"The first thing we do, let's kill all the (immigration) lawyers"

Yes, shockingly, this is about UK immigration.

The (tweaked) post title comes from Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 2 in a coversation between Jack Cade and henchman, Dick 'The Butcher', in scene 2 of Act IV. There are various literary takes on this line, but a contemporary (Guardianista) focus might look at it as "back-hand praise of how lawyers confront the tribalism, partisanship and herd mentality to thwart mob violence in the public sphere of society." (Wikipedia, obvs).

There is a recent FB post by the "Community Integration and Advocacy Centre", based in Hull, UK; Charity Commission No: 1170984, who are apparently immigration lawyers, and - you'll be shocked to learn - are strongly pro-immigration. They decided to dump the following spew on Facebook to be shared with their many lawyer friends, so I thought it fair game to Robert Fisk the living hell out out it:

1. “Asylum seekers are illegal immigrants.”
❌ Seeking asylum is not illegal and this includes any person seeking sanctuary who may arrive in a small boat. Seeking asylum is a legal right under the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Strawman! Not all asylum seekers are illegal immigrants. That said, illegal immigrants (economic migrants, criminals seeking cover and overs) very often pretend to be asylum seekers. This is facilitated by willing UK lawyers (q.v.)

2. “They’re just here to claim benefits.”
❌ Asylum seekers cannot access normal benefits. They receive only minimal support (about £6 a day) and usually cannot work.

Gosh, living in a 3-4 star hotel in UK with living support and ability to work under the table must be terrible compared to life in Nigeria.

3. “The UK takes in more asylum seekers than anyone else.”
❌ The UK receives fewer asylum seekers than many countries, including Germany, France, and Lebanon.

Strawman: island. Come on, you're not even trying.

4. “Most asylum claims are fake.”
❌ Almost half of claims are granted at the first stage, and many appeals are successful, showing the system recognises genuine cases.

Strawman! Immigration lawyers continue to validate immigration petitions and ongoing appeals, and Santa's elves continue to vote for Christmas.

5. “Asylum seekers are a burden.”
❌ Refugees contribute skills, resilience, and cultural diversity. Once allowed to work, they support local economies and communities.

Cultural diversity like... blowing up kids at an Ariana Grande concert? We already have skilled immigration outreach for the NHS, and I would venture to say that the UK has enough Indian restaurants, delivery drivers, phone thieves, and Turkish barbers.

6. “They should just apply from abroad.”
❌ Safe legal routes are extremely limited. International law allows people to apply once they reach the UK.

And also allows them to apply from France/Germany etc. Where it's easier to deny, hence the "I'm already here!" gambit.

7. “They’re all young men.”
❌ Women, children, and families also seek asylum. Young men often travel first because the journey is too dangerous for vulnerable family members.

Strawman! They're dominated by young men. And what's the legal family reunion rate?

8. “They get housing ahead of locals.”
❌ Asylum seekers cannot choose where they live. They are housed in temporary accommodation and do not take priority over council housing lists.

3* or 4* hotels much preferred to council B+B. How about we rehouse them in the wilds of Scotland?

9. “They must stay in the first safe country.”
❌ International law does not require this. Many seek safety in the UK because of family, language, or community connections.

They know from relatives and friends that the UK is a soft touch. And their language skills aren't evident, are they?

10. “We need to protect our women and children from asylum seekers.”
❌ This claim plays on fear, but there is NO evidence that asylum seekers are more likely to commit crimes than the general population. People seeking sanctuary are often women and children fleeing violence, seeking the same protection and safety we want for our own families.

Let's revisit Southport, the Manchester Arena, and these lawyers definitely need to be the first up against the wall.

CASSH 2018: feeling the squeeze

It's that time of year again, where "charities" are forced to release their annual accounts, and semi-numerate baboons such as your humble correspondent paw through the numbers to try to uncover a story. Today's tale is about "Consensus" Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (CASSH).

I have perused the CASSH 2018 accounts and noted in passing that no-one actually checks them. They're still referring to Blood Pressure (UK) as charity number 1059844 (page 2) - this is actually Wetherby Sports Association, they actually meant 1058944. I'm not surprised that the Charity Commission doesn't apply this level of rigorous scrutiny, but it's an interesting data point.

Anyhoo, the CASSH accounts are 50 pages long, and at least 30 pages is tedious self-promo on their salt- and sugar-related activities. News flash, people - nobody cares. The Charity Commission is skipping right to the end to check out the numbers, as did I.

