Latest figures from the Electoral Commission reveal that Zac Goldsmith, Conservative candidate for Richmond Park, has spent more than a quarter of a million pounds of his own money in the hope of getting elected.
From today’s London Evening Standard:
“The environmentalist has donated £260,000 since he was selected to fight the Richmond Park seat in 2007, according to the latest figures from the Electoral Commission…
“Virtually all of the money goes to office staff and “office costs”. The party says that Mr Goldsmith set up his own office in Richmond, separate to the local association’s headquarters. The candidate employs two members of staff to help him campaign…
“Today, Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said: “Zac Goldsmith seems to think he can buy a seat in Parliament as if he were punting on a roulette wheel. £250,000 is £3.50 and counting for every voter in Richmond Park.”
“But in a letter to local Tories, Mr Goldsmith pointed out that he pays full tax on his UK income. “I do not believe family wealth accords any entitlement whatsoever in democratic politics. But nor do I believe it should be a barrier to my continuing to work for the things we all believe in,” he wrote.”
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13 Comments
In a democracy, everyone whether rich or poor has 1 vote each.
But what is unfair is that rich individuals and wealthy businesses can skew the system in their favour with their money and this an example of this.
This should be stopped. Instead there should be limits to how much individuals can donate to political parties, and instead there should be state funding.
How dare he use his own money for this, he should use the proceeds of crime like the lib dems.
Hopefully this little gem hidden away at the bottom of the story will get more coverage as well …….
“The Standard has also learned that the Conservative Party continues to face legal action from the Electoral Commission over an illegal donation from Mr Goldsmith to his local party.”
Ah, Dave’s bestest friend is back.
Look, remember Asil Nadir? Paid a Conservative MP to ask questions on his behalf in the Commons? Made large donations to the Conservative Party? Absconded to Northern Cyprus to escape numerous charges of theft and fraud? To this day remains wanted on charges of theft of £34 million?
Yes, Micheal Brown is a crook. If we had known then what it took the full resources of the police and the judicial system to prove subsequently, we wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have taken the money. When you’re dealing with fraudsters, they tend to be pretty convincing. However, your mob aren’t without their issues over legality of fundraising either, as Mr Nadir demonstrates. Your fundraising isn’t entirely transparent either, is it?
So, before you get your pearl-encrusted rocks out, make sure that you’re outside your greenhouse first, eh?
Mark, people like “Jessica Ashman” don’t understand that accepting a donation after all the proper checks is not the same as deliberately spending “the proceeds of crime”. IMO they have this problem mainly because they don’t want to understand – they much prefer to try to deflect criticism of their own party. Or perhaps they are just really stupid.
@Geoffrey Payne: I’m not sure whether state funding is an improvement. We have it in Sweden, with the result that parties tend not to listen very much to their membership. Since state funding depends on numbers of seats and vote percentages (nationally and locally, since most municipalities also fund parties with representation) it tends to be biased towards incumbents. Also, now that the BNP-equivalent Sweden Democrats have got local councillors and over 2.5% of the national vote, they get dollops of my tax money, which I think is a bit rich. Fundamentally, why should I be forced to donate (through the tax system) to political parties I disagree with?
Ultimately party funding will always be a problem in Britain until someone can find a way of raising large amounts of money in many small donations like American politicians do (both Barack Obama and Ron Paul were striking examples of this in 2008). One small suggestion from me is to allow small donations, and membership subscriptions, to parties to be eligable for Gift Aid so that small gifts are tax-free. Apart from that we (in particular, since we don’t have trade unions or Lord Ashcroft backing us) need to put a lot of effort into grassroots fundraising.
Don’t forget to donate here: https://www.libdems.org.uk/make_a_donation.aspx 🙂
If Zac Goldsmith is a “non-Dom” and officially lives outside the UK for tax purposes, then he is only allowed in the UK for a limited number of days per year. Surely someone should be asking how many days a year he has been in the UK in 2009, as if its over the limit, then all of his loot is liable for taxation by the Revenue, regardless of where its tucked away.
@Philip
Sorry, no, this is a non-starter. You’re confusing domicile with residency (a common mistake). I think (I’m no tax lawyer) the difference is that if you’re non-resident you never have to pay tax on income that arises outside the UK, whereas if you are resident but not domiciled, you do have to pay tax on that income when you ‘bring it into’ this country. Though apparently there are lots of ways of getting hold of your money without officially bringing it in as income. Anyway, it doesn’t make any difference how much time ZG stays here – as far as I know he is resident in the UK.
It is interesting, though, Malcolm, that the problem with his donation to his local party in 2008, which I think was made in 2007, was because he was not on the electoral register. The discussion on LDV in 2008 put this down to being a mistake, but in the light of our subsequent knowledge is it not equally likely that it was something to do with his tax arrangements?
This is what Zac said about it
““Despite having been non-domiciled because of my father’s status, I have always chosen to be tax resident in the UK.
“Virtually everything I do is in the UK and therefore virtually all my income comes to the UK where I pay full tax on it.
“I do not derive any benefits as far as either capital gains tax or inheritance is concerned since I am registered for the latter in the UK”.
Oh, hello again David: it’s very helpful of you to keep drawing our attention to what Goldsmith has said to try to explain himself because when one analyses what he is actually saying one can see what a lot of self-serving tosh it is. What, for example, does that last sentence actually mean? “I do not derive any benefits as far as either capital gains tax or inheritance (tax) is concerned since I am registered for the latter in the UK”. I thought inheritance tax was paid by the estate of the deceased, not the recipient, in which case what is the relevance of this statement? This also must mean that he is not registered to pay capital gains tax in the UK, but if his income is derived from a trust fund rather than from buying and selling things then he wouldn’t have to pay any capital gains tax anyway. This is all just smoke and mirrors designed to hide the true gains he has made with his tax arrangements while campaigning to become part of a government of all the cronies.
So David, no further comment on Goldsmith’s obfuscatory phrases from his (self-appointed?) web parrot? Doesn’t surprise me.
The amount spent by Zac Goldsmith to secure the Conservative Party nomination for Richmond Park has not gone un-noticed in the constituency. It has been suggested to ZC that he should make an equivalent donation to the constituency as a token of his good intentions. He is organising a public meeting in Richmond Park on 30 Jan 2010 to protest against the Department of Culture Media and Sport’s proposed introduction of charging for car parking in the park, justified on the basis of clawing back the capital costs of renovating the park’s car parks. At present it is not known whether he will use the meeting to announce that he will foot the bill for the works, thereby freeing his intended constituents from these onerous parking charges.