, Michael Ashcroft became interested in political opinion polls. Using two respected polling companies, he decided to commission some research of his own. Once his polls had been analysed, they produced some fascinating findings and some valuable lessons for the Conservative Party.
He began to become interested in political polling in the autumn of 2004 at a time when he was already working to help Conservative candidates win and hold on to some of the most marginal seats up and down the country.
Initially, he concentrated his research in these key marginal seats but then, as his fascination with polling grew, he decided to conduct a vast poll of 10,000 voters (the usual size is 1,500 people) in order to produce the biggest ever poll in the UK on political attitudes. Initially, he did this out of self-interest but in July 2005 he published the findings for all to see.
Between mid January 2005 and the eve of polling day in May 2005, he also conducted a daily Americanstyle “tracker poll’ which he hoped would show how voters were responding to key Tory policies in the run-up to the general election.
Why is Michael Ashcroft considered an election winning expert?
Written by Mark Pack on 28th August 2007 ? 1:50 pm
Lord Ashcroft, the controverisal former Conservative Treasurer and now Deputy Chairman, is back in the news again. Over the weekend, the Daily Mail ran a piece about internal Conservative disagrements over his role and there?s been plenty of criticism of him on Conservative Home, some of which made The Guardian.
Defenders of Ashcroft essentially say: he knows what it takes to win elections so having Ashcroft in charge and the serial losers being given the push is a good thing.
But how good is Ashcroft?
Well, here?s his own account of his record supporting target seats at the 2005 general election:
The national swing from Labour to Conservatives was 3.2 per cent, yet the swing in the seats which we supported was 3.8 per cent.
Dirty Politics, Dirty Times by Michael Ashcroft, p.296
You read that right: by his own admission, all his expertise and money achieved was a paltry o.6 per cent extra swing.
Given the campaign I ran at the general election secured a Labour to Liberal Democrats swing that was 9.8 points above the national average, I guess that makes me 16.3 times better than Lord Ashcroft 🙂
Do drop me a line Michael; my consultancy rates would be very competitive?
By Rachel Sylvester
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 04/12/2007
Have your say Read comments
He has a powerful empire, a network of agents and a Caribbean hideaway. It is not surprising that some of David Cameron’s most senior allies refer to Lord Ashcroft, privately, as “Blofeld”.
# Andrew Gimson: Lord Ashcroft – reveal yourself
# Three Line Whip: The fag end of a Government
# Three Line Whip: Cameron and Brown, cat and mouse
The millionaire deputy chairman of the Conservative Party directs the operations of SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Capturing Target seats, from his well-equipped suite of offices in Millbank Tower. The only thing missing is a white cat. The Tories’ presiding electoral genius pores over Sudoku puzzles instead.
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Yesterday, the Conservative leader defended Lord Ashcroft, at his monthly press conference, by saying that he is responsible for only four per cent of donations to the Tory party, far less than David Sainsbury or Lakshmi Mittal have given to Labour.
He was “happy”, he said, with the assurances he has been given that the peer’s tax and residency status are in order.
But Mr Cameron knows as well as anyone that the mud being thrown at Labour over sleaze will stick to all politicians in the end.
Every morning, as Tory strategists meet to discuss their battle plan, they ask whether they are missing anything damaging in their own affairs. They can be sure of one thing. When the spotlight does eventually move away from Gordon Brown and towards Mr Cameron it will linger long and hard on Lord Ashcroft.
# Three Line Whip: Optimism and the Olympics
# Brassneck: Mind your tone, Mr Cameron
Privately, senior figures around the Conservative leader have been worried about the party’s dependence on the peer for some time. As deputy chairman, Lord Ashcroft is more powerful than ever.
He does not just give donations, he is also responsible for the party’s polling and target seat strategy. When the shadow cabinet is briefed on focus group or poll research, it is Lord Ashcroft who presents the results. That puts him in an extraordinarily powerful position.
The party may not be, as one senior Tory put it, a “wholly owned subsidiary of Ashcroft plc” but part of it has certainly been captured by his management team.
The concerns that first circulated when Mr Cameron took over are beginning to resurface. Senior Tories warn that the deputy chairman is running a “party within a party”. Some MPs mutter that he could be their leader’s Achilles’ heel.
Certainly, Lord Ashcroft is a generous benefactor. According to the Electoral Commission website, he has given almost £2.6 million to the Conservatives since 2003.
About half of this comes in the form of donations in kind – polling, focus group work, consultancy work and at one point last year, rather bizarrely, £5,927.88 for “bottle openers”.
The peer also frequently flies senior Tories around in his private jet – David Cameron, William Hague, Andrew Mitchell, Patrick McLoughlin and David Davis have all used it.
Recently, he paid for the Tory leader, and several shadow cabinet ministers, to attend the rugby world cup in Paris.
..snip..
On July 13 the London Times published two leaked foreign office documents. The first involved a telegram written in 1997 by the British high commissioner in Belize, Gordon Barker, cautioning against the appointment of Ashcroft to the chair of the Caribbean trade advisory group. It warned that the Belize government viewed him with “deep suspicion’ and remarked that rumors concerning his business deals cast a “shadow over his reputation that ought not to be ignored.’
This was followed by a 1994 report by a British foreign office adviser calling for tighter regulation of financial services in Belize and noting with some alarm that “low standards of regulation and supervision’ were attracting “those seeking to conceal proceeds of drug trafficking and other serious crime.’
Ashcroft’s response was allegedly to quash the report and solicit the British government to intervene on his behalf. Another document involved a letter from a local diplomat in 1996, Charles Drace-Francis, stating that Ashcroft made threats to the effect that he would “stir up trouble’ for Britain unless he were allowed to set up a branch of his Belize bank in the Turks and Caicos islands.
Four days later the Times disclosed that Mr. Ashcroft’s name appeared in a series of files kept by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as part of its investigations into drug trafficking and money laundering in Belize. It later transpired that cocaine was found on at least two ships sailing under the Belize “flag of convenience’ in 1994, under a shipping register in which Mr. Ashcroft had a 50 percent stake until earlier this year.
The attempted rebuttal to such charges by the Conservative Party Central Office, as well as the pro-Tory Telegraph and Daily Mail newspapers, was far from emphatic. A statement by the US State Department to the effect that no conclusive proof had been established connecting Michael Ashcroft with money laundering and no specific concerns had been raised with either the British or Belize governments was released.
The Times then published an article which explained that Ashcroft had been index-numbered on the files of the DEA, a step taken only when serious suspicions exist. On the same day Peter Bradley, Labour MP for Wrekin, raised explicit allegations within Parliament. Utilising the legal immunity afforded under parliamentary privilege, Bradley stated that Ashcroft and his companies had been repeatedly mentioned in connection with money laundering by the DEA. Among the most incriminating examples was one document dated April 1994 with the heading: “Intelligence concerning possible air smuggling/money laundering activity undertaken by Michael Ashcroft.’
.. snip ..
The House of Commons has heard details from a series of documents linking Conservative treasurer Michael Ashcroft to drug trafficking.
Labour MP Peter Bradley used parliamentary privilege to read from files, which he said came from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the International Narcotics Bureau.
.. snip .. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/400078.stm
You’re a spammer of epic proportions. Cut and paste do not a thoughtful post make.
I see AYB hasn’t retracted this post yet, either. AYB, is Key still a bona fide member of the secret order of baby eating nine rich white men secretly ruling the world still?
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Speaking to The Country’s Jamie Mackay, New Zealand First MP and Cabinet Minister Shane Jones talks water storage, plant-based meat imitation, and superstar Hollywood director James Cameron. While water storage may have its critics, Minister Jones defended the scheme by saying: “unless we invest and continue to invest” in this ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones is accusing northern iwi leaders of selling out Māori by voting for ideologically-driven court cases rather than practical steps to increase water supply. “I just think that iwi leaders who think that water issues are going to be solved by perpetually fighting in the ...
A dairy owner in St Kilda, Dunedin was delighted to hear that an attempted robbery of his establishment was foiled by a government-funded security system. Sean Lee was delighted at how well the anti-theft smoke system worked. When a knife-wielding man entered the store, the shop assistant immediately pressed a ...
Customs says it stopped more than three tonnes of illegal drugs coming into New Zealand last year. This includes 1,180kg of methamphetamine, 329kg of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine precursors, which could have been converted into 246kg of methamphetamine, 739kg and 6469 pills of MDMA or Ecstasy and 60kg of cocaine. Offshore, ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development Up to $2 million will be allocated from the Provincial Growth Fund to set up temporary water supplies in Kaikohe and Kaitaia where drought is biting hard, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. Drought conditions in Northland have led to ...
Darroch Ball, Spokesperson for Law and Order New Zealand First welcomes the deployment of an Eagle Police helicopter in Christchurch in what is a step towards fulfilling its long-standing goal to increase the use of police helicopters for the front line, particularly in addressing the scourge of fleeing drivers. Christchurch leads ...
It may have been the first sitting week of 2020, but our Government is already in full-swing - managing a strong economy, investing in infrastructure, and working to break the cycle of homelessness. Read below for all that, and more... ...
In a heated debate in Parliament, National's Deputy Leader Paula Bennett claimed that “nearly 1600 patched gang members have been added” since the Coalition Government took power. To illustrate her point, she altered a chart used by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to show her government’s progress in housing to instead ...
Speech by the Rt Hon Winston Peters at Parliament’s Opening 2020 "We all need insurance" This year New Zealanders are going to have a clear choice to make That choice is between: Optimism versus pessimism; More progress versus back to the future; Investment versus divestment; Unity versus division. New Zealand ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has slammed the Board of Auckland Airport following the airport's runway closing twice within two weeks due to maintenance. Around 2,000 passengers were affected by last week’s runway closures, according to 1NEWS. Another maintenance closure on January 24 saw two international flights and three domestic flights ...