And oh, what numbers. Props to CASSH for cutting their coat according to their cloth, they've basically halved spending on their main "awareness" activities year-on-year; £141K vs £251K. Nevertheless, their reserves dropped from £564K to £483K - down 15% in one year. Their accounts note:

A delay in payment of a large expected donation this Financial Year, plus the return to work of two employees who had been on maternity leave (with reduced pay), accounts for a deficit in income and a surplus expenditure, prompting action by Trustees. The Trustees reviewed the financial position and agreed to release funds from the reserves to cover all core salary costs until such time as the funding gap was filled, expected March 2019.

Hmm. And so we'll see a corresponding rebound in next year's accounts? Colour me sceptical.

Even with a sudden donation increase from £4K to £56K, and the aforementioned throttling of expenditure, the charity is still spending way more than it receives. Unless they can latch on to the teat of a government entity, they're going to run out of money in a few years. It turns out, shockingly, that most people don't really care about sugar and salt consumption, at least not to the point of spending their own money to reduce that consumption in others. Revealed preferences, darlings!

Good luck for 2019, CASSH. Looks like you'll need it.

CASH / CASSH 2017 and the importance of attracting funding

Both my regular readers will recall my personal crusade to investigate the Marcela Trust and why UK "charities" such as "Consensus Action Salt for Health" (CASH) and "Action on Sugar" (different branch of same charity) are being funded to stop people eating bacon.

As part of this ongoing investigation I downloaded CASH accounts for 2016-2017 from the UK Charity Commission website. Saved a copy as well for future reference. The TL;DR:

• Rebranded to Consensus Action on Salt, Sugar and Health (mission-merged title, happened some time after April 2016);
• Notes that they're associated with charity Blood Pressure UK featuring long-time CASSH reps Katharine Jenner and Prof. Graham MacGregor (and they accidentally mis-cite the charity number, it's 1058944 not 1059844);
• Blood Pressure UK burned through 30% of their funds in year-end 2017 (£210K to £140K) so it's anyone's guess how long this venture will last without a cash infusion;
• CASSH brought in £50K in 2017 - down from £215K in 2016 - and spent £250K in 2017 - up from £153K in 2016. So they're down from just over £750K in funds to a bit over £560K. This doesn't seem very sustainable long-term
• Basically, no-one is giving CASSH any significant amount of money. Tragic, really. I'd imagine that the general choke-off in government funds to "charities" is starting to bite.
• About half their expenditure is in food salt/sugar surveys; seems that those surveys aren't translating into funding for action. No-one cares about what they find.
• In summary, CASSH is going to run out of cash in the next 3-5 years unless they can find a charity or government agency with reasonably deep pockets to fund their surveys

Great quote from their annual report:

Andrea Martinez-Inchausti told attendees [of the CASH reception at the House of Commons, sponsored by Sir David Amess MP] that BRC members, such as Tesco and Waitrose, are committed to salt reduction but following initial reductions, further reductions in salt are posing a technical challenge.

Let me guess: no-one wants to eat food with near-zero salt?

In fairness, I'd note that a key difference between CASSH and the Marcela Trust is that the latter sends large chunks of its finances to a few directors in remuneration, whereby CASSH at least has the decency to avoid hosing money at its trustees. (I'm curious about where in detail the £120K of survey cash goes, but have no reason to believe it ends up in CASSH trouser pockets).

Ah, CASSH. It seems that trying to reduce sugar and salt consumption in the UK, or indeed world-wide, is very much a minority interest and not one than people are prepared to back with significant quantities of their own money. I'm sure people talk a good game, but their revealed preferences in funding show that they don't actually care. Sorry guys!

Marcela Trust 2017: where's the charity spending?

In my vast fields of free time, dear reader, I scour the accounts of the Marcela Trust so that you don't have to. The accounts for 2017 make interesting reading.

Long story short, the Marcela Trust is steadily burning through the money from OMC Investments, which in turn came from the wind-up of Nissan UK. As of the start of their 2016-2017 financial year they had £86 million; after a bunch of losses on the property market they were left with £81 million at the end of the year. This doesn't seem like a wonderful record for the year for their five trustees:

• Jeanette Franklin MBE (of the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, MBE for fundraising for them)
• Dawn Pamela Rose (Marcela Trust stalwart)
• Brian Arthur Groves (Marcela Trust stalwart)
• Mark Robert Spragg (Marcela Trust stalwart)
• Paul Hotham (conservationist, also of Flora and Fauna International which has graced these pages in years past)

and yet the indications are that the trustee remuneration wasn't that much reduced from 2016 accounts. Dawn Rose trousered about £200K in total compensation (down from £270K last year) and Brian Groves got £80K rather than £100K last year. We don't know directly about a couple of the other trustees as they are paid out of a subsidiary company, but the pattern we can see is about a 20% payment reduction from 2016.

