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As previously discussed, Bell's claimed reasons for standing in the election seem to keep changing, most likely brought about by the growing realisation among the British Press that Downey's 'compelling evidence' punch-line was actually based wholly on
Mohamed Al Fayed's employees' belated, contradictory, and anomalous evidence.
Initially, Bell entered the election of 1997 on a platform against corruption, eventually watering down his stance to being merely against 'behaviour unbecoming of an MP.' But after becoming an MP, and in a position to do something about MPs' 'unbecoming behaviour,' his enthusiasm appears to have waned. That is, if his interest in the case of former Treasury Minister Geoffrey Robinson MP is anything to go by.
After the general election of May 1997, Tony Blair gave the job of Paymaster-General to his friend, multi-millionaire Geoffrey Robinson. In late November 1997, Robinson was revealed to have had over £12.75 million invested in an offshore tax haven set up in Guernsey, the Orion Trust (this was set up for him by his Belgian friend, the late Mme Joska Bourgeois, reportedly the twelfth-richest woman in the world).
Robinson had become friends with Mme Bourgeois in the 1970s when she headed Italy's most successful Jaguar cars franchise, the International Motor Company, and he headed up British Leyland's Italian arm, Innocenti.
In 1996, a £200 million engineering company, TransTec, of which Robinson was chairman and principal shareholder, had a rights issue. Robinson sold the right to buy his shares to a company he owned, Stenbell Ltd., which subsequently bought £9 million worth. Stenbell then sold these on to Orion in Guernsey. And though these Byzantine transactions were perfectly legal, as indeed are tax avoidance schemes like offshore trusts, it was revealed that Robinson remains a discretionary beneficiary of the trust, yet did not register this in the Register of Members' Interests.
The explanation put forward by Robinson is that he did not declare his interest because of the advice of Sir Terry Burns (the Treasury's Permanent Secretary), and his own solicitors. Except that neither Sir Terry or one's personal solicitors are authorised to give such opinion - Parliament gave that responsibility to the Registrar, and it is highly likely that he would have taken a far different view.
In any event, this excuse is shown not to hold (even a drop of) water, because Robinson could only have obtained advice from the Treasury's Permanent Secretary after he took up his Treasury appointment in May 1997, and the Orion Trust must have been active on his behalf since before 1994, because it was set up by Mme Bourgeois, and she actually died in 1994.
Robinson then compounded his non-registration by making a misleading statement that he had not transferred any capital or assets into the trust, and that there had been no UK tax avoidance (so if Geoffrey says that £9 million of shares doesn't represent an asset, and that they weren't put in an offshore tax haven to avoid paying UK tax, then that must be okay then).
Given that, before the election, Labour's Gordon Brown had pledged: 'A Labour Chancellor will not permit tax relief to millionaires in offshore tax havens' (e.g. people like Geoffrey Robinson); and, given that, after the election, Robinson accepted Blair's appointment specifically to close tax loopholes such as offshore trusts (e.g. his own Orion Trust), it's hardly any wonder that the Conservative Party went ape when the story broke.
So, with Robinson's non-registration of his 'discretionary beneficiary' from the Orion Trust; his misleading explanations about the trust; and his huge conflict of interest from having opposite roles both as a tax-avoider and a 'tax-avoiding-loophole-closer', one might have expected Martin Bell to have been 'chomping at the bit'. But when his opportunity came in the House Martin didn't even chirp.
In the Sunday Telegraph on 1 February 1998, Bell was asked why he has kept so quiet on issues of MPs' probity since the election. 'I'm being very careful what I talk about. I'm making a general rule only to discuss what I know about' (i.e. I've learned my lesson). He added: 'I nearly had a go on the Geoffrey Robinson case and then I decided not to.'
Bell was then asked whether he thought Robinson should still be doing his job, but he side-stepped the question: 'I see a degree of political unwisdom,' he said. Bell was asked the question a second time: 'It is because I am not quite sure that I have not banged on about it. I'm not going to be Mr Instant Soundbite on all issues of public probity.' It was then put to him that his answer meant that his role was a waste of time: 'Not really,' he said. 'I think it's better than what Tatton had the previous four or five years.'
But Bell's immodest remark should be seen in its true light. For the overriding view among the people of Tatton is that Neil Hamilton was at least a dedicated constituency MP - whatever his constituents' problems and regardless of their politics.
In this regard, Hamilton's and Bell's voting record is worth comparing. On 9 August 1998, six months after Bell compared Hamilton disparagingly with himself, the Sunday Express ran a front page story by Political Editor Jon Craig subtitled: 'The truant MPs who skip all the votes', which listed the best and the worst MPs in terms of absence from the House, since the general election of May 1997.
The five MPs with the best voting records were all Labour: Bridget Prentice (97%); followed by Jim Dowd; Jane Kennedy; and Tommy McAvoy. The highest-ranked Conservative, Desmond Swayne, achieved 76%. Craig ended his article:
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