SHOCK HORROR SCANDAL: CAMERON IS A TOFF

                                        WELL I never. Who could have Known! 

         The Tory Prime Minister of the UK is a Toff who had a rich dad.

                                        

Were there no clues? 

                                  

Cameron descends from King William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan through their illegitimate daughter Lady Elizabeth FitzClarence. 

He is fifth cousin once removed (by illegitimacy) of Queen Elizabeth II.

His forebears include various Viscounts, Dukes, Earls and Barons.

The family has served British Sovereigns since at least the 1700's; both in England and Scotland.Cameron is a nephew of Sir William Dugdale who was chairman of Aston Villa Football Club. Hence his claim to be a Villa supporter; the saddest part of this saga.

His father was senior partner in Stockbroker Panmure Gordon as was his father and grandfather.                    

He was Educated at Eton and Oxford. He was a member of the all male Oxford Bullingdon Club. Where he is reputed to have had unspeakable relations with a pig’s head .It is not clear whether at the time the head was or was not attached to rest of the pig.

          

Grooming:your the only pig for me

                             

                                                                                              


                                                                                                                                                                                        Bill :Eat Your heart out

                                                         

The aftermath

Following Oxford he worked 5 years at conservative central office and from there to Downing Street to work directly for PM John Major. Hell of an internship for a boy with such a humble background. This was followed by a 6 year stint as a Public Relations man before being elected to Parliament in 2001

                                 

                                   

        

Within four years he had been elected leader of his party .And by 2010 had returned to his career as a PR man with the title of Prime Minister.

                        

                           In 1996 he married Samantha Sheffield.

                             

Her lineage is as replete with Barons, Earls, and Knights etc as is David’s.

She is the daughter of Sir Reginald Sheffield ,8^th Baronet Normandby , great-granddaughter of Sir Bede Edmund Hugh Clifford, Governor of the Bahamas, Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago ; and descended from King England. Her mother, after the breakup of her marriage to Lord Sheffield, married William, 4th Viscount Astor the scion of the fabled and immensely wealthy Astor family. William’s mother, the redoubtable American born Lady Nancy Astor, was a suffragette and, in 1919, became the first female Member of Parliament.
                                  

   

                               

This last gives me an excuse to present 2 quotes from that arch reactionary and sexist Winston Churchill. Churchill of course opposed female suffrage and despised Nancy Astor—not least because the Astors were much wealthier than the Marlboroughs—albeit noveaux.

                 

                          

   Both David and Samantha Cameron come from wealthy and privileged backgrounds stretching back though the British aristocracy for at least 400 years. And all this was known and in the public domain long before he became PM. Yet the media has feigned shock and horror at the discovery that his father ,a fourth generation stockbroker and financier;  with a 40 year career in the London Markets ordered his affairs in a tax efficient manner within the law.

   There are apparently 2 issues:

1.      Cameron, Pater, Ian, created a “unit trust” or fund, which rose and pooled money from various investors using it to invest in a variety of securities .The fund was incorporated offshore allowing profits to be tax free UNTIL distributed to the funds owners. Apparently Dodgy Dave paid British taxes on income the couple received and capital gains taxes. This is a similar structure to investing in a UK ISA fund or a US IRA or Roth account—but incorporated offshore. Nothing that has emerged suggests that the prime minister’s family broke any rules. One may legitimately question why the British government allows such structures but they have existed for as long as I can remember and been allowed—indeed encouraged—by successive Tory, Labour and Coalition controlled governments.

           If one does not approve: the pertinent question is not why did Cameron           invest in his dad’s fund but rather why did not Blair/Brown close this “loophole”?

Cameron has faced sharp criticism from the Labour Party, including its leader Jeremy Corbyn. That’s fair enough .It is consistent with Corbyn’s world view.

And The Cameron government can justifiably be accused as the world champion of hypocrisy on money laundering, international tax evasion and the harbouring of the international kleptocracy. London is the destination of choice for oligarchs and kleptocrats from  Russia,Ukraine,Belarus,kazakhstan,Nigeria,Egypt,Kenya,Uganda,China, Myanmar ,Malaysia, the Gulf and on and on. Osborne and Cameron have continued to protect the legal, financial and real estate services that make London so attractive. This of course continues the policy of protecting the “City” followed by Blair/Brown/Mandelsohn.

     I would be more impressed by Corbyn if he had the consistency to also condemn the much more egregious thefts revealed by the Panama Papers. Most notably those of Putin and his Cellist friend god father to his daughter –at least $2 billion .Or as my Russian friends call it: the petty cash.

     The newspapers are having a field day.Unfortuneately few journalists understand numbers beyond the ones in the corner of each page. Those that do are wondering what the fuss is about and the rest are asking the wrong questions. There is little doubt that Cameron did or is doing nothing illegal. But given Pater Camerons wealth, connections and expertise is this all there is? Why did he need to set up this fund in Panama if all it does is defer tax payments for UK  residents ?Could this not have been done through less exotic locations ?How much money was sourced from jurisdictions that did not allow this type of  deferral ?or  from sources that would not have passed even HSBC know your customer processes?[ actually that’s a silly rhetorical question, everybody seems to have passed the HSBC scrutiny if they put up sufficient cash].How many other vehicles did Ian Cameron  create and for whom? Is Tony Blair on the board of these vehicles, if not the Cameron ones then….?

   I believe that hounding politicians about their legally garnered income and wealth is unhealthy for democracy. But if like Cameron you are claiming virtue, by putting out your income tax filings for revue then  it is legitimate to ask questions .For example , given Cameron’s  pedigree and obvious wealth  then the tax forms he has published seem to raise legitimate questions. They simply are not substantial enough. If, as I believe, his wealth is all legal then I do not care how rich he is. 

The problem is less with Cameron than with the law, not least that dealing with the second revelation.

2.      On his father’s death David Cameron inherited £300,000.This was tax free of Inheritance Tax. His mother then made him a gift of £200,000 in order to equalize what he received to match his siblings. This was all legal but in some quarters Cameron Mater has been pilloried for avoiding future IHT. Poor [not financially] woman was just taking care of her kids ---legally. It so happens that the IHT in the UK is a law with a bizarre set of rules that actually favours the very rich over the just quite affluent. Various reforms being proposed by the Tory government in fact make the tax even less sensible, fair or effective. This will be the subject of a separate blog if my vast readership has got far enough with this one to request such.