Now, the natural temptation is to ask the trustees how they can justify their salaries based on a £5 million loss over the year, but that's not fair - the value of investments can go down as well as up. We should evaluate them on how they manage the charity's spending on charitable causes - after all, that's what a charity is all about. And the accounts note specifically that the trustees do not actively fund-raise - although why they recruited someone with an MBE for fund-raising as a trustee is a bit of a mystery.

The Marcela Trust charity spent a bit over £12K on charitable activities in 2017. Last year it spent £4.8 million - but then, it got £4.75 million in donations.

One is left (per William of Ockham) with the hypothesis that the Marcela Trust trustees view their job as spending the minimum of money on charitable causes that they have to, while personally benefiting from the slowly diminishing OMC assets. I certainly don't know how they can look at this year's figures with a straight face and claim that they should be paid anything beyond a nugatory amount for their efforts.

The theme emerging from the last few years is that someone on the trustees is using the OMC funds to build a steadily growing property empire: among other investments, The Queen's Head Hotel ("QHH Limited"), the Old Post Office in Leeds, something referred to as Greyfriars Colchester which I assume is the eponymous luxury hotel, and now Castel Salbek which "acquired a property in Transylvania which is proposed to be developed into a small luxury hotel." What is a UK-based charity doing investing in a random small hotel in Transylvania? Your guess is as good as mine, but it doesn't seem to be a core focus for the charity, which makes me wonder which trustee has directed this investment, and how they (or their friends) expect to benefit from it.

If I were the Charities Commission, I think I'd be looking over the past few years of accounts and starting to ask some pointed questions about how exactly this entity is behaving as a charity in terms of fundraising for and investing in charitable causes, as opposed to being just a vehicle for speculating in (mostly hotel) property.

No cash for CASH

For those following along with our previous adventures with the prodnoses of Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) their 2014 accounts make an entertaining read, with not a little schadenfreude.

Deprived of the £100K that our friends at the Marcela Trust sent in their direction in 2013, via OMC Investments, their fairly steady expenditure rate of £150K per year is maintained this year, but since their income was £30K rather than £140K they ended up with a £120K deficit in spending, eroding their capital down to £766K. At this rate, in 6-7 more years they will be out of funds and out of luck. It seems that no-one really likes CASH or wants to give them money in any quantity - at least, not while the world is watching.

The note in the "Movement in funds" section on p.33 is amusing:

The designated fund will provide working capital to the charity to enable it to continue its unique activities whilst the trustees implement their fundraising strategy.

Yes, I'd be interested in what that strategy is going to be. Are they going to try to tap government funds in the classic fakecharity game - lobby the government to give them money to lobby the government? I'll be watching the CASH website and their subsidiary organisation Action on Sugar to see what they're up to.

Now CASH are going after beer

Dear little green apples, it seems that our beer is too sugary:

Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra said: ‘The levels of sugar in some of these drinks is quite staggering.
'There's nothing wrong with the occasional drink but unfortunately we are consuming much more than is good for us.' Dr Malhotra said alcohol-related ill health is costing the NHS £3.3 billion a year.

Nine teaspoons of sugar in a pint of real ale, apparently. Whoop de doo. That's about 36 grams, or two and a half tablespoons. And on the (unsourced) £3.3 billion, I note that alcohol duty is £10-11bn so it would seem to be more than covering its alleged costs.

Who is cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra? Oh look, he's listed as one of Action on Sugar's medical advisors:

Dr Aseem Malholtra, Cardiologist and Science Director of Action on Sugar

And yet, he doesn't publicise any academic connection unlike most of the Action on Sugar advisors. How curious. He's a HuffPost contributor who identifies as "Cardiologist and writer with a special interest in improving the nation's diet". A bit of digging indicates that he's a cardiology registrar at Croydon University Hospital. I'm sure he's a perfectly good registrar but, let's face it, CUH is not known as one of the great medical research establishments. Even his BMJ article is "Observations", not a research paper.

So CASH/Action on Sugar's science director seems to be a rather second-rank medic. Shallow calling unto shallow, I guess.

Action on Sugar - the revenge of CASH

I've been vaguely following the UK War On Sugar, but not paying much attention. However, Simon Clark at Taking Liberties spotted that Action on Sugar have more than a passing connection to our Marcela Trust funded friends at CASH:

The [actiononsugar.org] link takes you to the website for Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) so when Action on Sugar say "staff share other research projects" I imagine that's what they mean.