Jenny Marcroft, Spokesperson for Broadcasting New Zealand First supports the commissioning of a business case to assess the viability of a new public media entity. “A strong media environment is critical for a healthy democracy. New Zealand First is a strong supporter of a diverse, independent media,” New Zealand First broadcasting spokesperson ...
Pounamou and technology industries in the West Coast region are set to receive more than $2 million in Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) funding. This was announced by the Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau during Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika. He said $800,000 would be given to Development West ...
Hon. Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic DevelopmentTe Tii, the lower marae at Waitangi, is among more than 70 marae now connected to broadband internet thanks to the Provincial Growth Fund’s marae connectivity scheme, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones said today.In February 2019, the Provincial Growth Fund ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The West Coast has had a funding injection of over $1.2 million from the Provincial Growth Fund, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at Waitangi Day commemorations in Hokitika today. The PGF projects announced are: $800,000 to Development ...
Speech to the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) Delhi, India Wednesday 26 February 2020 [CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY] The Indo-Pacific: from principles to partnerships Distinguished guests, good afternoon and thank you for your invitation. It is good to be here at a time where New Zealand needs less of an introduction than ...
Tihei mauri ora Te Whare e tu nei Te Papa e takoto Tēnā korua No reira tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa Ni sa bula Vinaka It is a real pleasure to be here today, and to have the honour of addressing you all. If you’ll indulge me I’m ...
Improved air quality to support better health and environmental wellbeing is the focus of proposed amendments to air quality regulations, says the Associate Minister for the Environment, Hon Nanaia Mahuta. “Although our air quality is good in most places, during winter certain places have spikes in air pollution, mainly from ...
The remote eastern Bay of Plenty community of Raukokere will receive a Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) investment of $10.6 million for a water storage facility, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “This is great news for the rural community. The landowner, Te Whānau a Maruhaeremuri Hapū Trust, will use ...
New legislation is being proposed which aims to reduce the stress and financial hardship caused by late payments to small businesses. The Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash is considering stricter rules around payment practices between businesses. “Late payments from large organisations to smaller suppliers can be crippling for these ...
A new partnership programme between the New Zealand Police and Fiji Police will focus on combatting transnational organised crime and enhancing investigative skills, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on the first day of her visit to Fiji. The programme will see: · New Zealand Institute of Environmental Science and Research ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama met today in Suva, and renewed their commitment to continue to strengthen Fiji-New Zealand relations on a foundation of shared values and equal partnership. The Prime Ministers acknowledged the kinship between Fijians and New Zealanders, one that has endured over ...
A $19.9 million investment from the Provincial Growth Fund will help develop essential infrastructure for an industrial hub in the Bay of Plenty town of Kawerau, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones says. “The funding will go to three projects to further develop the Putauaki Trust Industrial Hub, an industrial ...
The Provincial Growth Fund is investing $8.3 million on a roading package for Mahia that will lead to greater and wider economic benefits for the region and beyond, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced at an event in Mahia today. The $8.3 million announced consists of: $7 ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed new reporting showing the Coalition Government is on track to meet its child poverty targets, with 18,400 children lifted out of poverty as a result of the Families Package. Stats NZ has released the first set of comprehensive child poverty statistics since the Government ...
Associate Minister of Transport Julie Anne Genter today announced that Bikes in Schools facilities have been rolled out to 20,000 more kiwi kids under this Government. She made the announcement at the opening of a new bike track at Henderson North School in Auckland. “Bikes in Schools facilities give kids ...
Benefit settings rise in line with wages as of 1 April Main benefits will increase by over 3 percent, instead of 1.66 percent, on 1 April with the Government’s decision to annually adjust benefit rates to increases in the average wage. The Minister for Social Development, Carmel Sepuloni, said ...
Strengthening New Zealand’s political and business ties with India will be the focus of Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters’ and Trade and Export Growth Minister David Parker’s visit to India this week. The Ministers are co-leading a high level business delegation to India to support increased people and economic engagement ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio continues to champion for greater Pacific participation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers with the announcement of the Toloa Awards, with 8 recipients of the Toloa Community Fund and 13 Toloa Tertiary Scholarships. “The Toloa Programme encourages more Pacific peoples ...
Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has extended the date for people to have their say on proposed changes to improve management of whitebait across New Zealand. Submissions were due to close on 2 March 2020 but will now remain open until 9am on Monday 16 March 2020. “I have ...
The endangered toroa/Antipodean albatross has new international protection for its 100,000km annual migration, thanks to collaborative efforts led by New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Today, 130 countries agreed to strictly protect Antipodean albatross at the Conference of Parties on the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild ...
No sales to under-18-year-olds No advertising and sponsorship of vaping products and e-cigarettes No vaping or smokeless tobacco in smokefree areas Regulates vaping product safety comprehensively, - including devices, flavours and ingredients Ensure vaping products are available for those who want to quit smoking Vaping regulation that balances ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little will travel to Berlin tomorrow to represent New Zealand at a high-level summit on nuclear disarmament. This year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) celebrates 50 years since it entered into force. “New Zealand’s proud record and leadership on nuclear disarmament is unwavering, so it’s important we are present ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will visit two of New Zealand’s most important Pacific partners, Fiji and Australia, next week. The visit to Fiji will be the first by a New Zealand Prime Minister in four years and comes during the 50th anniversary of Fijian independence and diplomatic relations between our ...
Justice Minister Andrew Little and New Zealand First MP Darroch Ball, have today announced the appointment of the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the location, and the membership of the Establishment Advisory Group. Colin Carruthers QC has been appointed Chief Commissioner of the CCRC for an ...
Māori Development Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta and Agriculture Minister Hon Damien O’Connor co-announced the first horticultural finalists for the Ahuwhenua Trophy celebrating excellence in the Māori agricultural sector. The three finalists are Ngai Tukairangi Trust from Mt Maunganui, Otama Marere Trust from Tauranga, and Hineora Orchard Te Kaha 15B Ahuwhenua ...
A new kete of resources to strengthen support for students with dyslexia will provide extra tools for the new Learning Support Coordinators (LSCs) as they start in schools, Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin announced today. The Minister launched the kete in Wellington this morning, at the first of three induction ...
The Government continues to make progress on a fairer and more secure rental market for renters and landlords with the First Reading of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill and its referral to the Social Services and Community Select Committee. “Now is the opportunity for landlords, tenants and others who want ...
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Hon James Marape will visit New Zealand from 21-25 February, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have a warm and friendly relationship. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Marape here and strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” ...
Thousands of children have begun receiving a free lunch on every day of the school week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The Government’s free and healthy school lunch programme is under way for 7,000 students at 31 schools in Hawke’s Bay / Tairāwhiti and Bay of Plenty / Waiariki, extending ...
The Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni today announced a new approach that continues to broaden the Government’s social sector focus from a narrow, investment approach to one centred on people and wellbeing. Minister Sepuloni said redefining the previous approach to social investment by combining science, data and lived experience ...
The Government is strengthening the Protected Disclosures Act to provide better protection for whistle blowers, Minister of State Services Chris Hipkins said today. “The Protected Disclosures Act is meant to encourage people to speak up about serious wrongdoing in the workplace and protect them from losing their jobs or being ...
Nǐn hǎo (Hello in Mandarin). Xīn Nián Kuài Lè (Happy New Year in Mandarin) Néi Hóu (Hello in Cantonese). Sun Nin Fai Lok (Happy New Year in Cantonese) Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to attend this celebration today. I would like to acknowledge ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ...
Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Nau mai haere mai ki te Whare Pāremata. E ngā mana whenua ki tēnei rohe Taranaki Whānui, Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa – kei te mihi, kei te mihi, kei te mihi. E ngā mana, e ngā ...
Tougher penalties for gun crime are a step closer with the passage of firearms reform legislation through another stage in Parliament. The Arms Legislation Bill has tonight passed its Second Reading. “The changes have one objective - to prevent firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Police Minister Stuart Nash. ...
Introduction Mr Speaker We all know why we are here today. It has been a long journey. The journey did not actually begin on 15 March 2019. It began on 30 June 1997. Almost 23 years ago, Justice Sir Thomas Thorp told us what was wrong with our firearms legislation. ...
The Government’s work to put trades and vocational education back on the agenda took another major step forward today with the passing of the Education (Vocational Education and Training Reform) Amendment Bill, Education Minister Chris Hipkins said. “This is a watershed day for trades and vocational education. These law changes formalise ...
Speeding up the return of Christchurch regeneration activities to local leadership is behind the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament today by Minister Megan Woods. “As we approach nine years since the February 2011 earthquake in Canterbury, and with the transition to local leadership well underway, the time ...
Hundreds of New Zealanders and international visitors will be able to get back out into nature with the Milford Track partially reopening next week, after extensive assessments and repairs, the Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage announced today. The popular Great Walk has been closed since 3 February after an extreme ...
Up to 110 new EV chargers nationwide in cities and regions 50 electric vehicles for ride-sharing The Government is helping deliver more infrastructure and options for low emissions transport through new projects, Energy and Resources Minister Dr Megan Woods says. Tauranga, Nelson, Levin, New Plymouth and Oamaru are just some ...
New Zealanders are increasingly better off under this Government as wages rise and families have more disposable income, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. Stats NZ reported today that average household disposable incomes after housing costs rose 4.9% in 2019. This was the highest rise in four years and came as ...
All New Zealanders need to have their voices heard at work to ensure we have an inclusive and productive economy. Today we introduce a Bill to do this for workers in the New Zealand screen industry, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “The Screen Industry Workers Bill will ...
The Government has announced further help for the Southland and Otago regions to speed up recovery efforts from the floods. “I’ve approved Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG), making $500,000 available to help with the clean-up in Fiordland, Southland, and the Clutha district in Otago,” Minister for Social Development Carmel Sepuloni said. ...
