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Showing posts with label Tom Wise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Wise. Show all posts

Tom+wise[i-Tom+wise]
Tom Wise has been jailed for two years, according to The Times and others. That means he will do one year, less some, but the first two weeks are the hardest anyway. He also has to pay £30,000 towards prosecution costs - although he can pay that out of his generous EU pension.

It has to be said that the sentence is well-deserved. Had not Daniel Foggo picked it up, the fraud would have been much more extensive than the £39,000 he actually ripped off. But this was not just a matter of theft. It was an outright betrayal of rank-and-file UKIP members and the cause for which they stand, carried out, one has to say, with the knowledge (and tolerance) of other UKIP MEPs, who tried their best to cover up for him.

As Foggo wrote last Sunday, Wise remained a member of UKIP right up to this year, while an "internal inquiry" in UKIP under former leader Roger Knapman concluded that Wise's actions had been "honest and honourable throughout".

There is good evidence to suggest that Wise is far from being alone amongst UKIP MEPs in ripping off the system. Investigations are ongoing, which may lead to some more having their collars felt.

That there should be other politicians in the same boat is neither here nor there. We knew from the start that UKIP MEPs were going to be especially vulnerable to scrutiny from the authorities, so there was a special need to be whiter than white.

But not only was Tom Wise a thief, he was not even discrete - and then it took nearly four years to catch up with him. At least, though, he will now have plenty of time to reflect on his sins.

COMMENT THREAD

Wise2[i-Wise2]With Tom Wise awaiting sentencing for fraud, after changing his plea to guilty last week, Daniel Foggo in The Sunday Times gives the background to the case. Neither Wise nor UKIP come out well.

Not least, as Daniel is now able to record, UKIP – contrary to its claims – went to great lengths in an attempt to cover-up Wise's criminal activities. This segment from his article makes particularly interesting reading:

In court, the bearded and bespectacled Wise cut a pathetic figure for a man once elected in the name of a party committed to ending the EU "gravy train", though his arrogance remained intact.

It was a quality that had first struck me four years ago when he had attempted to bluster his way through my questions about his employment of Jenkins. Later, when he had been supposedly "exonerated" by the EU payments office, he had pompously said that my "attack on his character" had not deterred him from his important work. Wise even took legal advice on how to sue a political commentator who wrote blogs on the story, paying for it — although he did not proceed — with taxpayers' money from the same fund he was accused of abusing.

Arrogance is a quality that is not in short supply within UKIP; nor is an ability to dissemble and prevaricate. As Wise awaits a possible jail term at his sentencing this week, who knows which politician and which party will enter the dock next.
Those of us – including this blog – who have seen more of the evidence of misconduct within the Party than has so far been revealed are partially vindicated by Foggo's article. But we are aware that there are many other rotten apples still residing in the barrel.

And it is not enough to say that politicians in other parties are just as venal – if not more so. A central part of the UKIP message has always been that its people were not career politicians, and were above the corruption which disfigures politics and the EU. Such is their self-proclaimed image that they were the major beneficiaries of the MPs' expenses scandal, during the EU parliament elections.

We once had high expectations of UKIP. Wise has tarnished its reputation, and there is more to come. The self-serving behaviour of the "rotten apples", however, should not be allowed to detract from the greater cause.

Their actions do not reflect on the ordinary members, many of whom are hard-working, dedicated and sincere in their efforts to rid us of the occupying power that has become our government. Thieves like Wise do not represent eurosceptics. They are simply parasites who have lined their own pockets at our expense.

COMMENT THREAD

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