Recently in Tony McNulty Category

Readers of this blog are unlikely to be "floating voters" who have not yet made up their minds which way to vote in today's General Election.

Please vote, tactically if necessary, for any candidate who is likely to unseat a Labour MP or to deny a Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate victory in a marginal constituency.

Most of the decent Labour MPs (such as Andrew MacKinlay, Bob Marshall-Andrews, David Winnick etc. ), who have actually rebelled against their party leaders' authoritarian, pettifogging, nanny / police / surveillance state policies and the incompetent jobsworth bureaucracy ruled by a risk adverse / blame someone else, form filling tickbox culture they have created, are not standing for re-election today.

Hopefully some of the more odious former Labour Ministers such as Ed Balls, or those tainted by expenses scandals like Tony McNulty or Hazel Blears, or those in marginal constituencies like Jackie Smith (who ticks several boxes), will suffer electorally today.

If the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats do gain power tonight, this blog will oppose them also, if they renege on their promises to undo the wretched Labour policies which have eroded our freedoms and liberties and livelihoods.

The BBC reports that Minister's wife takes over Ofsted

A government minister's wife has been appointed as the new chief inspector of schools in England.

Former head teacher Christine Gilbert is married to Home Office minister Tony McNulty. The Department for Education and Skills has denied "cronyism".

[...]

Is she really the only former headmaster or headmistress who could have been promoted to this job ? Did being married to a Blairite Minister like Tony McNulty really have no bearing on the appointment ?

What chance is there that anyone will believe yje independence of any of her inspection reports, into, say, the controversial Academy Schools, which are at the heart of the NuLabour "cash / loans / Government subsidies for peerages" scandals ?

Today's Observer story which alleges not just NuLabour sleaze but actual corruption in the Home Office,

Cash for asylum scandal hits Reid

Blow to Home Secretary as police investigate widespread racket claims

Mark Townsend and Jamie Doward
Sunday June 4, 2006
The Observer

Police are investigating dozens of allegations relating to a large-scale 'cash-for-asylum' racket among Home Office immigration officials, The Observer can reveal.

Scotland Yard officers seconded to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate's security and anti-corruption unit have revealed they are holding inquiries into a series of claims that government officials are accepting a 'going rate' of up to £4,000 in return for residency status.

In the first indication of the extent of possible criminality among Home Office immigration staff, one Metropolitan Police officer described levels of corruption among elements of IND staff as 'endemic'. The allegations come two weeks after The Observer revealed the case of a senior IND official who was offering asylum to a Zimbabwean teenager in return for sexual favours.

Officers are currently conducting around 50 'live investigations' relating to corruption allegations involving Home Office staff, a proportion of which involve asylum applicants buying residency status to remain in Britain. So far this year alone, six IND staff have been dismissed for giving applicants 'leave to remain' status in the UK without being able to justify their decision to investigating officers.

Other recent cases include an Eritrean man who was working for the Home Office as a contractor but was convicted after police discovered he had bought a fake passport from 'a man in a pub'. Another government employee stole several thousand pounds worth of support tokens designated for asylum seekers. 'We're firing people left right and centre,' said an officer seconded to the IND unit, which is dedicated to eradicating corruption within the immigration system.

[...]

This story surely must cast further doubts on the competence of Tony McNulty, who was, incedibly, moved sideways to Policing, Security and Public Order, but not fired, as a Minister of State when he was in charge of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

Sky News are reporting that Home Secretary John Reid has re-shuffled his Ministers of State:

Tony McNulty and Liam Byrne swap roles as Minsisters of State at the Home Office:

It is now Liam Byrne who is nominally in charge of the National Idenity Register / ID Card scheme, as Minister of State for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality.

Tony McNulty, who, for some unaccountable reason survived Blair's re-shuffle, despite the appalling performance of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, which he was directly in charge of, now becomes Minister of State for Policing, Security and Community Safety.

What is going on at the Home Office ?

The Sun has an exclusive story:

Lie back and think of England

By ANTHONY FRANCE
and PAUL THOMPSON

A SEX for passports racket at Britain’s busiest immigration centre is exposed today by The Sun.