And indeed, here's the relevant "whois actionsugar.org" information:

Domain Name:ACTIONONSUGAR.ORG
Created On:02-Oct-2013 15:03:20 UTC
Last Updated On:02-Dec-2013 03:45:39 UTC
Expiration Date:02-Oct-2015 15:03:20 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:8259a6739c6b982d
Registrant Name:Katharine Jenner
Registrant Organization:Consensus Action on Salt and Health
Registrant Street1:Wolfson Institute; Charterhouse square; Queen Mary Universit
Registrant Street2:London
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Queen Mary University of London
Registrant State/Province:London
Registrant Postal Code:ec1m 6bq
Registrant Country:GB
Registrant Phone:+44.2078826018
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:cash@qmul.ac.uk

Back in 2012 I probed into CASH which turned up the Marcela Trust as a funding source. What's happened in the past year?

CASH's 2012-2013 report drops hints that their interests are broadening out from salt to include sugar (sugar-sweetened beverages in particular) and saturated fats. Their registered charity number is 1098818 which let me find their end of 2013 accounts:

• CASH doesn't seem to be very popular in terms of public donations, and their finances aren't looking that good: total income for the year was £141,335 (2012: £261,590) and expenditure was £140,490 (2012: £169,750)
• OMC Investments Ltd (proxy for the Marcela Trust) gave them £200K in 2012, but only £100K in 2013. Perhaps they didn't like the publicity that they got last year... Note that they're still 70% of CASH's funding.
• The rest of their income is made up of donations (4k), interest (17K), fund generating activities (17K) and "other" (2K). Their interest is basically 2% on £880K of funds.
• The British Heart foundation gave them 30K in 2012 but nothing in 2013.
• CASH shifted 300K of cash into long-term investments during the year.

Looks like CASH can run for a few years on their reserves, but without continuing OMC (Marcela Trust) investments, they're screwed.

actiononsugar.org domain registrant and nutritionist Katharine Jenner is quite the campaigner:

Katharine is a Registered Public Health Nutritionist and the Campaign Director of the award winning salt reduction charity CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) and its international arm WASH (World Action on Salt and Health) [...] Katharine worked as a media strategist for several years and as such is very interested in developing innovative approaches to communicating public health.

Specifically, banning salt, sugar, and who knows what else...

I wondered how CASH got their 880K in funds so I dug back a few years.

• In 2009 they went from 200K to 370K via 240K in "voluntary income" which include 200K from OMC.
• In 2010 OMC pitched in another 200K, and the British Heart Foundation 90K
• In 2011 OMC pitched in 200K and the BHF 60K.

One is left with the inescapable conclusion that CASH (and hence actiononsugar.org) is principally a lobbying arm of the Marcela Trust, funded through OMC Investments. Don't put sugar in the tea you offer Dawn Pamela Rose from the Marcela Trust, she'll tell you that she's sweet enough.

Marcela Trust accounts for 2012

Distracted by other blogging, I was negligent in failing to notice that the Marcela Trust had posted their 2012 accounts back in March. You can read the results of my previous investigations of the Marcela Trust and friends at your leisure.

Interesting points from the accounts:

• Natasha Malby resigned as a trustee on 6th October 2011. I wonder why?
• They're still with Spofforth's as accountants, and still HQ'd at 14 Buckingham Street. I actually dropped by that address a couple of months back; the doorbell panel indicates that as well as the IPPR (who presumably take up a floor or two of the building) there are a veritable host of small organisations at that address, e.g. the rapacious capitalists at investment firm Dawn Capital.
• They donated £100K to the anti-salt campaigners at CASH, which donation seems to have been passed straight through the Marcela Trust from OMC Investments Ltd.
• They donated £170K to Fauna & Flora International, registered charity no. 1011102, to "fund specific Community initiatives in the impoverished Zarand area of Western Transylvania and a Rumanian[sic] post graduate student at Cambridge University"
• That Romanian student appears to be Lenke Barint who graduated in the MPhil 2011-2012 class.
• The Marcela Trust carried forward £65M in its funds balance essentially unchanged.
• Current assets dropped from £11.8M in 2011 to £4.5M in 2012; tangible assets went up £20M to £77M; and amount owed to creditors went up from £200K to £13M to balance.
• Why did tangible assets jump by £20M? Because they spend £24M to acquire new tangible assets (freehold investment property) and raised £12M in loans - this sounds like they're speculating in property like the Camelia Botnar Foundation has been doing. I wonder how trusteee Mrs. Dawn Pamela Rose is involved in these acquisitions?
• Wages and salaries jumped from £570K to £854K for the same 4 people as in 2011. Since Natasha Malby resigned early in the year, her salary was negligible. Dawn Pamela Rose's salary was about the same. Brian Arthur Groves charged the Trust £89K for his services as a director. I wonder who else made up the remainder of the salaries?
• Dawn Pamela Rose's company QHH Limited appears in the accounts as a subsidiary with £1.1M turnover and 45% of that as gross profit - being more than wiped out by £622K of "administrative expenses and exceptional items", losing a net £69K for the year. I would really, really like to know what QHH Limited is doing with that money.
• Brian Arthur Groves was made a £200K loan, secured against his equity, with interest at 1% above BoE base rate; this amount is now down to £150K. Note that I've not rounded these numbers - according to the accounts they are exact.

