600) "We need to get to the bottom of this ..." Theresa May.

To the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary,

And To the Health Secretary

and

To the Chair of Ombudsman Services

and

To the CEO of Livewell Southwest Ltd.

For Clarity - Attempt 600

Jeremy Corby For Prime Minister

600) "We need to get to the bottom of this..." Theresa May

Dear All,

In response to the Grenfell Tower atrocity, Theresa May has said,

"we need to get to the bottom of this."

(www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40298473)

It's a year and a month to the day when her special advisor, Nick Timothy had said,

"as with Hillsborough, we must get to the bottom of what happened at Orgreave."

(www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists)

We all know what happened there - the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd vetoed it leading to a cover-up or as it's more commonly known, "government business as usual." So there is still no justice for all those victims either and as the years roll by we are still waiting to get to the bottom of it.

Was Amber Rudd the right person to make such a decision given her father's involvement in a business she ran despite being declared unfit?

According to the Guardian he was declared, "unfit" in a 1988 excoriating Department of Trade and Industry report which said he was, "either unaware or chose to ignore" the duties of a company director and was, "unfit to direct any company whether private or public."

The key issue here being - unaware or choosing to ignore the duties of a company director.

When asked about this by the Guardian, Amber Rudd, "declined to answer the question, as did her father."

(www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/05/revealed-amber-rudds-father-was-involved-in-business-she-ran-despite-being-declared-unfit)

It would appear that Amber Rudd is somewhat lacking in the unimpeachable integrity department but then the business culture she extolls is one that believes - "if you'ain't cheatin' you'ain't tryin'."

Breaking rules, failing to answer questions seeing yourself as above the law seems to permeate the higher echelons of public life and business these days.

The key issue here being that the rich and powerful - decline to answer questions and chose to ignore their duties with apparent impunity.

It began when Margaret Thatcher fired the starting gun which heralded the ideological, head-long stampede to de-regulate what were then called, "free markets." These markets are free in the sense that those running them expect to do as they please with as little or no transparency or accountability as is possible.

These people do not expect to answer questions they do, however, expect to ignore their duties.

The present Prime Minister now refers to such markets as being dysfunctional but has to date failed to define what  she means by this. They are, of course, rigged.

The free market in housing involved selling The People's homes off at knock-down prices and now a third are owned by wealthy landlords -

"Great Tory housing shame: Third of ex-council homes now owned by rich landlords - The son of a former Tory Housing Minister and Mrs Thatcher aide during the peak years of right-to-buy runs at least 40 ex-council property ....Tycoon Charles Gow and his wife own at least 40  ex-council flats on one South London estate."

(www.mirror.com. 5 Mar 2013)

Dysfunctional is the wrong term to use.

It suggests that quite inexplicably markets began to develop practices that do not work in their customer's interests. It's as if they're the result of a series of random accidents that mysteriously end up always benefitting those operating them at the expense of all others. We believe they're rigged - rigged to maximise profit and minimise risk to those manipulating them.

Joseph Stiglitz believes they've been captured. 

- Joseph Stiglitz: Are markets efficient or do they tend towards monopoly. The verdict is in.

(222.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05

- Dissecting Our Rigged Economy - Decline of the Empire

(www.declineoftheempire.com/2016/07

- The Role Of The State In Financial Markets

(documents.worldbank/org/curated)

Interstingly and importantly in:

"Even The Regulators Are Rigged: Prominent HFT Critic Stiglitz Blocked From SEC Panel.

Here we told,

"That the markets are rigged at both the macro level, through central banks, and micro level, through HFTs, dark pools and purposeful market fragmentation, should be painfully obvious to everyone by now."

It should be but it isn't because people simply aren't being told.

In the rigged housing market any foreign drug baron, oligarch, tin-pot dictator, terrorist, loaded celebrity etc can, through an off-shore company not registered in their name, buy into the London Property Market. They then simply leave their investment empty and sit back and make the inevitable killing. According to the Independent there are over a thousand such properties in Kensington alone. It's hardly being entrepreneurial all you need is loads of money and the knowledge that no-one's going to ask you where it came from.  

However, when Margaret Thatcher sold her home in Flood Street, Kensington and Chelsea (just off the King's Road) it wasn't for a 70% discount. (www.righttobuy.gov.uk)

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of the rigged housing market?

Even the regulators are rigged.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of the rigged market in surveying where RICS the regulator can't or won't regulate its very own Members and (Un)Regulated Firms?

RICS the regulator has let practices develop that don't work in their customer's interests.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of just how that was ever able to happen?

The market in private civil justice and redress at Ombudsman Services is rigged. Data on the Ombudsman's performance in settling consumers' complaints is not being collected and so there is nothing to report. There is no transparency or accountability.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of just how that was ever able to happen?

The Chair of Ombudsman Services, Lord Tim Clement Jones, complains publicly that complainants complain too much.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of just how that was ever able to happen?

The market in paying for nursing care is rigged. Anonymous Desk Top Reviewers made ludicrous decisions that aren't supported by any evidence and the sick, the elderly, the dying and the dead are then promptly presented with a huge bill for the cost of their nursing care.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of how that was ever able to happen?

Professional Healthcare Workers owe a duty of care to their patients and yet make decisions involving thousands and thousands of pounds whilst not telling their patients their name. They hide behind anonymity.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of how that was ever able to happen?

The sick, the elderly, the dying and the dead - and their families - now need solicitors and advocates to fight to get back what was wrongfully extorted from them in the first place and yet they  do not have the right to reclaim in full the costs they've been forced to incur in doing so.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of how that was ever able to happen?

The CEO of Livewell Southwest Ltd, Professor Steven Waite, like the Ombudsman Services:Property Ombudsman, doesn't see it as part of his duty as a company executive to answer questions.

Q. Why is it taking so long to get to the bottom of how that was ever able to happen?

What we do know is that there a lot of questions that the rich and powerful would like to keep unanswered.

In a modern 21st century post-Brexit democracy, this cannot be permitted to continue.

Yours sincerely,

Steve Gilbert.

The Ombudsmans61percent campaign is at: www.blogger.com