The longer Wandsworth Council keep their heads in the sand about their audit committee councillor and a missing  £20,000 from Tory coffers, the murkier the cover up looks. So far Robert Morritt has claimed that the blank cheques he was writing to himself were for his “expenses”. That excuse cannot work all the time though…

As Guido understands it, Wandsworth Conservative Group has a detailed system in place for the purchase of stamps. This system, which involves cheques being signed by two signatories and presented with a special guarantee card, has been used for years. In the first five months of 2008 WCG forked out some £20,000 for stamps in the normal manner. Why then did Morritt himself claim a further £5,000 during this period to purchase stamps on WCG’s behalf?

On 26 February 2008 a cheque was written to Morritt for £2,000, apparently to buy stamps, while on 2 April he was paid another £3,000 for the same reason. £2,000 worth of stamps were bought using the regular method on 20 February – six days before Morritt’s first purchase – while another £1,000 worth were bought on 31 March, two days before his second cheque was issued. Why were so many stamps needed in such a short space of time? Why did Morritt deviate from the standard procedure and buy the stamps himself, with no counter-signature? When are Wandsworth Council going to stamp down…

See also:

• Justine Greening’s Agent in Addison Lee Fraud Mess
• Wandsworth Tory Auditor in Voodoo Accounting Mystery
• More Questions Over Morritt’s Missing Money
• Morritt Pocketed Election Deposit Dosh
• Wandsworth Tories Demand Guido “Desist” 
• The £20,000 Question for Wandsworth Conservatives
• Wandsworth Gags Councillors Over Tory Fraud

Labour wonk-shop IPPR are progressive guns for hire. In 2010 they took over €800,000 from the European Commission and their coffers are filled by unions and lefty-charitable trusts. Universities UK, the higher education trade association, are believed to have bunged them in excess of £20,000. In return they got their figures in a nice report about how immigration caps are affecting student numbers. Despite the report claiming that all “views and conclusions expressed in it are those of the authors”, Guido has now got hold of an email that would suggest otherwise.

Tony Millns is the Chief Exec of  English UK – another education trade association who encourage people to come to the UK to learn English. The sort of vested interest group who would want see immigration caps given a kicking. Millns is clearly rather chuffed with what money can buy him:

IPPR claim that Universities UK supplied some research, but didn’t tell the public or the media that the report had actually been commissioned by English UK. Sadly for them the client has let the cat out of the bag… 

Boris on the Games thus far:

“It’s been a Himalayan range of high points.”

Following their humiliating defeat in a US court overnight, Northcliffe Media and their bosses at the Daily Mail and General Trust have been desperately trying to spin the spoof twitter account story in their favour. In a statement the Mail subsidiary laughably claimed that their “approach to Twitter was not about freedom of speech, but about a barrage of anonymous tweets that amounted to cyber-bullying and harassment“, insisting “free speech is the lifeblood of our newspapers and websites“. They are telling the press that they withdrew their expensive legal action to save their employees from having to prove emotional distress in court. This line shouldn’t fool anyone.

Guido believes the only reason Northcliffe dropped their case was that they could not find a shred of evidence to substantiate the outrageous claim that the spoof tweeter hacked into the company’s email system. The spoofer’s attorney Frank Sommers expressed his astonishment in court that Northcliffe had failed to provide any evidence for the claim, or any examples of tweets that they claimed were libellous and defamatory. When Guido asked Northcliffe this morning whether they were retracting their allegations they refused to comment.

However they might be trying to spin it, it seems fair to conclude that Northcliffe – backed by bosses at the Mail – used trumped-up claims as an excuse to gag a fierce but ultimately harmless critic. They would have got away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky bloggers…

The Deputy Leader of Wandsworth Council has ordered silence over Guido’s on-going exposé of the fraud and cover-up at the heart of Wandsworth Conservatives. The following diktat was sent to all councillors:

From: Jonathan Cook
Sent: 02 August 2012 15:01
To:
Subject: Guido Fawkes

Dear All

You may well have seen reports posted on Guido Fawkes’ blog in recent days.

Anthony Cole, as Chairman of the Wandsworth group of associations, has responded with a statement, copied below, which makes the position clear.

If you are contacted by any journalists I suggest you decline to comment, and refer them to Alex or me.

Many thanks

Jonathan

More internal communucations coming up. Guido’s favourite one is is where Rob Morritt, after being caught with his hands in the till, gets threatening…