Brecon and Radnorshire

[gwynthegriff]

Apr 24, 2019 16:49:24 GMT MeirionGwril said:

Does Kirsty have a sibling...?

Preferably a twin.

Identical.

[gwynthegriff]

Apr 25, 2019 18:29:15 GMT doktorb🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ said:

Apr 25, 2019 17:11:22 GMT liverpoolliberal said:

en.powys.gov.uk/article/7270/Public-notice-of-petition-to-remove-the-MP-for-Brecon-and-Radnorshire-Chris-Davies?fbclid=IwAR3eTdNO0rdH1-oDqn7mYUw8L5kXyduPnVsnYHPIWfmwiajSaaOgXBuKW7o

6 polling stations, 5303 needed to trigger a by-election. You would hope we have the resources to make that happen.

cy.powys.gov.uk/article/7271/Hysbysiad-cyhoeddus-or-ddeiseb-i-adalw-AS-Brycheiniog-a-Sir-Faesyfed-Chris-Davies

I note that - despite the common allegation that the Welsh language uses long words - the Welsh for "recall" is shorter than the English for "recall".

[The Bishop]

Apr 25, 2019 10:00:03 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Arcane? The law was passed in 2009, and it ought to have been obvious that creating a false invoice was dodgy.

Denis Macshane was actually jailed for a similar offence, no?

[finsobruce]

Apr 26, 2019 11:30:09 GMT The Bishop said:

Apr 25, 2019 10:00:03 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Arcane? The law was passed in 2009, and it ought to have been obvious that creating a false invoice was dodgy.

Denis Macshane was actually jailed for a similar offence, no?

He certainly was. And more of it.

[neilm]

Did MacShane plead guilty? That may be the only reason Davies didn't get a stretch.

[samdwebber]

Apr 26, 2019 11:24:59 GMT gwynthegriff said:

Apr 24, 2019 16:49:24 GMT MeirionGwril said:

Does Kirsty have a sibling...?

Preferably a twin.

Identical.

She doesn't need one! 

We have a brilliant candidate in place: twitter.com/DoddsJane

[gwynthegriff]

Apr 26, 2019 15:25:09 GMT samdwebber said:

Apr 26, 2019 11:24:59 GMT gwynthegriff said:

Preferably a twin.

Identical.

She doesn't need one! 

We have a brilliant candidate in place: twitter.com/DoddsJane

I'm sure she's very good, but ...

Seems the sort of area that values a local connection rather than someone who stood elsewhere two years ago.

[MeirionGwril]

Apr 27, 2019 16:09:04 GMT gwynthegriff said:

Apr 26, 2019 15:25:09 GMT samdwebber said:

She doesn't need one! 

We have a brilliant candidate in place: twitter.com/DoddsJane

I'm sure she's very good, but ...

Seems the sort of area that values a local connection rather than someone who stood elsewhere two years ago.

Bring back Roger Williams? Only 71, younger than Drumpf and Biden!!

[LDCaerdydd]

“there are many people who have convictions for many things. I have now joined that happy throng.”

[CatholicLeft]

May 4, 2019 15:40:22 GMT LDCaerdydd said:

“there are many people who have convictions for many things. I have now joined that happy throng.”

An MP with convictions - we need more of them.

[finsobruce]

May 4, 2019 20:49:46 GMT CatholicLeft said:

May 4, 2019 15:40:22 GMT LDCaerdydd said:

“there are many people who have convictions for many things. I have now joined that happy throng.”

An MP with convictions - we need more of them.

Perhaps not with those sort of convictions though....

[andrew111]

Apr 25, 2019 17:11:22 GMT liverpoolliberal said:

en.powys.gov.uk/article/7270/Public-notice-of-petition-to-remove-the-MP-for-Brecon-and-Radnorshire-Chris-Davies?fbclid=IwAR3eTdNO0rdH1-oDqn7mYUw8L5kXyduPnVsnYHPIWfmwiajSaaOgXBuKW7o

6 polling stations, 5303 needed to trigger a by-election. You would hope we have the resources to make that happen.

Postal voters will be key, as ever. I would imagine lib dems will be busy signing up postal voters snd killing two birds with one stone.

[andrew111]

Really they should just count the votes every day and stop wasting people's time if the threshold is passed

[curiousliberal]

The petition opens tomorrow and runs until June 20th.

[evergreenadam]

May 8, 2019 19:59:39 GMT curiousliberal said:

The petition opens tomorrow and runs until June 20th.

Anyone know if it is attracting much interest locally?

[Harry Hayfield]

May 22, 2019 9:16:21 GMT evergreenadam said:

May 8, 2019 19:59:39 GMT curiousliberal said:

The petition opens tomorrow and runs until June 20th.

Anyone know if it is attracting much interest locally?

We do not know and we will never know as it is illegal to report on the recall petition once it is in progress. You can only report that it has started, it has ended and the result.

[LDCaerdydd]

May 22, 2019 12:03:37 GMT Harry Hayfield said:

May 22, 2019 9:16:21 GMT evergreenadam said:

Anyone know if it is attracting much interest locally?