Fauna & Flora international had £18.2M income and £17.3M spending in 2012, and has lots of eminent people as Vice Presidents. Of that income, about £4.3M came from trusts and foundations; this looks like a random donation, but I'd be fascinated to know what connection Lenke Barint has to the Marcela Trust trustees.

What does all the above tell me? The Marcela Trust is marking time, being used as a conduit for donations to charities by OMC investments, and using its substantial assets to speculate in the property market. It seems that being an employee or director of the Trust continues to be a well-paid gig, especially in relation to its level of charitable activity. I would love to know what QHH Limited is doing on behalf of the Marcela Trust - more, I'd like to get a job as admin staff for them as it seems to be quite the sinecure.

Oxfam: now experts on economics

Oxfam's head of policy and advocacy Max Lawson, writing in the Grauniad, decries the resistance to a financial transactions tax (FTT aka Robin Hood tax) and offers his thoughts on why the UK should sign up to it:

More prosaically, the likely design of the European tax means it will be paid by City institutions despite the UK's refusal to sign up. The tax will apply to any transactions on shares, bonds and derivatives where one of the parties to the transaction is based in a country where the tax is introduced.

My roommate is going to be manicuring her toenails with a chainsaw. The resulting pieces of keratin, flesh and bone will spray across the room and decorate my clothes. This, according to Oxfam, is a good reason for me adopting the same approach to personal hygiene. An interesting argument, and not one totally without merit - oh, sorry, an extraneous "not" there.

Max doesn't really improve his argument as the article proceeds:

In an age when austerity is failing to bring the public finances under control it is hard to imagine a more spectacular own goal than imperfectly protecting City fat cats at vast expense to the public purse.

OK, so who would be impacted by implementing the FTT within the UK? The Congressional Budget Office seems to think that most of the incidence falls on average investors. Anyone who buys and sells shares, directly or indirectly (for instance, anyone with a private pension) will find their costs rise sharply. I realise this may not be a concern for those with a Civil Service pension, but the remaining tens of millions of the UK population with private pensions may not take so sanguine a view. Anyone with a UK bank account would see their already nugatory interest wiped out as the nightly inter-bank transactions were priced out of existence.

Even if the UK Government were stupid enough to implement this tax (and it wouldn't be), the US and Canadian Governments would happily bin any attempt to implement it, instead welcoming any international business which decided that headquartering or trading within the EU had suddenly become more expensive. Tax income would therefore take a steep dive, and the current advantage held by the UK for international listings (due to the semi-demented Sarbannes-Oxley act in the USA) would evaporate like urine on a hot radiator.

I suspect that the prospect of fairy gold billions from the FTT has blinded Oxfam to the actual real and severe problems with the FTT. No prospective Chancellor is going to go for this idea, given the near-immediate impact it would have on corporate tax income:

Can you imagine the Labour party going into the next election vowing to remain outside a European Robin Hood tax that has elsewhere reined in the markets and raised billions to kickstart economic progress?

If Ed Balls were stupid enough to promise this, and I can't see this happening, I can see Labour being wiped out at the next general election as Government income takes a sharp step downwards and the Chancellor is faced with the unpalatable alternatives of deficit spending (and further damage to the UK credit rating and rising interest payments) or spending cuts. I don't think Oxfam's £12mm income from the Government would last long in such an environment.

So where does Max Lawson get his economic expertise?

Max has worked for Oxfam GB since 2002, firstly in policy support to country programmes, and then in advocacy and campaigns. As part of his country support he has visited and worked with over 25 country programmes across the world. He has experience in organisational development, tax, structural adjustment, aid quantity and quality, macro-economics, governance, agriculture policy, social protection, HIV and AIDS, health, education and water.

So he knows a little about a lot. The Internet, and his numerous biographical snippets, are silent about what he studied at the University of Sussex beyond being an "MA student". I note that he "studied at" but nowhere did they say "graduated from"...

Marcela Trust, part 2

[In which we meet the Botnar family, discover an unpaid £250mm UK tax bill, and find that hating bacon doesn't pay the bills. Now available: Part 3, where we take a look at the accounts of the Camelia Botnar entities. ]

Following my original post on the Marcela trust, Tim Worstall's repost occasioned several comments including a very helpful one from Vinny Burgoo:

I came across Octav Botnar, Marcela's husband, while trying to identify an associate of John Bloom [...] Botnar was the brains behind Nissan UK, which expanded rapidly then lost its import monopoly and was eventually found to have systematically cheated the taxman for a decade or more.

