Arron Banks responds to tax dodger accusation

Scottish-Italian comedian, Armando Ianucci, accused UKIP donor Arron Banks of being a tax dodger using companies based in Belize on Question Time. Here's Arron Banks' response:

Dear Mr Ianucci,

I understand you mentioned me on question time in connection with the use of Belizean/ overseas companies to reduce my tax bill including a company in Belize and a service company .

I do not own any companies in Belize so this comment is clearly defamatory.

I believe it is recycling an old guardian story which was incorrect - I have made charitable donations to the Belize children's hospital and hosted a function for them . This was for a cancer charity .

Meanwhile the service company mentioned is in respect of mainly UK staff and expenses incurred and does not save any UK tax . The company does not produce revenue .

I have created over 5000 local jobs in South Gloucestershire and donated over a million pounds to charity including , local churches , facilities for schools , scouts, Cubs , cricket and hockey clubs and local sports clubs in the area.

I paid 2m pounds in tax , over the last two years - probably more than most Italians one imagines.

Particularly funny ones .

I do not own any Belizean companies or seek to avoid UK tax via any device - I expect an apology within 7 days or proceedings will follow .

Best regards

Arron
Ps love the thick of it !

Your move Signor Iannuci.

Left wing extremist planted in Question Time audience

The Mirror are trying to suggest that UKIP MEP, Jim Carver's brother was planted in the Question Time audience last night to make it biased against Russell Brand.

Background checks are done on all the people who apply to be in the Question Time audience so the producers will have been well aware that Rob Carver is Jim Carver's brother. Likewise, they'll have been very aware that the woman who spent most of the night screaming abuse at Nigel Farage, telling him he is a racist and she's coming to get him, is Bunny La Roche of Kent International Socialists who organised the violent attack on Nigel Farage that resulted in him being hit over the head with a placard earlier this year.

Bunny La Roche - or Comrade Bunny as she's known to her friends in Unite Against Fascism, the Socialist Workers Party, Hope not Hate, Stand up to UKIP, Rock Against Racism and whatever other far left band of thugs and propagandists she's associated herself with - heckled and abused Nigel Farage and other audience members throughout the show.

The Question Time producers knew what they were doing when they invited Comrade Bunny onto the show, Russell Brand is fine preaching his authoritarian, extremist agenda at people when he's got a camera to himself or an interviewer he can dominate but when he's in front of a live audience of mainly switched on people and a panel of politicians capable of demolishing every bit of nonsense he utters he's clearly out of his depth and it shows. The flamboyant gobshite was nowhere to be seen.

Che Brand will be on tonight's Question Time with Nigel Farage

Multi-millionaire class warrior, Russell Brand, will be will be joining Nigel Farage on the Question Time panel tonight.

Brand has recently turned from acting to evangelising extremist far left politics, calling for a "massive redistribution of wealth" (but presumably not his own) and global revolution. He models himself on mass-murdering communist and socialist poster boy, Che Guevara. Professor Chandran Kukathas of the London School of Economics takes apart Brand's anarcho-communist "manifesto" to pieces on BuzzFeed.

It's going to be ... interesting.

Labour activist who abused Diane James bombs out in Kent

The Labour regional policy co-ordinator and politics graduate, Amy Rutland, who was planted into a Question Time audience to verbally abuse UKIP's Diane James was humiliated in Thursday's local elections in Kent.

Roger Latchford won the Birchington & Villages seat on Kent County Council for UKIP with a whopping 47% of the vote, followed by the Tory candidate on 32% and Rutland a distant third with just 14% of the vote.  She was saved from even more embarrassment by the Lib Dem who only managed 7%.

What goes around comes around.

Paul Nuttall impresses on Question Time

UKIP MEP and Deputy Leader, Paul Nuttall, put in a fantastic first appearance on BBC Question Time on Thursday night, attracting applause every time he spoke.

The Minister for Communication, Ed Vazey's attempts to emulate Boris Johnson's air of foppish buffoonery failed to make him a hit with the audience and he spent most of his time with his face in his hands and a look that said "why did I agree to this"?  Rather amusingly he argued that his government's Workfare programme was voluntary and had to be informed that it is, in fact, mandatory and those who refuse to take part lose their benefits.

The Labour Shadow Attorney General, Emily Thornberry, was pretty stereotypical of female Labour MPs and dropped a bit of a clanger by saying that Syrian rebels had  plenty of weapons and didn't need any more.  This on the day after a reporter had just been killed by a rocket fired by the Syrian army into a house in a residential area and amid reports from all sorts of agencies about the atrocities being caused by the Syrian authorities.

The other two guests were Cristina Odone, the Telegraph reporter, and the historian, Simon Schama.  Simon Schama got the biggest laugh when asked for an opinion about Rupert Murdoch starting the Sun on Sunday and replied something along the lines of "there are very few things in this world I don't give a damn about and this is one of them".

Paul Nuttall was by far the most convincing, most popular and most human of the panelists.  Small wonder than the phrase "Paul Nuttall" was the #1 trend in the UK on Twitter after the programme and #4 in the world.

Farage on Question Time

Nigel Farage will be on BBC Question Time tomorrow at 11:05pm.

It's a bit late (isn't it always) but it should be a good one. This is Nigel's first appearance on Question Time or similar since he announced he was standing down as Leader.

Nigel Farage on Question Time Tomorrow

Question Time, the BBC's premier political debate programme chaired by David Dimbleby, will be from Dunstable on Thursday 5th of February. BBC1 at at 10.35pm.

The panel will include the Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon, conservative shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May, the leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage MEP, singer and actor Will Young, and director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti.

The panels profiles can be found here

For those of you who missed it.

Nigel Farage on Question Time

UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP will be on the panel for Question Time on BBC1 this Thursday, 6 November, at 10.35 pm. In the midst of a financial crisis and economic recession and in the wake of the US election, he will have plenty to talk about.David Dimbleby will chair the political debate from Tottenham in London. The panel includes Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, the Shadow Security Minister Pauline Neville Jones, and musician and Liberal Democrat youth adviser Brian Eno.