THE STORY OF TWO CONTRIBUTORS

The first contributor is Lord Ashcroft, a multi-millionaire businessman who resided and paid taxes in the "tax haven" of Belize. He is currently Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party & Member of the Party Board and a major contributor .

This story is far from over yet but it is reported that, amoung other things, to gain a Peerage in 2000 he had to "rationalise" the fact that he was classed as a non-dom. It is claimed that in negotiations with the Conservative Party it was agreed that he would become a UK resident. But, it transpired, he continued to use Belize as a tax shelter. Tut tut. What could the man have been thinking of. Fancy. He didn't want to pour his hard earned money into the Gordon Brown black pit of dispair and bankrupcy.

Now this is the question, were the Conservative Party leaders aware that ? I should say without a doubt, but they refused to confirm this when asked. I sometimes wonder at the intelligence of our politicians. No, scrap that last remark, they are all most definately daft. Or as Orson Wells once said "only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics".

One of my questions about this murky affair is were the Labour Party completely unaware of his non-dom status and, as Government of the day, if not why not?

My second story is about Unite Union who have contributed £11M to the Labour Party and are now trying to bankrupt one of this countries major companies, British Airways. They are now attempting to draw the Teamster Union into the dispute by lobbying that BA planes should be barred from landing in the US during the impending stike.

Unite has poured more than £460,000 into 148 Labour constituencies around the country. The cash is helping fund the election campaigns of 90 Labour MPs and 58 of the Party's candidates.

On top of that, 110 Labour MPs and 59 of its candidates are fully signed-up members of the union. Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2895689/Half-the-Cabinet-are-paid-by-Unite.html#ixzz0ibfBmKqb. Now that IS murky.

DogLover challenged me to name an inane remark made on TV. OK, I admit I struggle, but I think that the Mandelson rant yesterday came close when he want on about David Cameron not dealing with this sooner. Dah! We know that, but why is the Labour Party not dealing with the several non-doms contributing to their pary? Come on Mandleson don't you have the "backbone or bottle" to face up to your own Party's pending disaster?

And finally .... A little old man shuffled slowly into an ice cream parlor and pulled himself slowly, painfully, up onto a stool. After catching his breath, he ordered a banana split. The waitress asked kindly, 'Crushed nuts?' 'No,' he replied, 'Arthritis'.