Billionaire lairds, sporting estates and Conservative Party donors in receipt of millions of pounds of public grants are among the owners of businesses which broke the rules around rural subsidies.
> Owners or partners of companies with the most breaches include some of the UK’s richest people, hereditary lords, **and the brother of Scottish secretary Alister Jack.**
> Others include a NatureScot board member and former chair of Scottish Land and Estates, and a former adviser to Defra, which administers rural payments in England.
> Some are former Tory politicians, while others have collectively given nearly £1m to the party, including directly to Jack, and to Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross.
Our media will be all over all of this no doubt.
It honestly feels like everywhere you look now there’s just rampant corruption
The phrase ‘Tory donors broke rules’ is pretty redundant, isn’t it?
Surely the only reason they donate in the first place is so they can get away with some high calibre rule breaking (and get fast tracked for juicy ‘government contracts’).
Noooo. Shocked I am, shocked.
Of course they did.
Benefit cheats. Sunak said he wanted to clamp down and the tories put in place legislation to jail them for longer. I won’t be holding my breath.
Thank god they didn’t delete some WhatsApp messages though
Dear plebs,
When are you going to get it though your tiny peasant brains that the rules don’t apply to us?
Signed – *The wealthy*.
Jack and Ross got donations form dodgy fraudsters….
Well I hope they’ll be voluntarily given that to charity now the article is public…
Also
“Breaches are extremely rare”
And
“Of the 11,200 applicants, more than half (6,300) made breaches”
Errrr
“Eleanor Kay, Scottish Land and Estates’ senior policy adviser for agriculture and climate change, said applying for rural payments “is a hugely complex process” and all types and sizes of landowners had made breaches.
The “vast majority” would have been made “in good faith” and knowingly false applications were “highly unusual”, she stressed. “Errors can occur due to small-scale mapping changes when new more accurate maps are being produced or subtle changes during an inspection.
“This may result in payment reductions being made of only a few pence or pounds but will still be recorded as a breach.” “
I wonder if there’s different types classification to more clearly separate minor breaches from major ones. A key tactic in hiding a major rule break would be to bury it in a pile of minor ones. Landowner-connected groups keep insisting most of these are minor “technical” breaches.
I think that would help deprive these owners of a key tool to more clearly outline a minor breach and major breach when these errors have been found.
Tories broke rules.
The other 7 words were overkill.
15 comments
Billionaire lairds, sporting estates and Conservative Party donors in receipt of millions of pounds of public grants are among the owners of businesses which broke the rules around rural subsidies.
> Owners or partners of companies with the most breaches include some of the UK’s richest people, hereditary lords, **and the brother of Scottish secretary Alister Jack.**
> Others include a NatureScot board member and former chair of Scottish Land and Estates, and a former adviser to Defra, which administers rural payments in England.
> Some are former Tory politicians, while others have collectively given nearly £1m to the party, including directly to Jack, and to Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross.
Our media will be all over all of this no doubt.
It honestly feels like everywhere you look now there’s just rampant corruption
The phrase ‘Tory donors broke rules’ is pretty redundant, isn’t it?
Surely the only reason they donate in the first place is so they can get away with some high calibre rule breaking (and get fast tracked for juicy ‘government contracts’).
Noooo. Shocked I am, shocked.
Of course they did.
Benefit cheats. Sunak said he wanted to clamp down and the tories put in place legislation to jail them for longer. I won’t be holding my breath.
Thank god they didn’t delete some WhatsApp messages though
Dear plebs,
When are you going to get it though your tiny peasant brains that the rules don’t apply to us?
Signed – *The wealthy*.
Jack and Ross got donations form dodgy fraudsters….
Well I hope they’ll be voluntarily given that to charity now the article is public…
Also
“Breaches are extremely rare”
And
“Of the 11,200 applicants, more than half (6,300) made breaches”
Errrr
“Eleanor Kay, Scottish Land and Estates’ senior policy adviser for agriculture and climate change, said applying for rural payments “is a hugely complex process” and all types and sizes of landowners had made breaches.
The “vast majority” would have been made “in good faith” and knowingly false applications were “highly unusual”, she stressed. “Errors can occur due to small-scale mapping changes when new more accurate maps are being produced or subtle changes during an inspection.
“This may result in payment reductions being made of only a few pence or pounds but will still be recorded as a breach.” “
I wonder if there’s different types classification to more clearly separate minor breaches from major ones. A key tactic in hiding a major rule break would be to bury it in a pile of minor ones. Landowner-connected groups keep insisting most of these are minor “technical” breaches.
I think that would help deprive these owners of a key tool to more clearly outline a minor breach and major breach when these errors have been found.
Tories broke rules.
The other 7 words were overkill.
Tories and billionaires continue to be scum.
In other news, the ocean continues to be water.
Rosebery Estates are particularly bad for this
Socialism for the rich.