Following the announcement that more than 340 schools will be funded to run events promoting vocational education, the Government has announced it will fund a further 257 events to be run by employers and industry. “These industry-run events will allow more than 30,000 students to connect with more than 2,000 ...
The global health emergency that is the Coronavirus - or Covid-19 - has become a game-changer for scientists around the world in terms of the speed of the response. But at the same time it's been termed a 'misinfodemic' Covid-19 – or coronavirus – is a game changer for scientists around the ...
President Rodrigo Duterte administers the oath of office to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) officials in a ceremony at the Rizal Hall in Malacañang Palace on February 26, 2020. Video: RapplerBy Felipe F. Salvosa II in Manila Reporters have finally got the chance to ...
Andy Ayamiseba died a few days ago. While the West Papuan was loved, admired and supported in Vanuatu, he fought tirelessly to win a home he could return to. He died before the dream was achieved.Originally published by the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PIPP), this 2013 profile ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Merryn McKinnon, Senior lecturer, Australian National University Public representation of science in the media still struggles to reflect the true diversity of those who work in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). According to the Women in Leadership Australia’s 2019 Women for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Mathews, Professor of Strategic Management, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Macquarie University Australia is the world’s third largest fossil fuels exporter – a fact that generates intense debate as climate change intensifies. While the economy is heavily reliant on coal and ...
The Otago Regional Council (ORC) voted today to request that Minister for the Environment Hon. David Parker exercise his authority to ‘call in’ upcoming proposed plan changes to the Regional Plan for Otago: Water and Regional Plan for Otago: Waste ...
This week’s plummeting international stock markets are a sign the ‘best case scenario’ economic outcomes of the coronavirus are increasingly unlikely. And that’s a worry for NZ’s manufacturers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Mark Butler, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy, is optimistic that Labor is better placed to prosecute its climate policy at the next election, compared to the last. “I think we are better positioned ...
The huge majority of New Zealanders think fishing industry donations to Members of Parliament at the last election have the potential to “strongly influence” decisions the MPs make, according to a poll conducted by Horizon Research. The poll, ...
Wellington councillors have voted to expand the mayor's proposed taskforce on the city's water problems, to include business and community members and water experts. The council has today voted to establish the taskforce proposed by mayor Andy Foster. The group he envisaged comprised only councillors, officials and iwi representatives. However, ...
“Let me be clear, Maori have a guardianship, ownership and protection role when it comes to the nations freshwater ways and let me be even clearer – if what has been happening to our freshwater eco-systems and ecology over the last hundred years ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yvonne Zurynski, Associate Professor of Health System Sustainability, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University If you have a rare disease, you may be the only person in Australia with that condition. You may not know, however, that being diagnosed with a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Akshaya Kamalnath, Lecturer (Corporate law), Auckland University of Technology Global investment company Goldman Sachs recently announced it would only take startups public if they had at least one diverse board member. In New Zealand, a new KiwiSaver fund, CareSaver, announced it would ...
BusinessNZ Energy Council (BEC) Executive Director Tina Schirr welcomes the release of the World Energy Council’s Issues Monitor for 2020. The Issues Monitor provides a snapshot of what keeps energy policymakers, CEOs and leading experts in 104 countries ...
Investors in the failed Ross Asset Management (RAM) company will be seeking $80 million from ANZ Bank when they start a legal claim next week. The group of more than 550 investors has claimed the bank either knew or should have known that Wellington financial adviser David Ross was operating ...
Apple exporter Scales Corporation has posted a higher full year profit of $121.6 million, boosted by $78m in asset sales and improvement in its food ingredients division. Revenue was up 20 percent to $484.6m, which included the first full year's trading of the petfood company, Shelby Foods, which Scales acquired ...
PGG Wrightson has reported a lift in earnings on improved sales for its livestock and horticultural businesses. The rural services company's net profit for the half year ended December was $12.8 million, compared with $0.3m the year before, which reflected the sale of its seeds business and accounting changes. Chief ...
The retirement village operator and takeover target Metlifecare has posted a larger half year profit, on the back of valuation gains, encouraging it to progress its development timeline. Its net profit rose 28 percent to $24.6 million in the six months ended December, as it built more retirement homes. The ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University Words matter. Especially when you are the director-general of security and head of ASIO. Barely three months into the post, and delivering his first ASIO Annual ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Terry, Vice-Chancellor, Curtin University This is an edited extract of a speech to the National Press Club given by Chair of Universities Australia, Professor Deborah Terry AONew modelling for Universities Australia prepared by Ernst and Young finds close to 17,000 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Maguire, Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, James Cook University In today’s terms, June Dally-Watkins was Australia’s OG (original gangster) #girlboss. The illegitimate child of a single mother, Dally-Watkins came from humble rural beginnings and found fame as a young model ...
A new index ranking ‘soft power’ praises ‘a shining example of how to build a tolerant and inclusive society in the face of adversity’ – and offers a rejoinder to sneers at the prime minister’s appearances in international media, writes Toby Manhire.At the end of last week of Jacinda Ardern ...
Six60 are on pace to overtake Pink Floyd for one of the most formidable records in NZ chart history. Duncan Greive breaks down their dominance.Over the weekend, Six60 played Western Springs to around 50,000 people for the second straight year, a feat which seemed utterly unfathomable 18 months ago, but ...
The New Zealand College of Midwives (the College) has congratulated Ontario midwives following a landmark legal decision from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The Tribunal has ordered the Canadian Government to take concrete actions to end the ...
NZME, New Zealand’s largest media company, released its 2019 financial report yesterday. Michael Andrew checks in on the health of huge brands like the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB.It was apparently a good year for NZME, which yesterday reported a strong financial performance with $19.7m operating profit and the growth ...
Welcome to the Bulletin World Weekly, an email exclusively for The Spinoff Members. As a one-off, we’ve put today’s edition up for everyone to read. If you want to get this every week, sign up to The Spinoff Members here.In the last week, outbreaks of the Covid-19 coronavirus have shaken ...
Sam Brooks watches I Am Not Okay With This, the new show that feels like a calculated mash-up of a bunch of other Netflix shows you really liked.“Oh, it’s like Sex Education meets Stranger Things.”It’s not a new thing to describe a television show in this X-meets-Y fashion. It’s convenient ...
By Nicola Igusa The value of different perspectives in film making is valued now more than ever, says Auckland University of Technology screen production Associate Professor Arezou Zalipour. “We’ve just seen the historic win of Parasite at the 2020s Oscars – the first non-English language production to win Best ...
The New Zealand College of Midwives (the College) has congratulated Ontario midwives following a landmark legal decision from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The Tribunal has ordered the Canadian Government to take concrete actions to end the ...
Cross-examination strategies in rape trials remain resistant to reforms, which continues to negatively impact on complainants despite initiatives to improve the legal process, a University of Canterbury (UC) expert says. Professor Elisabeth McDonald specialises ...
Early model electric vehicles are already running low on juice, with some batteries down to around half their original capacity. With the international auto industry slow to find solutions, one New Zealand company is using Kiwi ingenuity to repurpose old batteries and keep the cars – and their owners – ...
The Government's looking at law changes to ensure small businesses are paid on time. Small Business Minister Stuart Nash said he is willing to legislate, if necessary, to ensure payments within 20 days, with interest imposed for late payments. He said prompt payment and cash flow are vital to small ...
Meridian Energy has made a record first half profit with improved revenue. The South Island generator's net profit for the six months ended December rose 26 percent to $191 million. Revenue was up 5 percent to $1.78bn on record hydro generation from the South Island lakes. It had significant customer ...
Economists are predicting a flat - or slightly down - March quarter, as the effects of the Covid-19 coronavirus and the drought come to a head. The Institute of Economic Research's (NZIER) latest Quarterly Economic Predictions picks the virus impact will be short and sharp, with the economy gradually recovering ...
New Zealanders throw away 295 million single-use cups per year. Alice Neville ponders our obsession with takeaway culture, and looks at what’s needed for consumers to change their behaviour. How many commuters did you see clutching single-use takeaway coffee cups on your way to work this morning? Or how many empty ...
New Conservative is extremely concerned over what is tantamount to the confiscation by government of private land, without compensation. Taranaki farmers and landowners have had portions of their properties classed as “Significant Natural Areas” ...
Half of New Zealanders are more likely to vote for a political party in this year’s general election that promises to ‘significantly and urgently’ improve the unhealthy state of homes in Aotearoa. The Consumerlink survey, carried out for the Green Building ...
Mike, a 30-something professional, cares enough about better cannabis policy that he and other local supporters will be at the Riccarton Sunday Market, March 1st from 9am-2pm. “I don't want my kids to grow up in a country that criminalises them for ...
The Salvation Army is strongly opposed to the Government’s new Racing Bill. Today, Salvation Army staff will make our oral submission to the Bill. “Harm from gambling is already at unacceptable levels in this country and increasing availability and ...
One of the men charged over donations to the National Party was at one stage to have gone to the party's candidate college, which identifies and train potential members of Parliament. ...
Child poverty figures released today by Statistics New Zealand show further urgent Government action is needed to lift more children and whānau out of poverty, says The Salvation Army, which is calling for a change in core welfare benefits to be ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s contentChild poverty, welfare Max Rashbrooke (RNZ): Child poverty stats promising, but more is needed Mike Hosking (Newstalk ZB): Child poverty ...
Data released under the Official Information Act today reveals almost 12,000 more children are dependent on welfare benefits since December 2017. "At 31 December 2019 there were 206,395 children aged 0-18 reliant on caregiver on a main benefit ...