So I did a bit more digging to try to ascertain the source and intent behind the sudden £70 million donation to the Marcela Trust in 2010 and what the connection to CASH was.

The Octav Botnar story

Octav Botnar died in 1998 in Switzerland, owing the UK Inland Revenue about £250 million in unpaid tax. It seems that the Inland Revenue were bringing a court case against him, but dropped it when it became clear he was terminally ill. Former Nissan MD Michael Hunt wasn't so lucky, getting 8 years in chokey for his part in the frauds while financial director and company secretary Frank Shannon got 3 years.

The prosecution said the fraud started in 1976 and lasted 16 years. Bogus invoices and 'sham' shipping agents in the Netherlands and Norway were used to inflate the costs of shipping Nissan vehicles from Japan to Britain by as much as 50 per cent, to conceal an extra profit averaging pounds 115 on each car and van.
The money was laundered through a Bermudan company and secret Swiss bank accounts. The cash then disappeared into a black hole - the term used by tax investigators who have failed to trace a single penny.

Keen readers of my original post will remember the company "Camelia Botnar Limited" and the charity "Camelia Botnar Foundation" which are both interests of Marcela Trust trustees, including Dawn Pamela Rose whose company OMC Limited contributed the £70 million at issue. It seems that Camelia Botnar was Octav and Marcela's daughter, and was killed in a 1979 road accident, hence the foundation of the charity. Marcela Botnar seems to be still in Switzerland, working for the Fondation Botnar in Basel (Elisabethenstrasse 15).

This made me wonder more about the source of the money and whether there might have been any connection to Octav's original fortune. OMC Investments Limited was founded in 1970 but wasn't called OMC Investments Limited then: they were originally Datsun UK Limited, changing name to Nissan UK Limited in January 1984 and OMC Investments Limited in 2007. OMC Investments Limited now has £69 million of share capital, nearly all of which is owned by The Marcela Trust since it was gifted to them in 2010.

It looks to me as if all the value in Octav Botnar's original Datsun/Nissan UK company, headquartered in 14 Buckingham Street, Westminster, was transferred to charity The Marcela Trust, also headquartered in 14 Buckingham Street, Westminster and sharing at least one trustee/director (the aforementioned Dawn Pamela Rose).

The Trust itself donated £800K to charities in 2010 - 500K to The Nuffield hospital which seems to have a link to the late Camelia, 200K to bacon-hating CASH and 100K to "Open Eyes" in Lausanne, Switzerland (which seems to be the interest of trustee Dr. Martin Lenz). I suspect that it's not a coincidence that Octav Botner lived most of his life in Switzerland - perhaps he had eye problems, perhaps Dr. Lenz was a family friend. But why would The Marcela Trust donate all that money to CASH? What's the connection?

CASH - kept afloat by OMC funds

CASH staff are all in the field of nutrition and cardiovascular health. The 2010 CASH annual report makes it clear that it is primarily a lobbying organisation, organising the 11th National Salt Awareness Week (I must have missed the first 10 of them, how guilty do I feel) and bugging various national and international agencies about salt. It is a registered UK charity with no trustees common to the Marcela Trust network, and in FY 2011 it raised 283K from all sources and spent 113K on Salt Awareness Week and various surveys.. Interestingly the accounts note:

The funding from OMC Investments Ltd (the Marcella[sic] Trust) which comprises a significant component of the income will cease in 2011-2012 leaving a considerable gap in the charity's resources.

With very little money coming from actual people (262K of the 283K came from OMC and the British Heart Foundation), and appearing to be pretty much an anti-salt lobbying arm of The Marcela Trust, CASH is clearly deserving of a their Fake Charities label - and with luck their £800K in the bank will run out soon; they estimated 3-4 years with the current reserves.

Who's behind OMC and what are they doing now?

Mrs. Dawn Pamela Rose, director of OMC Investments Ltd. and trustee of the Marcela Trust, seems to be also known by her (maiden?) name Dawn Pamela Lawson in her role as a director of Camelia Botnar Ltd. The manager "D Lawson" to whom The Marcela Trust paid £240K seems to be she. I suspect that administrator "N Malby" (£24K) is Natasha Sarah Lara Malby (age 36) who is similarly a Marcela Trust trustee and director of Camelia Botnar Ltd. Natasha seems to be a bit young to have any involvement in Nissan before things went "foom"; I wonder how she got involved with the Trust?