Corrupt officials bed attractive girls desperate to avoid being kicked out of the country in return for granting them visas.

Meanwhile “ugly” migrants risk having their applications rejected — and their pictures pinned on a wall for staff to laugh at.

The scandal at Lunar House in Croydon, South London — which also processes applications by asylum seekers — was last night exposed by a whistleblower who quit in disgust.

Former administration officer Anthony Pamnani told how one colleague joked after bedding a Turkish girl: “I gave her more than a visa extension, if you know what I mean.”

Anthony, 23, who worked at Lunar House for four years, regularly saw colleagues dish out their phone numbers to sexy immigrants.

He said: “One girl came in and told us an admin officer had visited her flat and they slept together. She got indefinite leave to stay.

[---]

Anthony said he finally quit after bosses told staff to restrict migrants from India and let in more from Eastern Europe.

He said: “I lost what remaining respect I had for the job.”

Last night Home Office Minister Tony McNulty launched an urgent probe. He said: “These are serious allegations. Clearly I will not condone this type of behaviour.”

Will Tony McNulty, the Minister of State for immigration and citizenship at the Home Office, be honourable enough to resign if the allegations in The Sun are proven ?

Given the previous incompetence in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, and the warnings by whistleblower staff which were ignored or supressed, which lead to the resignation of Beverly Hughes, one would have expected her sucessors Des Browne and now Tony McNulty to have got a grip on the bureaucracy.

The BBC TV "fly on the all" documentary last year showing abuses in the privatised immigration detention centres and transportation companies, also involved accusations of sexual favours being demanded by thjose in positions of power.

Blairwatch via UK Political Blog aggregate feed points to the Channel 4 News story, which claims that the NuLabour Government seems likely not to sign up and ratify the Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking

UK 'will not protect sex slaves'

Published: 13 May 2005
By: Sarah Smith

Channel Four news has learned that the government will not sign a piece of European legislation that guarantees the rights of victims. Sarah Smith reports."

The full post election Cabinet has now been announced, and there are some controversial appointments at the Junior Minister level:

Department for Education and Skills
Minister of State (Children)
The Rt Hon Beverly Hughes MP for Stretford and Urmston is the disgraced ex-Home Office Minister who had to resign over the immigration scandal involving Romanian and Bulgarian visas exposed by whistleleblowers Steve Moxon and James Cameron.

Beverly Hughes takes over from The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MBE MP for Barking, whose disregard for Data Protection and Privacy worries about her controversial "Big Nanny Database" Children Act does not bode well for future policy in her new postition as Minister of State (Work) under the authoratarian technological illiterate David Blunkett at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Department for Education and Skills
Parliamentary Secretary
Lord Adonis

Andrew Adonis was, until today, simply a NuLabour political commissar, with the ear of the Prime Minister's office, and not even a Member of Parliament, which is why he has been ennobled so that he can serve as a Junior Minister. he was responsible for dreaming up amd meddling with the implementation of the City Acadamies, which waste vast sums of public money. handed over to private companies, who are also allowed to brainwash the children with their own products and meddle with the curriculum to include rubbish like Creationism, and who can decide to sell off assets like buildings or playing firlds for their own profit.

What right has he to be literally now lording it over Education policy ?

Ministry of Defence
Parliamentary Secretary
Lord Drayson (unpaid)

Pual Drayson, a businessman, whose ennoblement was already controversial due to his apparent donations of over £500,000 to the NuLabour party, and whose company PowderJect managed to secure a £32 million Government contract for smallpox vaccine, awarded without it being put out to competitive tender. Allegedly this was because PowderJect had managed to contractually sew up the capacity of the actual pharmceutical company producing the vaccine with an ironclad contract.

Why has this man appeared as a Junior Ministry of Defence Minister ?

Tony McNulty MP for Harrow East is now Minister of State at the Home Office, presumably replacing Des Browne, in charge of Citizenship and Immigration (who in turn had replaced the disgraced Beverely Hughes). Will he really be spearheading the re-introduction of the controversial Identity Cards Bill ?