The Government would consider direct assistance to tourism industry players if the fallout from coronavirus lasts well beyond the first half of the year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute Opposition leader Anthony Albanese sought to claim the climate policy high ground last week with his commitment to a net-zero emissions target by 2050. But figures on Australia’s emissions from the Department of the Environment ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Marston, Head of School, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland The Australian government touts compulsory income management as a way to stop welfare payments being spent on alcohol, drugs or gambling. The Howard government introduced the BasicsCard more than ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Clarkson, Professor in Archaeology, The University of Queensland About 74,000 years ago a volcanic eruption at what is now Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, created one of the most dramatic natural disasters of the past 2 million years. The plume of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Omer Yezdani, Director, Office of Planning and Strategic Management, Australian Catholic University Philanthropy is a growing source of revenue for Australian universities. It’s essential to advancing quality research, equity and learning. On average, Australia’s top five fundraising universities receive nearly 20 times ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Dawson, Honorary Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne The assumption that retired people have minimal housing costs underpins the settings of our retirement incomes system. But the real state of housing for older Australians today makes it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Keating, Visiting Fellow, College of Business & Economics, Australian National University We are continually being told that more of us are employed than ever before. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe points out (correctly) that a higher proportion of us are in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide Berlin. February 26 1920. A new silent film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is released to unsuspecting German audiences and quickly becomes a worldwide sensation. “When will I die?” asks one character ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: New child poverty statistics show little change yet, Greenpeace call for fishing policy review over donations, and a focus on Covid-19 effects on forestry.New figures were released yesterday on one of the most important issues facing the country – how many ...
He may be marooned in Texas, but Joseph Parker is closer to a return to boxing's big time than you'd think. Joseph Parker’s road back to boxing relevance won’t ever lead to the now fully resurgent Tyson Fury. But that doesn’t mean the Gypsy King won’t be a key figure ...
A cruel string of injuries could have prematurely ended Shiray Kaka's sevens career. But with determination and meditation, she's back in the Black Ferns, focused on finally playing at the Olympics. This time last year, Shiray Kaka was living in Japan, studying to be a dog trainer and setting up ...
ReadingRoom is devoting all week to the best-selling book in New Zealand right now, In The Clearing, the brilliant new thriller by Ngāpuhi author JP Pomare, inspired by creepy Australian cult The Family. Today: the author backgrounds his interest in the story. A few years ago I become obsessed ...
A jury didn't accept abused woman Karen Ruddelle killed her partner in self-defence. What does that say about our attitudes towards women in violent relationships? Karen Anne Ruddelle was charged with murdering her partner. Last week, at the High Court in Auckland, she was acquitted of murder but convicted of ...
Former regional parks chair Sandra Coney says a purchase of the disputed land at Ihumātao by Auckland Council would be entirely in keeping with historical precedent and the actions of local government in preserving open spaces for future generations. With various claims being made about the Government stepping in to ...
If RNZ hopes to court the youth audience with its new brand it should take some cues from the ones who’ve had that audience all along: student radio. RNZ has had a month from hell. News the state-run broadcaster was considering scaling back its long-running RNZ Concert network to make room ...
The Grace Millane murder case wasn't a who-dunnit - in fact it was easily solved. But it sparked intense public interest and international media coverage. What were the ingredients that caught the world's attention? A media frenzy descended on the High Court in Auckland last week as a sentence was handed down ...
OPINION:By Murray Horton in Christchurch For as long as the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca) has existed – more than 45 years now – we have called for the closure of the aluminium smelter, owned by giant transnational corporation, Rio Tinto. There are numerous grounds for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The inquiry into allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan is examining 55 separate incidents or issues, according to the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force report, tabled Tuesday. These involve “predominantly” allegations ...
Ashcroft’s jet spotted in Wellington too 
Fans are outraged at the prospect of Destiny Church pastor Hannah Tamaki joining the Black Caps ...12 hours ago
Less than two months after China told the WHO there was a problem, a lot has happened. Sadly, deaths, confirmed cases and countries affected are increasing every day. However, on a scientific and medical level, what is going on to contain, cure and prevent this new disease is truly inspirational. ...12 hours ago
This morning the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) pointed people at an article on "Playing Hide and Speak: Analyzing the Protected Disclosures Framework of the New Zealand Intelligence Community" by Caitlin Macdonald, Rhys Ball & William James Hoverd. The authors were trying to look at how the whistleblowing framework ...16 hours ago
I must say that it’s at loggerheads with the inclusive and free society we want to create in New Zealand that one of our largest media outlets, MediaWorks, would allow Hannah Tamaki to perform on their show, Dancing With The Stars.Hannah Tamaki and her husband Brian are after all well-known ...17 hours ago
The Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change book is now available! The book uses cartoons, humor, and critical thinking to expose how and why some people reject climate science. It's now available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book outlets. If you're near the DC area, you're very welcome to ...1 day ago
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And your point is?
AYB: I’d have to agree with daveski here – what is your point? Perhaps you should add it..
Maybe Ashcroft was meeting with the SFO, who leaked information to him, which he later passed on the Key.
And then the SFO can say that they didn’t leak the details to Key.
You guys are free to post on whatever you like, and I say this at the risk of having my comment deleted, but there have now been 15 posts at least since Helen Clark alleged the SFO leaked to National without a mention of it — the biggest story of Monday.
a_y_b,
Do you think this information — whose plane was where at what time — is more important than the PM’s allegations?
[lprent: It isn’t a news site – it is an opinion site. Posters write on what they consider is interesting. Same as the other sites. What was it – DPF on kiwiblog did 34 posts on Winston last week. Almost obsessional. ]
he must have been there to meet with the SFO, he then jetted to Auckland to meet with John Key. Classic C/T, right from the play book etc etc etc.
Can you actually see the numbers on the tail of the plane in the bottom photo? I am assuming each air craft has unique numbers/identifying marks on the tail/wings?
Actually, it carried Owen Glenn to also see JK in Auckland so he could back the winner with a $500K donation.
Rumour also has it that Lord Lucan and Shergar were also present.
Hell, if I were a multisquillionaire coming on a flying visit to NZ, I would want to visit Wellington too 🙂
L
My point is that he was evidently in Wellington as well as Auckland. I suspect there is someone out there to whom that information might be useful. Let’s wait and see eh? 😉
What is the requirement for large donations these days under the EFA. 2 weeks to report to the electoral commission. There is also a cap on overseas donations as well.
A secretive conservative political funder jets into at least two NZ airports…and secret payments to political parties are top of the agenda at the moment…I certainly find this intriguing news…
Of course, maybe he was just in Welly to visit the zoo. And Te Papa.
I suspect that he landed in Wgtn to restock the jet’s kitchen with babies for the long flight back to the UK.
Looks like Labour needs a new bogeyman since the exclusive bretheren are oh so 2004.
It’s all part of the grand conspiracy
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Plan.jpg
The photo tells us that he left Wellington soon after 8.48 AM, Saturday 30th August, likely for Auckland.
Given that 8.48AM (~ + 30 min) is a pretty inhospitable time of day, the question arises how long had he been in Wgtn. up till then.
Long enough to watch the Owen Glenn affaire break, catch up with Wgtn-based National party apparatchiks, and hand over the number of a Swiss bank account ?
Who else was on that plane .. Crosby & Textor ? Conservative Party Central Office ?
Is that why Rodney was so studiously chewing his thumb on Parliamentary TV ?
Tara
I think you might enjoy this website.
http://aotearoaawiderperspective.wordpress.com/
It’s great for conspiracy theorists.
lp, I believe the limit on overseas donations is $1,000. I very much doubt that Lord Ashcroft flew all the way to New Zealand, and then onto Wellington, to give a secret one thousand dollar cheque.
I thought Labour was running the line that National had a secret stash of many millions of dollars. Suddenly the line is that they’re short of money and need to take money from foreign billionaires illegally. In Chris Trotter’s words, that is an example of “projection”. Just because Labour takes really big pots of money from foreign billionaires, and tries to cover up its coalition partners doing likewise, doesn’t mean National is doing it.
Can’t you guys do better ?
A number of substantive points have been raised.
Possibly donating some books for the Bookfair this weekend?
Remember to drop your old books in..
http://www.standrews.org.nz/dcm/events/bookfair.html
Tim Ellis – I also very much doubt that Lord Ashcroft flew to other side of the world just to have a general chat about british politics as John Key claims.
here’s a substantive point. JOhn Keys was all over the news this morning about New Zealand Firsts 2005 election spending. When is Keys going to front up with some policy?
It’s a Dassault Falcon 50. Quite a nice aircraft – one that I fully enjoyed flying in MS Flight Sim 2000. Other than that – I have NFI what this post is about.
Ah ‘plane-spotting’ the rich-kid’s version of ‘train-spotting’, which is the posh-kid’s version of ‘car-spotting’, which is essentially what kids do.
Randal the only party that has fronted up with substantive policy to date is the Greens.
http://www.policy.net.nz
The rest are lagging behind badly and Labour is probably one of the worst offenders
So his plane was in Wellington. So what?
thats not the point hs. Keys says he is the pm in waiting so lets hear his POLICY. is that plain enough for YOU?
hs: Yes – but on the other hand Labour are implementing policy and promising more of the same careful management that they have been doing since 1999. NRT was bemoaning that in this post.
Labour don’t quite have the credibility gap that the Nay’s have after the abrupt policy changes over the last few years. So far what we’re hearing from the Nay’s is at best incoherent. Sounds like an choir singing from different songbooks.
Don’t froth Randal
Key has not said he is PM in waiting – he may be depending on the election result.
I’m sure more policy will roll out from all parties when the PM announces the election date.
You should also note that no one would have to be talking about NZF in the media if WP hadn’t lied to the public and parliament.
For policy released to date from the parties I do however recommend the site I linked to above.
http://www.policy.net.nz
Implementing policy – like what in the last 12 months ?
Hope you guys don’t mind me pinching the images (let me know if you do and I’ll remove them). I think the more interesting thing here is how Key supposedly believes in climate change now but is still more than willing to welcome his rich mates who come to him aboard luxury corporate jets: http://newzblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/planespotting/ .
