Warm congratulations to Ed Davey, the former LibDem MP and Energy Secretary – and patron of LKP – who was knighted today in the New Year honours.
In spite of his cabinet commitments, Ed has been a huge help to LKP / Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation and to all leaseholders. It was Ed who organised the first Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation meeting in Westminster in 2009.
Thanks to his involvement the Competition and Markets Authority was made to investigate leasehold immediately after the absolutely useless Office of Fair Trading ruling of collusive tendering by Cirrus / Peverel (now FirstPort).
Just a reminder: Peverel got off scot-free; its dodgy contractors in on the scam were fined but all but one went bust and paid nothing; one of its dodgy contractors was back working at Peverel sites within months and the only people who were seriously threatened with the law were the Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation whistleblowers who revealed the scam but were told by the OFT to speak to no one.
In spite of his busy life as a Cabinet minister, Ed was indignant about all this and did his best to goad the authorities into action.
He was also a huge support to the leaseholders in Charter Quay, Kingston, where he unhesitatingly referred to the Tchenguiz operations and Peverel as “monstrous companies”.
Peter Bottomley’s black-humoured response when offered a knighthood was to say, “I hope I have not done anything to deserve this”.
Similarly, Ed Davey seems to have done very little to ingratiate himself with the usual gong-awarding entities (and doubtless there are unmerited awards to CMA and OFT officeholders aplenty). But his contribution actually to helping other people is undeniable.
Let’s hope he returns to public life. He remains, of course, a patron of LKP whether he has a seat in Parliament or not. And we are very proud to have him.
Related posts:
Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation thanks patron Ed Davey
Andy Davey promoted. He headed Cirrus during Peverel’s price-fixing
If ANY other site thinks it was scammed by Peverel / Cirrus, contact Ed Davey or Sir Peter Bottomley
Davey and Bottomley quiz OFT over its leniency deal with Peverel over the Cirrus price-fixing scam
This is really great news for Sir Edward Davey and it shows there are some good guys who have gone the extra mile. Campaign against retirement leasehold exploitation must be very proud to have two Knights at the Leasehold Table. We now require MBE for Sebastian and Martin.
Our other Knight has made a comment in the Houses of Parliament regarding the Housing Bill I thought it was worth posting:-
Peter Bottomley Conservative, Worthing West 8:49 pm, 5th January 2016
I do not think there would be any objection if the Government agreed to that, but we are in the situation we are in.
The Bill totally misses out the necessary changes to leasehold and Commonhold. Some years ago, the House passed a Bill to allow Commonhold to come in. It has defects and we are going to be lumbered with more and more leaseholds being created—for over half of new homes.
The second thing I object to is that we have not taken the easy opportunity of cutting out the forfeiture of people’s homes when there has been a little dispute over some charges. I hope that later on, perhaps in another place, if not on Report and Third Reading, the House will realise that the Government really need to get on and sort out the problems of leasehold that affect a very, very high number of property owners.
What about an OBE for me? i could be “Old B*****d Epstein!”
You already have this accolade Michael it was bestowed by Christopher Owens who also had other names that he said suited you:-
Fellow underrated Communal Kampaigner East Kilbride.or similar.
Best wishes mate.