Dawn is a director of company QHH Limited (registed number 07637088) which appears to be a newly formed (as of May 2011) company with as yet unknown purposes and cashflow since no accounts have yet been filed. Brian Arthur Groves of OMC and the Marcela Trust is a co-director, so this isn't just a sole venture by Ms. Rose. I note in passing that Brian is nearly 80, whereas Dawn is a sprightly 56 years of age. Brian's directorship history includes Nissan Plant and Industrial Machinery Ltd., Debretts says that he used to be a motoring journalist before becoming advertising, PR and marketing director for Nissan UK Limited until 1988 (that must have fun when the Inland Revenue came a-calling for his colleague Octav Botnar) and his given business address is... 14 Buckingham Street, Westminster. Shocker.

QHH Ltd. registered address is currently COMEWELL HOUSE, NORTH STREET, HORSHAM, WEST SUSSEX RH12 1RD. Oh look! As well as OMC Investments Limited, Spofforths Private Client Services LLP is at that address - Spofforths are the accountants who signed off on the Marcela Trust accounts for 2010, so seem to be favoured by Ms. Rose/Lawson for her business arrangements. Presumably they are holding the company details and managing correspondence until an actual office is opened.

I wonder whether QHH Limited are is going to start engaging with OMC Investments Ltd, Camelia Botnar Ltd, the Marcela Trust or the Camelia Botnar foundation? If so, how and why?

Summary

The Marcela Trust is populated with people who have been and are involved with a variety of Botnar family enterprises. CASH is kept afloat by OMC money, but now that's gone to the Marcela Trust they have to live off their reserves. There's no indication where this £70 million in the Marcela Trust is going to go, but it seems that being a trustee can be a very lucrative quarter-of-a-million-quid-a-year gig, as Dawn Pamela Rose/Lawson could tell you.

The Marcela Trust donated virtually nothing to anyone in FYE July 2011. I am going to be watching with interest to see what the accounts for FYE July 2012 reveal, when they finally get published. What are they planning to do with the £69 million-odd of investments they are holding? If CASH isn't expecting anything, who is? To which charities are they going to be donating - and whom will they be paying fat salaries? What's going on at 14 Buckingham Street, Westminster - is anyone around to ask questions of Mr. Brian Arthur Groves or his representative there?

The Marcela Trust won't bring home the bacon

[Author's note: this started as a rant about bacon, but the more I dug up, the smellier this seemed. Anyone wanting to chase down the threads here and ask some pointed questions, do feel free.]

According to Consensus Action on Salt and Health we should be eschewing bacon as two rashers of bacon contains over half one's daily salt allowance.

They say that like it's a bad thing:

"For every one gramme reduction in salt intake we can prevent 12,000 heart attacks, strokes and heart failure," said Cash chairman Graham MacGregor.

The RDA of salt (an amount no doubt pulled out from between Mr. MacGregor's tofu-fed gluteus maximus) is 6g. We eat an average of 9g. So if no-one ate more salt than recommended, we'd save 36,000 heart attacks, strokes and heart failures. In a pig's eye.

So who are these Concerned Upstanding National Treasures at CASH?

CASH was set up in 1996 as a response to the refusal of the Chief Medical Officer to endorse the COMA recommendations to reduce salt intake, following the threat of withdrawal of funds by the food industry to the Conservative Party.

"Was set up". I note the use of the passive tense there. "Was set up" by whom, exactly? And who is funding them?

CASH is reliant on voluntary contributions in order to fulfil its expanding role such as running National Salt Awareness Week, producing and distributing resources etc. CASH is unique in its work. The role it performs is not undertaken by any other organisation, so your support is vital.
...
We are very grateful to The Marcella[sic] Trust and the British Heart Foundation for their continuing support of CASH.

Who are the The Marcela Trust and what do they want?

THE CHARITY PROVIDES SUPPORT TO SELECTED CAUSES IN LINE WITH THE CHARITY'S OBJECTS.

Could they be any more vague? And, oh look! Income for 2009 was £730K, most of it was spent. Income for 2011 was £0 and £14K was spent. Income for 2010 was £70MM and £800K was spent. WTF? The 2010 accounts confirm that these clowns have a £69MM balance.

It's quite hard to find out any information about what The Marcela Trust does; Google doesn't reveal much, and their entry on the Charities Commission site is rather unhelpful. Interestingly, The Marcela Trust contact address is 14 Buckingham Street, London - the same address as Guardian favourite the Institute for Public Policy Research. Perhaps they are next door neighbours? Or perhaps the IPPR knows more of what The Marcela Trust does than one might expect?