Grow up, illuminatedtiger. By the same argument Helen Clark, who wants to lead the world on climate change, welcomed her “rich mate” Owen Glenn, who actually donated large amounts of money both to her own party and a coalition partner. Where do you think Owen Glenn lives? I’ll give you a clue: not New Zealand. How do you think he arrived in New Zealand? I’ll give you another clue: he didn’t swim here.
Captcha never fails: January transport
So Owen Glen flew to NZ privately then Tim?
Everyone of course has to fly but some do it more efficiently than others. Show me the proof that Glen didn’t arrive here aboard a public airliner.
Could this discussion be any more fatuous ?
Could this discussion be any more fatuous ?
Of course it could:
http://robinsod.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/i-been-busted/
[lprent: Link-whoring with elegance – completely in context (*sigh*). You’re almost as slippery as JK. ]
Just to add to conspiracy theories I was also in Wellington on Friday night, staying on the Club Floor of a major hotel.
However I can categorically state that I did not meet with Lord Ashcroft!!
All this post has succeeded in doing is make me throw away any liberal,left sympathising sentements I may of had.
I now have made a vow to tramp down the under priviged and exploit my workers untill I have enough cash to own and operate a plane like that.
I bet even a few of the wowsers on this site pictured themselves inside with a gaggle of hookers.
Crank:
Just make sure it runs of hydrogen 😉 .
However I can categorically state that I did not meet with Lord Ashcroft!!
Of course you didn’t – he thinks you’re a dick. (You should hear what he says about Farrar…)
Um, that’s an anthology of prostitutes (English pros)
That’s never the collective noun for sex workers.
Sounds about right to me. Me and Ashman pretty much did the collected works back in the day…
Source:
Wow it has gone pun-tastic all of a sudden. Though maybe Sod’s comment is more of a double entendre
A woman walked into a bar and asked for a double entendre. So the barman gave her one.
That’s very funny billy – now, would you care to exercise that wit back at our blog?
hs it seems like your favourite tactic is telling others what to do. in the meantime while the victims of your overbearing assertions are figuring out your fallacies you have netly evaded the issue. Key does say he is going to win the election when everybody else plainly knows that he wont. in the meantime he offers no policy and and a whole parcel of obfuscatory meaningless trivial garbage that says nothng and I suppose that is a reflection of his intellect. I say that because we know what his agenda is. His party is the party of those who believe they are HARD DONE BY and now believe it is their right to grab everything by force instead of waiting in turn for a fair distribution of society’s fruits. take three thorazine and go to bed.
Randal
1. Thorazine is no longer available in NZ
2. I can’t remember one instance of either Key or Clark saying they were going to win the election.
3. You are a clearly a deluded moron
Seeing as we’re telling jokes, how many anticlimaxes does it take to change a lightbulb?
Four.
Matthew, nice.
Thanks Billy, it was your one that motivated me to put it down.
I think I know what Ashcroft was doing here. Hasn’t Key been wanting to buy a private jet for a while now?
hs:
“Could this discussion be any more fatuous ?”
I believe your last comment to randal proved that yes, it can be. Don’t you have some pretend patients to attend to?
Actually – Glenn Arrived here in a boat…
A few of the VRWC were discussing a pirate style takeover complete with pirate flag and eye patches drunkely one night…
Unfortuantley it never went ahead…
Are you sure thats Lord Ashcrofts jet
it looks like this one, but this one is his actual jet – but its got more windows this ones got 12
[Tane: And banned for a month for your smears. Such a pity, we’d just started linking to you too…]
[lprent: Looks like he didn’t like getting linked to this morning. I put this comment on his post about getting banned. I was wondering why he’d gotten himself banned – obviously was better to be a martyr.
Dave that is bullshit. You got banned because you wrote a smear against the site or a writer on it. Moreover based on this post I’d guess that you repeated an unsubstantiated, unproven smear by that pathetically technical incompetent Whale.
You have lied all of the way through this post. Why comes to mind. I’d guess this little effort comes because I actually linked to one of your posts this morning.
Are you having to re-establish you credentials. You know exactly what our policy is about smearing the posters or the site. You’ve been putting comments up there for long enough.
]
Seeing as how we’ve resorted to lightbulb jokes….
How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Only one, but first and foremost the lightbulb has to WANT to change
“here’s a substantive point. JOhn Keys was all over the news this morning about New Zealand Firsts 2005 election spending. When is Keys going to front up with some policy?”
A few policies have been released, which is a few more than the Labour Party – unless you can show me where to find the links to current policy on Labour’s website.
“It’s a Dassault Falcon 50. Quite a nice aircraft – one that I fully enjoyed flying in MS Flight Sim 2000. Other than that – I have NFI what this post is about.”
The thing on top of the tail appears to make it a Falcon 900, which is a variation of the 50.
Swampy
I wouldn’t point out to The Standard that the photo above is not actually Ashcroft’s plane.
You are likely to face a two month ban for baseless smears.
Its not as though you are insinuating something true like the SFO leaks to John Key…
“I wouldn’t point out to The Standard that the photo above is not actually Ashcroft’s plane.”
The plot thickens then.
Who else has JK been meeting?
I vote Grover Norquist.
I saw a red van parked outside the brothel on Wakefield st today. Trevor Mallard has a red van – must have been him eh…. The number plate was different and it wasn’t the same model van that Trevor has but I’m so sure it was him because I wish it was….
Do I get a [standard-super-snoop] chocolate fish now ?
first things first…where is the national party policy besides…”I am like Barack Obama” and “what is the SFO number” and “how much money can I screw out of this rich Pom withour being busted?”
[IrishBill says: I banned you this morning, Dad. If you comment again you’ll get another week.]
“I wouldn’t point out to The Standard that the photo above is not actually Ashcroft’s plane.
You are likely to face a two month ban for baseless smears.
Its not as though you are insinuating something true like the SFO leaks to John Key ”
I’d imagine that ayb will take the SP option here – simply ignore the comments and pretend the post he made doesn’t exist.
Besides, neither of them could possibly talk about Clark’s allegations regarding the SFO. Word on the street is that Helen can do no wrong. It’s election year, you see.
C of T, Dean:
dave got banned for suggesting that the site was run from the 9th floor. That is an allegation that we’ve had for a while along with various attributions for contributors or that it is run from the NZLP. It isn’t correct as stated in the About.
In fact the only person that really seems to be determined to prove it is Whale. So far he has been ineffectual and hasn’t managed to prove bugger all that wasn’t in our About. We can’t do much about the bloated ego’s allegations because of our anonymity policy. That requires we neither confirm or deny for exactly the same reasons that the US does about nuclear weapons.
As for the plane. a_y_b described why this post was here
If it isn’t the same plane, well there should be enough detail to pick off the numbers on the tail. A detailed description of the differences between the models would probably assist that. I can’t see a difference myself from these cruddy photo’s.
I’d still like to know what in the hell Ashcroft is doing here. We’ll probably find out when Hager writes his next politics book from sources inside the sieve.
Last time I post here. This blog has become 1984, where yesterday is rewritten to prove tomorrow is correct. Its really a polite way of saying what I can’t say without getting this post deleted.
[lprent: Please promise. It’d make me so happy because you contribute buggerall, and I have to read them. ]
It’s so strange how it’s never smart people who have the type of trouble sweetd describes above. Smart people seem to be able to discuss issues on this site from all sorts of points of view without being censored.
I wonder why?
lprent
I’m not trying to be pedantic lpren, I just want to clear something up, a language thing.
In the context of trying to prove something you call Whale “ineffectual”. Calling him “ineffectual” you are saying something very different than if you said ‘He’s barking up the wrong tree’. It comes down to is he failing to prove it or is there noting he can prove?
I don’t really care either way, but this subject has been hotly debated and denied, people banned etc ever since the Happy New Year post.
That was all_your_base as well.
Next time Key wants to meet unwelcome wealthy foreign donors, for gongs, Cash-for-Honours or otherwise, he should just take a leaf out of Mike Williams book and meet them in the South of France. The weather, Languedoc and Lobster Thermador are so much nicer than in Cibo’s….
Dear Concerned of Tawa,
About the only thing that can be noted as being unequivocal in this thread is that there is no visual evidence, to the readers of this blog, that the two aircraft shown in the two photos above are the same aircraft, since the one shown taking off is too fuzzy.
Ashcroft owns a company (Flying Lion) that owns a Falcon 900 registered VP-BMS. All I can really tell from the photo at the top of this page is that the aircraft shown parked doesn’t appear to have that registration and appears to be a different aircraft (different number of windows). Since I can’t actually read the tail number I don’t actually know who owns that aircraft.
Perhaps the original poster can read the number better from the (presumably) larger photo they were originally sent?
Come on lp, give me a break! I understand your reasons for making standard authors anonymous and I don’t care where they come from, but comparing your reasoning to the US neither-confirm-nor-deny policy is pretty ludicrous. A simple “we don’t have to, and we’re not gonna” would suffice.
As for the plane, I don’t like visiting whale’s site (call me pompous, but I think the language and tone he uses is a bit excessive) but if the second plane photographed in Auckland really is Michael Ashcroft’s plane, then the one that appeared at the Standard in Wellington clearly isn’t.
The one at the Standard has fourteen windows, versus twelve in the one that Whale says is Ashcroft’s plane. They have different numbers, different livery, and the Standard’s one is longer. According to a google search, others in the past have identified Ashcroft’s plane registration number as VP-BMS, which is the aircraft in Whale’s picture. The one pictured here clearly doesn’t have that registration number.
So it looks like there isn’t any evidence that Ashcroft came to Wellington, based on this picture. I don’t know anything about airplanes, apart from how to fasten my seatbelt and fall asleep before the hostesses try and put revolting food trays in my lap, but I’d be happy owning either of those planes. As an aside, wouldn’t it be a wonderful irony if it turned out that the owner of the Wellington plane did actually meet a New Zealand politician while in Wellington?
Swampy
Details details details. Such unnecessary things in the world of perception is reality. The blurry makes the clarity in the hands of the spins. Perhaps the plane belongs to Owen Glenn?
