| Tessa Jowell Financial Allegations |
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| 2006 in the united kingdom | |
The case has been cited as a further example of ' Sleaze ' which is commonly used to refer to inherent corruption when large sums of money come together with the world of politics and politicians. ACCUSATIONS
The Italian state prosecutors believe that instead Mills was being paid for giving false or misleading evidence in court for Berlusconi in the early 1990s (an accusation denied by Mills). Mills wrote a letter to his accountants in February 2004 which appears to be describing a payment; he claims he was inventing a scenario to get tax advice, using the euphemism "Mr B".
JOWELL'S INVOLVEMENT COMES UNDER SCRUTINY Jowell was herself implicated when it was revealed that she had, in September 2000, co-signed a mortgage application on the house in North London which she and Mills jointly owned. In a statement on 2 March she said that Mills had wanted to make an investment and they took out a loan using their London home as security, and she had therefore signed the relevant papers. Mills had a number of investments and she knew there would be no difficulty in repaying the loan. She added that she knew nothing more about the nature of the investment. The loan was repaid shortly after it was taken out in September 2000. Jowell said that she was not aware of this redemption until the newspaper speculation surrounding this affair in early 2006. The significance of the mortgage is that it has been alleged that taking it out, and then subsequently repaying it, was a means for Mills to convert the money he had received, which had previously been placed on Mills behalf into a Hedge Fund , into a more accessible form of cash. Jowell subsequently stated in a letter to the Cabinet Secretary that she first became aware of her husband's receipt of a large sum of money as a gift in August 2004. The money was paid in September 2000, and the Ministerial Code requires that money received as a gift be declared. By the time that Jowell became aware of the money, Mills had already agreed with the Inland Revenue that it should be classified as earnings on which tax, which may have included a penalty, was paid. (The Inland Revenue will never confirm in public the tax affairs of private people) Ministerial code With accusations that Jowell was implicated in questionable financial dealings, in early March 2006 the Prime Minister invited the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to investigate the circumstances, in particular whether there was a conflict of interest between her personal life and ministerial duties (the Ministerial Code requires a minister to avoid such clashes and to report all such potential interests to the Permanent Secretary of the department, in the case of the DCMS, Dame Sue Street ). After receiving Sir Gus' report , the Prime Minister announced that he did not consider that Jowell had broken the Ministerial Code. The Conservatives and many other MPs have raised questions about whether the senior civil servants, who are otherwise responsible for implementing ministerial policy and for advising ministers - and who therefore work closely with them on a day-to-day basis, are the appropriate people to be performing monitoring or investigative functions. Explicitly avoiding any impugning of the integrity of the civil servants, critics have argued that some form of outside body should be responsible for such functions. Blair's personal friendship and political alliance with Silvio Berlusconi1, a right-wing politician, have also been highlighted as a cause for unease and as the context in which Mills' actions (and Jowell's apparently-unquestioning acceptance of them) were not challenged earlier from within government "Martin Jacques: ''New Labour must recognise that Berlusconi is the devil''" , Guardian, 16 March 2006 . Parliamentary rules On 6 March 2006, following a meeting with the Parliamentary Commissioner For Standards to discuss her entry in the Register Of MPs' Interests , Sir Philip Mawer the standards watchdog, told Jowell that she did not need to give any more details about her husband's financial dealings. Questions had been raised about her returns for the register, which had not declared the receipt of the money. SEPARATION On 4 March 2006 it was announced that Jowell and Mills were to separate after their marriage was "put under strain" following the allegations "David Mills statement" , Times, 4 March 2006 ; the timing prompted some commentators to suggest that it was a cynical case of Jowell laying down her marriage to save her political career. However, Jowell's insistence that she had not known about the circumstances of the financial payment have been cited by her defenders as the reason why she should felt hurt and kept in the dark by her husband. OTHER ALLEGATIONS The concern over Jowell and Mills' financial dealings with the money from Berlusconi has led journalists to investigate their other activities. Dubai It was revealed that Mills had written to the , 5 March 2006 . The application was rejected by the Dubai authorities because Mills had sought to conceal the fact that Italian prosecutors were investigating his business affairs. Old Monk pub chain Some newspapers claimed Mills made a £67,000 profit in Struie Holdings , an Off-shore share venture in the Virgin Islands , which involved a pub chain controlled by the Old Monk Company . At the time of the deal the government was considering changes to licensing policy (with Jowell closely involved), which raised concerns that her husband may have profited by knowing what changes were proposed. However, when challenged by a Conservative MP, Jowell said that she "had never heard of this company or the transactions until this weekend" (4/5 March) and added "I understand the shares were never owned by my husband". On 8 March it was reported that court documents show that while Mills was never the owner of Struie Holdings, he did receive the profits from its investments, including the one made in Old Monk. The documents also include a claim by the company's owner, , 8 March 2006 . Iran On 12 March 2006 the '' 2006 . PROCEDURAL CHANGES Sir , 9 March 2006 . On , 16 March 2006 . SEE ALSO REFERENCES |
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