We do not know and we will never know as it is illegal to report on the recall petition once it is in progress. You can only report that it has started, it has ended and the result.

We will know when the result is announced shortly after 20th June.

But Harry is correct, there is a bar on the reporting of the petition, apart from reporting that the petition is open, residents can sign at ... venue.

What we do know is that the Lib Dems and Labour are both proactively encouraging residents to sign.

A few tweets, on the issue but not many: twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=brecon%20and%20radnorshire&src=typd

[neilm]

Do we have anyone on the ground who might have heard colleagues etc discuss it?

[LDCaerdydd]

Story in today's Independent:

A whistleblower has revealed the full scale of expenses fiddling by a Conservative MP who faces being removed from parliament by his constituents.

Brecon and Radnorshire MP Chris Davies could now be ousted from the Commons by a recall petition, triggered after he admitted to making false expenses claims last month.

The Tory MP issued an “unreserved apology” after his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court in April, saying he made “a mistake” and there was no attempt “make any financial gain.”

But former staffer Sarah Lewis, who managed Mr Davies’ office at the time was scathing of her old boss.

The 57-year-old quit the Brecon and Radnorshire Conservative Association – where she had worked since August 2014 – in April last year and is now suing it for constructive dismissal.

Her claim was due to be heard at Wales Employment Tribunal in Cardiff today after being adjourned earlier this month.

Meanwhile, a recall petition to oust the beleaguered MP – who was fined last month after pleading guilty to fabricating the invoices – will run until 20 June. If 10 per cent of constituents sign the petition, Mr Davies will be removed from office.

Ms Lewis was managing Mr Davies’ expenses when she discovered he had attempted to claim £700 worth of photos for his office walls through two smaller invoices for “furniture and pictures”.

She said, as was said in court, Mr Davies had made up dates and invoice numbers on the documents.

And she revealed how she unearthed a hole in Davies’ expenses within months of him taking office, which led to the MP’s expenses card being suspended by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).

Ms Lewis agreed with the Judge and was scathing about his defence that it was all a mistake.

“He only has himself to blame,” she said.

Ms Lewis was working at the branch office in Brecon, Powys, handling membership records, fundraising and general administration, when she was employed as an office manager for Mr Davies, who is based in a rented premises 17 miles away in Builth Wells.

Mr Davies had accrued a backlog and had his IPSA card suspended in August 2015 before Ms Lewis was parachuted in to Westminster to fix the mess.

She said: “I worked hard at reconciling all the monthly statements – and discovered he had over-claimed. “When I gave Chris the paperwork and told him how much he had to pay back, he banged it down on a filing cabinet. I was shocked.”

In April 2016, Mr Davies left receipts and invoices for Ms Lewis to submit to IPSA, including an invoice for £250 for “furniture/pictures” from Creative Photography Wales.

But when Ms Lewis called the photographer Nigel Forster, he told her the MP had been supplied with an invoice for £700.

She said: “He was surprised. Chris had created an entirely new invoice, with a different date and reference number. And he’d made it out for furniture and pictures, when Nigel had only supplied photos.”

Mr Forster confirmed this to The Independent.

Ms Lewis was horrified, saying: “I took my job, and the responsibility that went with it, very seriously. Chris put me in an awful position, potentially implicating me in his lie. There was no way I was going to be part of that.”

Mr Davies had already submitted a second invoice for £450 to IPSA himself, and he had been reimbursed the cash, she said.

Speaking at his sentencing Mr Justice Edis said: “It seems shocking that when confronted with a simple accounting problem, you thought to forge documents. That is an extraordinary thing for a man with your position and your background to do.”

The judge added: “There was no error here. What you did was done quite deliberately and it must have taken some time to create your fake documents.”

Mr Davies previously told The Sunday Times that he had made a mistake while struggling to balance a young family, his parliamentary and constituency duties, and visiting his father who had been diagnosed with cancer.

He said: “For the last 14 months I’ve been under investigation and it has been hell. It’s my fault, I only have myself to blame. It has been extremely difficult. It feels like being hit by a double-decker bus from every conceivable direction. I have been so lucky to have a strong and loving family, otherwise I don’t know how I would have coped.”

Mr Davies’ office declined to comment further when approached by The Independent.

Former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya was the first MP to lose her seat through a recall petition earlier this year, after she was jailed for lying about speeding offences.

In 2018, DUP MP Ian Paisley avoided being expelled from the Commons after he failed to declare two holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government. The recall petition missed the threshold by less than 500 signatures.

[Pete Whitehead]

May 22, 2019 13:54:00 GMT LDCaerdydd said:

May 22, 2019 12:03:37 GMT Harry Hayfield said:

We do not know and we will never know as it is illegal to report on the recall petition once it is in progress. You can only report that it has started, it has ended and the result.

We will know when the result is announced shortly after 20th June.

But Harry is correct, there is a bar on the reporting of the petition, apart from reporting that the petition is open, residents can sign at ... venue.

What we do know is that the Lib Dems and Labour are both protectively encouraging residents to sign.

A few tweets, on the issue but not many: twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=brecon%20and%20radnorshire&src=typd

What does this mean? They're taking them to the signing venue in an armed convoy?