Whale has a picture comparison that is easier to play ‘spot the difference’ between the stated model that is owned and the clearer picture as displayed here in Wellington.
see: Standard smears wrong
burt: You’re correct and incorrect. The girlfriend keeps criticizing my use of language.
What I meant was that there are certainly union members, definitely NZLP members (me for instance), probably green members, maybe feminists, etc writing on this site. Whale has proved that this is the case for unionists, although why he didn’t just look at the About which implicitly says that is beyond me. The trade unionists have been the heart of the labour movement for a long time.
Whale’s main thesis is that the site is run by one or more of EPMU, NZLP and/or 9th floor. That he hasn’t proved. He is wrong in his basic assumption because the site is run and paid for by me – as my credit card shows each month. I’ve stated that many times and I do it so the left has a place to post and talk about issues. It is a bonus that we can also get them discussed by people from all over the political spectrum, I think that is useful, and try to maintain that attribute of the site. Obviously Whale thinks I’m lying so I think he is a fool because that is what you see in the comments on the site.
His second thesis is that the posts are written from work by various contributors. There even I have limits. They aren’t written from parliament IP’s because I’d see that. Most of the large posts are written out of work hours from their log histories and the scheduled times. A lot of the smaller ones are written at are what a roughly break times. I wrote quite a long one today at work in small breaks over a hour or so while I was waiting for things to happen.
Am I going to bother to prove any of this? Absolutely not because the only way to do it is to look at the full logs, and that would identify not only the posters but also the commentators – see the Policy.
Take the blogs as they are written by the writers. They will use material from other people. The material they are written from turns up in the mailboxes from all over the place (I get a lot which I pass on to the mailing list), links to other sites, speculative ideas, post suggestions, photos, PDF’s, etc. It is a way for people to get things aired in public.
Am we going to confirm or deny peoples identities – nope. It’d be pretty easy even for a incompetent like Whale to simply work through a list of politically active leftie people (there aren’t that many in NZ). So we don’t discuss identity, and I don’t even know who most of them are in real life. They are just gmail addresses.
The bloated ego can keep jerking off in his number inflated corner of the blogosphere. He is ineffectual in proving his speculations and will continue to be so because even I can’t prove them true or false, and I run the site. The site was set up that way because that made it impossible to hack it and to break into peoples real identities. That is why the blog posters here can operate with a degree of freedom that will not impact back onto their real life. All of Whales crap is just smear designed to detract from the content of the posts using an irrelevant speculation that is impossible for him to prove and impossible for me to disprove. Besides it gives the pathetic bugger something to write about, and he really needs it as his writing is appalling – sort of like the Truth on P and with about the same level of content.
But if his speculations get repeated here even by inference on this site – I’m going to boot people permanently and with extreme malice. I’m tired of it, it is only used to try to distract from a post or comments, and it is a waste of bandwidth that I’m paying for. Besides I could do to reduce server loadings.
The little stats server here runs noon-noon Noon-midnight page views are just below the page views for the whole of yesterday. Yesterdays page views were a record. Throwing idiots off the system may lessen the load – it is cheaper than the next server upgrade.
“If it isn’t the same plane, well there should be enough detail to pick off the numbers on the tail. A detailed description of the differences between the models would probably assist that. I can’t see a difference myself from these cruddy photo’s.”
You can’t see the difference, therefore it must be his plane?
Like I said, it’s election year. You NZLP activists will try anything, won’t you.
“I’d still like to know what in the hell Ashcroft is doing here. We’ll probably find out when Hager writes his next politics book from sources inside the sieve.”
There was a little matter of the medals that were returned. But I suppose that doesn’t make a good book.
Honestly, you need to be more objective, if you can find the time between pretending nobody’s noticed Clark smearing the SFO.
It was John McCain’s lawyers, they are vetting JK for veep.
They want someone like Obama, and they just found out Palin’s a woman, so she’s out.
Looks like a retraction from all_your_base is in order. Those be different planes.
J Mex, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
HS,
Thank you so much for promoting my Blog. I might actually go up a few places in the blogosphere because of you. I am currently number 35 whereas your hero Slippery John is number 54. Not bad for a single blogger only out to inform people and give them some real news for a change.
About the conspiracy thing you seem so hung up on let me enlighten you about the terms you use so loosely and erroneously.
Conspiracy
Synonyms: plotting, intrigue, huggermugger, trickery, scheming, secrecy, manoeuvring
Synonyms: intrigue, plot, deception, stratagem, manoeuvre, ruse, scheme
So when John Key and other people from National secretly meet with Lord Ashcroft who is known for his right-wing secret funding, who is known for supporting secret donations, who is a ruthless wheeler dealer and who helped Howard change election laws to make undisclosed donations possible and we only found out because a journalist actually did his job, the above synonyms apply.
Fact no 1. Lord Aschroft came to Auckland
Fact no 2. John Key and Lord Ashcroft met
Fact no 3. They tried to keep it secret
Facts combined = Conspiracy
We don’t know what they conspire about but two powerful men meeting secretly with a known penchant for wheeling dealing and secrecy spells a conspiracy.
Do we know if they are conspiring something criminal or something which would be disapproved of by the general public? No we don’t but we do know that politics often are about back room deals and the deception of the voting public.
From the fact that Lord Ashcroft has a history of secret donations and John Key and National through another bit of intrepid civil journalism we do know that the like to keep secrets and do not want the voter to know their real agenda. What we don’t know is what that secret agenda is.
So in order to point out a “conspiracy” we do not have to prove what it is that the conspirators are conspiring about. Just two or more people keeping secrets for reasons only known to them is a conspiracy. The fact is that News 3 caught a politician, who wants to be trusted and voted for, doing something he wanted to keep secret from the people he wants to vote for him.
Conspiracy Theory
Theory
Synonyms: philosophy, model, concept, system, scheme, idea, notion, principle, belief, rule, technique
Synonyms: hypothesis, conjecture, speculation, assumption, premise, presumption, supposition, guess
When an event occurs and it is clearly the result of people planning and conspiring to perpetrate this event and a theory about why and how this could have happened without a sound criminal and crimescene investigation is announced as the truth without actual proof as to their involvement than that is a Conspiracy theory.
When a perpetrator or perpetrators are accused and even in light of the impossibility of them having been involved in the way the theorists claim than their conspiracy theory becomes a “mad Conspiracy theory”.
When it becomes clear that their theory falters in just about every single claim they make and they still hold on to that theory you are looking at “crazy Conspiracy nutters”.
911Truth movement
movement (n)
Synonyms: drive, crusade, undertaking, program, measure, effort
The 911 truth movement is a movement of millions of people around the world who come from an amazing different variety of walks of live. We don’t profess to know the truth. We are in search of the truth. That is a big difference.
What we do know is that we have not been told the truth by the American Government, FEMA, NIST and the 911 commission.
What we do know is that the Anthrax used in the Anthrax attacks after the 911 Attacks was a US military grade weaponised strain only produced in one location in the US. Fort Derrick. So it could not have been 19 hijackers or other “terrorists” who send this to News paper outlets and two vehemently anti war Democratic senators.
We also do know that Cheney and Bush started to take Cipro, a Anti dote to Anthrax on the day of the 911 attacks
And we what also know is that in the case of the attack on Iraq the world has been lied into this war.
How do we know?
Scholars, Pilots, FAA professionals, Architects, Engineers, Firefighters, Military,Journalists, Film-makers, Family members of the victims of 911 and down right dedicated citizens have been able to prove is that the official “Conspiracy” theory could not have occurred.
What this group has been able to prove is that the chemical signature of Nano thermite (a military quality incendiary and explosive used to blow up buildings) and nano sized iron spheres indicating a far higher temperature than was possible with Kerosene and office fires was abundant in the dust of WTC 1, 2 and 3
What this group has been able to prove is that the biggest crime scene ever in New York was destroyed in an unprecedented fashion and much to the distress of the police, fire-fighters and other crime investigation professionals.
What we have been able to establish that a crime has been committed but it could not have been done by 19 hijackers with box cutters.
So in order to find out who perpetrated the atrocities on that day we urgently ask for a new and independent investigation based on science and sound criminal investigative protocols by a commission of professionals and surviving family members with subpoena power and proper funding so that we may find out what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and perhaps even who did it.
We want real answers and justice for the people who died on that day, who are still dying because of the dust and the toxins they breathed in on that day, for the family members, for the soldiers who died in the wars and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq who died and suffered as a result of the events of that day.
[lprent: Spam engine caught it. TE: I’ll give you leeway (this time) – but please do this size of ‘comment’ on your own site and link to it.]
Oops purgatory again. Too many links me thinks. Sorry, Iprent could you check it out?
Sure, will do. Thanks Iprent.
None of the above excludes the possibility that Ashcroft visited Wellington.
Yes Tara – In fact it is likely that Ashcroft had his plane repainted between Auckland and Wellington.
When AYB’s whole post is based on a photo of a plane though, and that photo is shown to be of the wrong plane, the least one could do is to acknowledge the error.
“None of the above excludes the possibility that Ashcroft visited Wellington.”
None of the above excludes the possibility that Ashcroft is one of David Irving’s lizard men either, but in rational circles we put the burden of evidence on proof.
Unfortunately AYB doesn’t see the world the same way, or he would have retracted by now.
Well he does look a bit lizardy. And he spits when he talks.
Still, I maintain that he was probably here to sell Johnny a plane. He’s always wanted one.
Comment for Burt and everyone – has anyone actually proved which plane Ashcroft flew to New Zealand in?
Just because he owns BMS, does that prove he came to NZ in it this time around? It could be sitting in a hangar with the engines being overhauled.
There is a very interesting point about the other aircraft, and BMS, that they both have the initial registration letters VP, which means a British colony, most VPs seem to be Carribean islands. Could be they are both registered in the same country.