Taking trustee Dawn Pamela Rose as an example, a lady with a remarkably similar name is director of a number of "generic" names, including "OMC Investments Limited", "Camelia Botnar Limited" and (my personal favourite) "QHH Limited". Dawn is listed as living at Park Farm, Saham Hills, Norfolk. Oh look! OMC Investments Limited is also listing 14 Buckingham Street, Westminster as its contact address. What a coincidence. They seem to be into property investments in a big way. I wonder if any of that £70MM in the Marcela Trust accounts came from OMC's investments? Apparently so, according to the accounts:

During the year the Trust received a donation of 95.5% of the share capital of Omarca Investment Holdings Limited. Omarca Investment Holdings Limited is a dormant intermediary holding company which holds 100% of the shares of OMC Investments Limited. OMC Investments Limited's principal activities are property dealing, management, development and investment.

That seems very out of line with the Trust's previous fundraising and spending. I wonder what OMC intend it to be spent on? I note that staff costs (1 manager, 3 administrators) were £290K wages and salaries, plus about 10% of that as pension contributions. "D Lawson" (manager?) was paid over £240K and N Malby (administrator?) gets just over £40K. Nice work if you can get it.

Trustee Mark Robert Spragg from Teddington is a director of Zwischenzug Limited (apparently "Zwischenzug" is a chess tactic) based in Pinner. What do we know about Zwischenzug?

Their current status is 'Company not trading', and their founding director, Norman Mcmillan, has been the director of 2 other companies. Norman Hamilton Mcmillan is the only shareholder of Zwischenzug Limited [...] The company's current net worth is £20, and the value of their shareholders' interest is £20.

Wonder what he uses it for?

Trustee Brian Arthur Groves is a director of the Camilia Botnar Foundation which appears to be a legit and active charity - Dawn Rose's Camilia Botnar Limited company appears to be the same as Camelia Botnar Homes and Gardens which sells things made by the craftsmen and trainees employed by the Foundation. According to the Marcela Trust accounts he has a Guernsey-based company B G Consultants Limited, which is where The Marcela Trust paid him £85K in 2010, and presumably he doesn't have to worry about too much tax there. I'm surprised that the IPPR haven't let their neighbours know their feelings about tax avoidance.

I would be fascinated to learn what's going on with The Marcela Trust, these trustees, and their mesh of companies and charities. In my experience, the more an organisation tries to deflect interest about what it does, the more reason there is for people to ask pointed questions about it. Any journos out there up for a bit of digging around Companies House and doorstepping 14 Buckingham Street, Westminster?

Insane claim of the year - the BMJ

Apparently, increasing the speed limit on UK motorways from 70mph to 80mph will increase obesity according to an article in the BMJ:

The authors say a higher limit could increase gas emissions and air pollution and could lead to increased obesity, with more people taking advantage of shorter car journeys.

An exercise for the reader: assuming the driver takes 1 minute from leaving home to joining the motorway at an average speed of 20mph, and 1 minute from leaving the motorway to arriving at destination at the same 20mph average, what is the minimum distance from start to finish for which she would save 1 minute of travel time by travelling at 80mph rather than 70mph on the motorway, assuming instant acceleration from 20 to 80?

Answer: (highlight to see) at 70mph she travels 1.16 miles per minute, at 80mph 1.33 miles per minute, so X/1.16 = 1 + X/1.33, solve for X and you get X(1.33 - 1.16) = 1.16*1.33: X = 1.54/0.17 = 9 miles (plus 2/3 of a mile either side)

I'm glad that the authors of this paper are devoting so much effort to safeguarding those among us who would rather drive 10 miles than walk it because it's one minute quicker than previously.

[I wish the Grauniad had a link to the paper because I'd like to identify the authors and beat the living daylights out of them. For spouting such specious crap, they don't deserve to live, let alone get funding.]

Fake Charity - School Food Trust

With thanks to The Devil who popularised the Fake Charity meme, a bit of Sunday afternoon charity accounts digging.

Occasioned by this BBC article on school lunches I had a look at the accounts for the School Food Trust which show that in 2010 they received £15m from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (or whatever they call themselves this week, currently "The Department for Education") and £5m from the Big Lottery Fund, comprising over 98% of their income. You'll note the grand total of £0 raised from voluntary donations. This makes them the epitome of fake charities.

Of the Board, Judy Hargadon trousered a minimum of £95k while her fellow directors managed sums in the £60k-75k range. There were also substantial pension contributions made. Nice work if you can get it. About £2.2m was spent on marketing. Looking at the Board members' interests, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "grants" being made to regional councils by the "charity" didn't end up being used to purchase services or materials from the Board members' associated companies.

I suppose we can't complain about the Lottery fund pissing away money on whatever it wants, but next time someone tells you that you that "education cuts" are going to hit "the cheeeeldren", ask them how spending £10m on these bottom-feeding scum buckets in Aeron chairs helps education.