BoJo's folly [split topic]

[Blumf]

BoJo's folly - the final bill

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47228698

A failed plan to build a bridge covered with trees and flowers over the River Thames in central London cost a total of £53m, it has been revealed.
...
Around £43m came out of the public's pocket, Transport for London added.
...
The payout will help refund donors including £3,200 to the winner of a Garden Bridge auction prize who did not receive their promised game of "table tennis with Boris Johnson".

The fiscally responsible Tories there. Worth every penny.

[BlodwynPig]

BoJo's folly - the final bill

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47228698
The fiscally responsible Tories there. Worth every penny.

A sort of terrorism, to my mind.

[gilbertharding]

BoJo's folly - the final bill

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47228698
The fiscally responsible Tories there. Worth every penny.

And Joanna Fucking Lumley can take a running fuck too.

[imitationleather]

Obviously none of this will stick to the blonde cunt but the amount of public money he has managed to waste should at the very least have ended his political career and justifiably have him looking at a prison sentence.

Abandoning policy in favour of expensive and grand projects, which is all he does, is such textbook fascism that it feels like pointing out the extremely obvious to even say it.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/12-angry-ministers-could-quit-14002399

Grieve reckons there are more resignations coming.

I'm not sure myself, I think the most pro-remain members of the cabinet want to be in there, not sat helpessly on the sidelines.

[greencalx]

What difference would it make anyway? May is already beholden to the ERG, so she may as well turn to them to fill cabinet vacancies.

[greencalx]

Oh, and, er

SNAP ELECTION*




* in Spain.

[BlodwynPig]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/12-angry-ministers-could-quit-14002399

Grieve reckons there are more resignations coming.

I'm not sure myself, I think the most pro-remain members of the cabinet want to be in there, not sat helpessly on the sidelines.

Stop dangling carrots, JUSTGETONWITHIT

[jobotic]

And Joanna Fucking Lumley can take a running fuck too.

No. Now. Come one. Lovely Joanna just wanted something that would be uplifting, joyous, wonderful and darling for all of us (and not a play bridge for corporations and their oligarch clients paid for by the public who wouldn't be allowed to set foot on it) but those beastly socialist philistines ruined it all and made her sad.

[Fambo Number Mive]

BoJo's folly - the final bill

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47228698
The fiscally responsible Tories there. Worth every penny.

Surprising how little the media are reporting this. We need to share it far and wide.

[Buelligan]

And, of course, we should never forget this

Three unusable water cannon bought by Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London have been sold for scrap, at a net loss of more than £300,000.

_{Massive CUNT earlier}

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/19/boris-johnson-unused-water-cannon-sold-for-scrap-at-300000-loss

[gilbertharding]

All these people will be refunded, because they donated to the scheme which isn't going ahead.



Fair enough, I suppose, until you realise WE are the ones doing the refunding, and no-one asked Ian and Carol and Helen and Tim to stump up £20-odd grand (off-set against tax, naturally), and as long as their children aren't going fucking hungry, eh?

[Buelligan]

And I assume that they didn't give the money because they loved the idea of an oligarchs' garden in the shade, more for access, influence, connections and entry to the winner's enclosure champagne receptions.  All of which they got.

I'd also like to know what UK tax law says about "charitable donations".  Can they be written off against tax?  Would donations like these count?  HMRC should have a little look, I think, before any more money changes hands.

[Chollis]

Fucking hell. As if Helen and Tim Throsby haven't been through enough.

[Blumf]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield_Weston_Foundation

In 2010, the Charity Commission found that between 1993 and 2004 the charity had given donations to the UK Conservative Party that totalled £900,000, which were in breach of UK charity law; as were similar donations to the right-wing think tank the Centre for Policy Studies, and to Eurosceptic European political lobby groups such as the European Foundation and the Labour Euro-Safeguards Campaign

...

In 2011, companies owned by Wittington Investments Limited were targeted over tax avoidance by the protest group UK Uncut. Private Eye linked the Garfield Weston Foundation's political donations with the Conservative Party's decision to grant tax breaks for the kind of offshore arrangements used in the tax avoidance

These charitable foundations are so nice.

[gilbertharding]

Rather unfairly, I think, people are drawing attention to the amount of money added to the final bill due to incoming Mayor Kahn's decision to 'review' the bridge rather than cancel it as soon as he got in: £9M?

[Buelligan]

I imagine there were not just big contracts riding on it but lots of jobs, it seems reasonable to look into the thing before cancelling it.