I have consulted the source and he has replied as follows:
Swampy’s reference to VP-BMS and 12 windows seems to have been taken from googling by ‘Falcon 900’ and ‘Ashcroft’ to give
and similar sites.
VP-BZE photographed in Wellington appears to be a later, slightly extended model, consistent with what a billionaire ex-Treasurer of the British Conservative Party would fly.
The pool of executive jets in Aotearoa is very small so it is unlikely that another Falcon Dassault 900 would just happen to be passing through.
The CAA should have a record of aircraft movements.
Unfortunately, the resolution of the shot from TV3’s footage was not great enough to count the windows. Could someone nicely ask TV3 to count the windows on that jet if there are any better images ?
It is unlikely that he was travelling such great distances alone at considerable cost. Who else was on the plane ?
Could Key’s conservative reforms in NZ be a model for those mooted in the UK after the next election ?
Tara Swampy, those are interesting points. Except Lord Ashcroft is known as only having one plane, which is the one featured by TV3, and is consistent with the registration numbers. The plane in Wellington is not a Dassault Falcon 900. It is a Dassault Falcon 7x.
Now, given that we know Lord Ashcroft came to Auckland, and that his plane, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, with Ashcroft’s registration numbers, was filmed at Auckland airport, what do you think the chances are that a second plane, a different model, filmed at Wellington airport, also belonged to Ashcroft?
Pretty close to nil, I would say. I am not saying that Ashcroft didn’t go to Wellington. I have no idea whether he did. All I am saying is that the picture of the plane at Wellington airport, which appeared at the Standard, does not belong to Ashcroft, and is not any evidence that he was in Wellington, which is what the Standard claimed.
What the Standard’s picture does show is that a Falcon 7x was in Wellington. We know this is not Ashcroft’s jet. It is a very nice jet though, worth about US $40 million. I have no idea who owns it. Probably not a New Zealander. The Brazilian Foreign minister was in New Zealand at that time. Could be his.
I reckon it was the former Cardinal Ratzinger, schooling Bill English on how to win caucus leadership votes.
Tim: I agree, it’s a Falcon 7X
see ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Falcon_7X.jpg
and ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Falcon_7X
.. but I’m not clear that TV3 shows a 900 or a 7X taking off at Auckland with Ashcroft in it. It would be nice if someone could count the windows to prove or disprove it .. but at this point its a bit academic.
It is certainly interesting that he was around at the time of the Owen Glen saga which has yet to play itself out.
Tim:
“The Brazilian Foreign minister was in New Zealand at that time. Could be his.”
Foreign dignitaries are usually welcomed at the International Terminal.
Private individuals, such as Ashcroft, generally use the Flight Center .. near where VP-BZE stood waiting.
“Lord Ashcroft has become a significant figure in Australian politics having been identified as the single largest individual donor to any Australian political party during the Financial Year 2004/2005. The Australian Electoral Commission reported in February 2006 that Ashcroft (who gave his address as “House of Lords, Westminster, London”) had donated $1,000,000 to the Liberal Party in September 2004 just before the 2004 Federal election. It was the biggest single disclosed private donation in Australian political history.[10]
Over the last weekend of August 2008, Lord Ashcroft flew into Auckland, New Zealand in his private Lear Jet. While there he was confirmed to have met with senior figures from the New Zealand National Party; the main opposition party in the upcoming New Zealand general elections.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ashcroft
Tim, Swampy:
VP-BZE could be derived from Belize of which Ashcroft is a national. See ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ashcroft
VP-BMS is recorded at airliners.net and other sites as being owned by Flying Lion, a company owned by Ashcroft which according to some other sites “has only one major asset…a Falcon 900”.
I found two websites that linked VP-BZE with Flying Lion as well:
http://www.airframes.org/reg/vpbze and
http://www.ecacnav.com/Content.asp?PageID=128&OpNum=11050&Operator=FLYING+LION+LTD.
The latter site lists both of the abovementioned aircraft under Flying Lion’s name.
Is there any recorded footage that positively identifies that BMS was here last weekend? It was here when Ashcroft came over in April in conjunction with the VCs.
Tara
Do you think that Labour asked Ashcroft for a donation?
Swampy:
1. There is no footage of which I am aware that BMS was here last weekend. It appears that he used BZE on this trip
2. Did Labour ask Ashcroft for a donation ?
Dunno. I don’t think they’d bother given his history.
“In the UK, he was a major donor to and Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 1998 to 2001, under William Hague. His tenure was marked by a number of controversies: he was seen to pay little UK income tax due to his domicile in Belize; and he was at the centre of a debate about openness and accountability of political funding.
Unsubstantiated speculation about his business affairs was concluded when he pursued a libel action against The Times. This was settled on 9 December 1999, when The Times issued a statement that “[…] Litigation between the parties has been settled to mutual satisfaction, with each side bearing its own costs.”[8]
In 2004 he clashed with Conservative leader Michael Howard when he offered a £2m donation on the condition that it should go to his specified candidates, rather than into general Conservative Central Office funds.
In December 2005, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.[9]
On 12th October 2007 he was accused by Labour MP’s for being allowed to heavily fund the local Conservative organisations in marginal seats of his choosing. The Electoral Commission is investigating and changes to the rules are predicted.
During the “Cash for Peerages” controversy, on 31 March 2006 he was named by the Conservative Party as having loaned it £3.6m.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ashcroft
“Draco TB
September 2, 2008 at 1:14 pm
It’s a Dassault Falcon 50. Quite a nice aircraft – one that I fully enjoyed flying in MS Flight Sim 2000. Other than that – I have NFI what this post is about.”
The registration code VP-BZE was previously used by a Falcon 50 that has since been re-registered in the US.
Since the Falcon 7X is such a new aircraft (RTM about a year ago) the current usage BZE must be fairly recently registered in Bermuda.
“Welcome aboard Air Ashcroft, the Tories’ favourite airline”
David Hencke, The Guardian,
Saturday November 3 2007
When Gordon Brown does his weekly commute between Edinburgh and London, he flies with British Airways or BMI on scheduled flights crammed with other passengers. By contrast, when David Cameron touched down in Khartoum last November for a fact-finding mission to Darfur, his relaxation was due in no small part to a journey spent on the supple leather couches of a Falcon 900 private jet.
Courtesy of millionaire donor Lord Ashcroft, shadow cabinet ministers have enjoyed the use of the luxury jet on trips to Israel, China, Mali and the Czech Republic, according to information in the Parliamentary Register of Interests and declarations to the Electoral Commission.
The trips – 32 so far – have already attracted questions from Labour MPs and led to a complaint to the commission that Michael Ashcroft’s largesse has been significantly underestimated, possibly by as much as £500,000, in declarations of the perk’s value to the Tory frontbench.
Altogether shadow cabinet ministers and aides have flown 184,000 miles on the Ashcroft jet over the last five years with Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, flying 65,453 miles and shadow foreign secretary William Hague flying 49,670 miles.
Analysis conducted for the Guardian reveals that Tory globetrotting has racked up 1,289 tonnes of carbon emissions. The biggest footprint was made by Michael Ancram when he was shadow foreign secretary and shadow defence secretary, according to environmental consultants Carbon Footprint. Mr Ancram’s flights emitted 372 tonnes, including trips to Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt and Poland. The plane’s movements are being tracked by planespotters who logged it leaving Luton empty to fly to Khartoum to pick up Mr Cameron and return him to Britain. Indeed spotting the Ashcroft jet seems to have become a bit of cult on spotter blogs.
Lord Ashcroft’s generosity through his Bermuda-registered firm Flying Lion allows the Tory leader and his colleagues to travel in style to global hotspots. The jet features “supple leathers, glistening veneers and deep pile carpet as standard”, according to its French maker, Dassault.
It boasts a galley that “houses all the essentials for a fine dining experience 45,000ft in the air”. Comfort is generous, with a 7ft-wide cabin “so you can move easily with your head held high” and the jet has satellite communications and full conference facilities. For anyone thinking of investing in this kind of luxury, the typical asking price for a second-hand one is around $30m (£14.3m).
But it is the value placed on the flights that has drawn criticism. Mr Hague declares a trip on Lord Ashcroft’s jet to Belize, Brazil, the Falklands, Iceland and Panama as being worth £8,486, the equivalent of flying first-class. Yet to hire a Falcon with Premier Aviation would cost £55,000 for a one-way trip to New York alone.
Labour MP Tom Watson said: “There appears to be a huge discrepancy between, say, David Cameron’s declaration of £16,000 for the cost of his trip to Darfur and the cost of hiring a similar jet from a commercial firm. I got a quote of over £100,000 to hire a jet to go to Khartoum.”
Lord Ashcroft is relaxed about the plane and faintly amused that he is now the subject of interest among planespotters: “Am I becoming a cult figure like Madonna?” he said. He is also unrepentant about making it available to the Tory frontbench on a bigger scale in the future. “I hope it will be used by all the shadow cabinet over the next few years,” he added.
Lord Ashcroft is not the only person to make private aircraft available to the Tory frontbench. Mr Cameron’s carbon footprint is much higher if another 68 internal flights, including a short helicopter ride from Birmingham to Warwick, are taken into account. He has flown just over 3,700 miles on the Ashcroft jet.
The green cost
The Falcon burns about 3,000 US gallons of fuel to cover its maximum range of 4-5,000 miles. A Boeing 777 uses about 30,000 US gallons to cover the same distance. But the Boeing can carry 300 people, which significantly reduces its carbon footprint per passenger kilometre, the usual yardstick for emissions. If the Falcon flew with three passengers, then each would be responsible for 10 times as much pollution as those in the Boeing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/nov/03/uk.conservatives
[lprent: Please don’t quote the whole article into a comment. Quote a few selected juicy bits (teasers) and then provide a link is usually sufficent. You’ll find that regardless of how interesting the article is at least a high proportion of the participants here will regard it as a waste of bandwidth. They usually start moaning after some repeated occourances, and I get involved.
Bugger – just found the first limit in google chrome – no dictionary. Switching back to firefox. ]
Thanks, point taken, but I thought this was a good one ..
“Please don’t quote the whole article into a comment. Quote a few selected juicy bits (teasers) and then provide a link is usually sufficent. ”
Is it possible to edit that entry retrospectively, according to your guidelines ?
Tim, there’s no record of the Brazilian Air Force owning any Dassault Falcon aircraft. The nearest thing they have are three Learjets. They might have also used one of ten Embraers to fly the Minister in.
It’s the CIA doing a black bag secret rendition jobby. The GOP is worried that Colin Powell has gone completely off the reservation and was about to endorse Obama, see. So they’ve whisked him down here, and they’ve got the poor bugger tied to a chair with Judith bloody Collins in full on scold mode at him in 3 hr stretches.
It’s inhuman I tells ya.
Michael Ashcroft commissioned a programme of research, with the aim of building a clear picture of public opinion on the questions that would determine the outcome of the general election.
As well as measuring the true level of support for the parties he sought to establish the underlying attributes associated with each, and how these changed during the course of the election campaign. Crucially, he also aimed to establish whether the state of opinion in marginal constituencies reflected that in Britain as a whole.
…
including the biggest political poll ever conducted in Britain, with a sample of 10,000. This included:
* a tracking poll monitoring daily movements in opinion from January 2005 until the May election
* polls and focus groups in specific marginal constituencies around the country
* a national post-election ‘call-back’ survey to establish why people voted as they did
..
http://www.populuslimited.com/michael-ashcroft-case-study.html
During the run-up to the May 2005 general election, Michael Ashcroft became interested in political opinion polls. Using two respected polling companies, he decided to commission some research of his own. Once his polls had been analysed, they produced some fascinating findings and some valuable lessons for the Conservative Party.
He began to become interested in political polling in the autumn of 2004 at a time when he was already working to help Conservative candidates win and hold on to some of the most marginal seats up and down the country.
Initially, he concentrated his research in these key marginal seats but then, as his fascination with polling grew, he decided to conduct a vast poll of 10,000 voters (the usual size is 1,500 people) in order to produce the biggest ever poll in the UK on political attitudes. Initially, he did this out of self-interest but in July 2005 he published the findings for all to see.
Between mid January 2005 and the eve of polling day in May 2005, he also conducted a daily Americanstyle “tracker poll’ which he hoped would show how voters were responding to key Tory policies in the run-up to the general election.
http://www.lordashcroft.com/politics/generalelectionreport.html
Why is Michael Ashcroft considered an election winning expert?
Written by Mark Pack on 28th August 2007 ? 1:50 pm
Lord Ashcroft, the controverisal former Conservative Treasurer and now Deputy Chairman, is back in the news again. Over the weekend, the Daily Mail ran a piece about internal Conservative disagrements over his role and there?s been plenty of criticism of him on Conservative Home, some of which made The Guardian.
Defenders of Ashcroft essentially say: he knows what it takes to win elections so having Ashcroft in charge and the serial losers being given the push is a good thing.
But how good is Ashcroft?
Well, here?s his own account of his record supporting target seats at the 2005 general election:
The national swing from Labour to Conservatives was 3.2 per cent, yet the swing in the seats which we supported was 3.8 per cent.
Dirty Politics, Dirty Times by Michael Ashcroft, p.296
You read that right: by his own admission, all his expertise and money achieved was a paltry o.6 per cent extra swing.
Given the campaign I ran at the general election secured a Labour to Liberal Democrats swing that was 9.8 points above the national average, I guess that makes me 16.3 times better than Lord Ashcroft 🙂
Do drop me a line Michael; my consultancy rates would be very competitive?
http://www.libdemvoice.org/michael-ashcroft-1239.html
Is Lord Ashcroft ashamed to live here?
By Rachel Sylvester
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 04/12/2007
Have your say Read comments
He has a powerful empire, a network of agents and a Caribbean hideaway. It is not surprising that some of David Cameron’s most senior allies refer to Lord Ashcroft, privately, as “Blofeld”.
# Andrew Gimson: Lord Ashcroft – reveal yourself
# Three Line Whip: The fag end of a Government
# Three Line Whip: Cameron and Brown, cat and mouse
The millionaire deputy chairman of the Conservative Party directs the operations of SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Capturing Target seats, from his well-equipped suite of offices in Millbank Tower. The only thing missing is a white cat. The Tories’ presiding electoral genius pores over Sudoku puzzles instead.
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Yesterday, the Conservative leader defended Lord Ashcroft, at his monthly press conference, by saying that he is responsible for only four per cent of donations to the Tory party, far less than David Sainsbury or Lakshmi Mittal have given to Labour.
He was “happy”, he said, with the assurances he has been given that the peer’s tax and residency status are in order.
But Mr Cameron knows as well as anyone that the mud being thrown at Labour over sleaze will stick to all politicians in the end.
Every morning, as Tory strategists meet to discuss their battle plan, they ask whether they are missing anything damaging in their own affairs. They can be sure of one thing. When the spotlight does eventually move away from Gordon Brown and towards Mr Cameron it will linger long and hard on Lord Ashcroft.
# Three Line Whip: Optimism and the Olympics
# Brassneck: Mind your tone, Mr Cameron
Privately, senior figures around the Conservative leader have been worried about the party’s dependence on the peer for some time. As deputy chairman, Lord Ashcroft is more powerful than ever.
He does not just give donations, he is also responsible for the party’s polling and target seat strategy. When the shadow cabinet is briefed on focus group or poll research, it is Lord Ashcroft who presents the results. That puts him in an extraordinarily powerful position.
The party may not be, as one senior Tory put it, a “wholly owned subsidiary of Ashcroft plc” but part of it has certainly been captured by his management team.
The concerns that first circulated when Mr Cameron took over are beginning to resurface. Senior Tories warn that the deputy chairman is running a “party within a party”. Some MPs mutter that he could be their leader’s Achilles’ heel.
Certainly, Lord Ashcroft is a generous benefactor. According to the Electoral Commission website, he has given almost £2.6 million to the Conservatives since 2003.
About half of this comes in the form of donations in kind – polling, focus group work, consultancy work and at one point last year, rather bizarrely, £5,927.88 for “bottle openers”.
The peer also frequently flies senior Tories around in his private jet – David Cameron, William Hague, Andrew Mitchell, Patrick McLoughlin and David Davis have all used it.
Recently, he paid for the Tory leader, and several shadow cabinet ministers, to attend the rugby world cup in Paris.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/12/04/do0401.xml
Ashcroft & the DEA
..snip..
On July 13 the London Times published two leaked foreign office documents. The first involved a telegram written in 1997 by the British high commissioner in Belize, Gordon Barker, cautioning against the appointment of Ashcroft to the chair of the Caribbean trade advisory group. It warned that the Belize government viewed him with “deep suspicion’ and remarked that rumors concerning his business deals cast a “shadow over his reputation that ought not to be ignored.’
This was followed by a 1994 report by a British foreign office adviser calling for tighter regulation of financial services in Belize and noting with some alarm that “low standards of regulation and supervision’ were attracting “those seeking to conceal proceeds of drug trafficking and other serious crime.’
Ashcroft’s response was allegedly to quash the report and solicit the British government to intervene on his behalf. Another document involved a letter from a local diplomat in 1996, Charles Drace-Francis, stating that Ashcroft made threats to the effect that he would “stir up trouble’ for Britain unless he were allowed to set up a branch of his Belize bank in the Turks and Caicos islands.
Four days later the Times disclosed that Mr. Ashcroft’s name appeared in a series of files kept by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as part of its investigations into drug trafficking and money laundering in Belize. It later transpired that cocaine was found on at least two ships sailing under the Belize “flag of convenience’ in 1994, under a shipping register in which Mr. Ashcroft had a 50 percent stake until earlier this year.
The attempted rebuttal to such charges by the Conservative Party Central Office, as well as the pro-Tory Telegraph and Daily Mail newspapers, was far from emphatic. A statement by the US State Department to the effect that no conclusive proof had been established connecting Michael Ashcroft with money laundering and no specific concerns had been raised with either the British or Belize governments was released.
The Times then published an article which explained that Ashcroft had been index-numbered on the files of the DEA, a step taken only when serious suspicions exist. On the same day Peter Bradley, Labour MP for Wrekin, raised explicit allegations within Parliament. Utilising the legal immunity afforded under parliamentary privilege, Bradley stated that Ashcroft and his companies had been repeatedly mentioned in connection with money laundering by the DEA. Among the most incriminating examples was one document dated April 1994 with the heading: “Intelligence concerning possible air smuggling/money laundering activity undertaken by Michael Ashcroft.’
.. snip ..
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/ash-a04.shtml
Michael Ashcroft: Special Report
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ashcroft/
UK Parliament hears Ashcroft allegations
The House of Commons has heard details from a series of documents linking Conservative treasurer Michael Ashcroft to drug trafficking.
Labour MP Peter Bradley used parliamentary privilege to read from files, which he said came from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the International Narcotics Bureau.
.. snip ..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/400078.stm
UK: The Ashcroft Affair – The Accusation
Verbatim Text Of The Speech In The House Of Commons Yesterday By Peter Bradley, Labour Mp For The Wrekin, Questioning Michael Ashcroft’S Activities:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n754.a01.html
On Ashcroft & Belize, see
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=5SpfhmFHyjwC&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=ashcroft+belize&source=web&ots=k1lVXGdjNB&sig=nGdTVaoFyC7F6KEL0iRwwk7kBEk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result
Tara:
You’re a spammer of epic proportions. Cut and paste do not a thoughtful post make.
I see AYB hasn’t retracted this post yet, either. AYB, is Key still a bona fide member of the secret order of baby eating nine rich white men secretly ruling the world still?