Mr Shoe

Did I miss something? Only £10m left?

There's more than just one person responsible for this tragedy. Have you all forgotten what it was like to be that age? To egg each other on into doing stupid things?

For the SECOND time since his incredible comeback began, Singer makes it into the news: http://manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=73959 by accusing Beecroft of following a vendetta against Christian. The other time was (of course): http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/50-000-mhk-to-move-into-a-subsidised-flat-1-5657997 The people of Ramsey must be so proud of their MHK's contribution!! I noticed from his wiki page he was Chairman of the Film Commission 2001-2006....the early days of this scam. Conflict of Interest? Discuss..... The voters in the north of the island really have a lot to answer for

It shouldn't be impartial. It should be 100% biased in our favour. But it isn't. We bought his seat.

The only argument against this being a Conflict of Interest is that Christian is not an employee of the Government. Not quite true. We are a 10% shareholder in Pinewood, not simply a customer (as in the Fund Manager analogy). He was given a place on the board as part of the package that saw us invest our £millions. No other reason. Our £12.5m investment bought his seat. Nothing odd about this arrangement. But it does mean represents us. Only us. He works for us. In this setup, you would expect a "planted" director to work EXCLUSIVELY for us and our interests. Not Gasworks. Not the Film making company. So, COI it remains.

Partnered with Peel? A good thing? Whittaker is a sharp, successful business man. Used to getting his own way. Eddie Teare is an uneducated prat with £400 million of other people's money to hand and noone to answer to. That £37 million (or whatever is left) would be better in the bank until we have a semi numerate person as CM.

Thing is, I can see Slim's point of view. No sarcasm at all. Is Christian actually guilty of Conflict of Interest? Truly? Or is he guilty of being an unscrupulous conman (as Slim proposes)? Taking advantage of two feeble-minded old fuckers? I think if you're stupid enough to take a dodgy second hand car salesmans "advice" as gospel then you deserve what you get. Pity they're doing it with our money though. They do seem to the the only two conclusions I can arrive at. If Teare is not able to see how Christian is playing him, then he is guilty of negligence, ineptitude and a basic capacity to run a petty cash tin, never mind a small Treasury. ETA: Also, it's not a Conflict of Interest if the people making the decisions are colluding in all this with the intent to line their pockets. That's straight forward Corruption.

Again. Thanks newsnight. As long as this site exists (or an archive on google somewhere) your posts constitute a valuable resource for when the information accidentally is "lost"

Excellent newsnight. Appreciate your work. I'd further like to know what contribution the Film Fund shenanigans had on the VAT renegotiation and the loss of £ hundreds of millions to the manx economy. This aspect is too often overlooked. From vague memory the entire Film industry was a clever ruse to inflate our applicable GDP to grasp more VAT. The effect was to attract the attention of Westminster with somewhat negative consequences.

So, Christian gives professional advice from an official position that financially benefits himself? Does he think Gasworks (i.e. himself) are the best for the job? Can he be objective about this? He has not approached the government/Pinewood as a salesman, he's done his "selling" from the inside. As a director. From a position of "significant influence". This is the key: The advice. The influence. The financial gain.

@slim http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-dealing And no, I didn't just edit wikipedia to make it sound like the Christian.

Looking at the Annual Report, the IOM made £90k this year (March) in dividends. But paid £300k+ to, er, someone. So once more, our £millions investment loses money. Does anyone know the current value of our £25m fund?

So we pay £200,000 per year for them to keep our money warm? On the plus side, we receive 0.6p per share in Dividends for the half-year? Which I believe is £2,900 Is that right? We earn £6,000 (rounded) a year on £12,500,000 But pay £200,000 a year for them to look after £25,000,000 Someone is being f*cked here and I don't think it's Steve Christian.

Next thing you'll be telling me the MEF purchase of the Nunnery is to do with Real Estate when it's obviously about Education. Gosh.

You can't compare Pinewood Shares with BT Shares. BT Shares trade like you see in Wall Street. Buyers and Sellers constantly going at it. The Share Price is a good indication of what you'll get if you try to sell "now" (although you still need a buyer which gets harder the more you're trying to sell) Pinewood is not like that. Shares in small numbers change hands occasionally. But 95% of Shares are held by 3 players, including us. I believe (correct me please) this 5% is a requirement of the AIM Market. Pinewood is practically a private company with 3 shareholders. There's no-one to sell our Shares to. And I very much doubt either of the other two Shareholders could buy them off us without de-listing.

Do they all have to be sold to the same person, or all at once? If they sold them off slowly in small amounts, without flooding the market, monitoring changes in demand, as reflected in share price, it wouldn't cause a problem. In fact, I think it would help there case if they were to realise the profits by selling a small proportion of the shares - perhaps £1m worth - and using the money to, for example, stop the toilet tax. If people saw this investment delivering real benefits, by helping to fund a necessary service without a stealth tax, they might not be moanign about it. We'd still have over £17.5m-worth of shares, and no toilet tax. You are Teare's financial advisor and I claim my £5

We have £37,500,000 sitting doing fuck all with Pinewood simply to enable a certain person to have a nice job. It could be doing something here. Put that £37m towards one of the governments various debts and you've just saved almost £1-2m per year on interest. But Teare needs to be forced to admit it's doing nothing before we can ever hope to politely ask for it back. I'd be prepared to lose 20% on the Share price. And obviously £7m has already been wasted on stupid flops. But something is better than nothing.

He'd just answer that 'these things take time, are measured over years - cinema, DVD...blah blah blah...wouldn't be a true picture...blah blah blah'. Okay. Take the £25m out of the equation and treat the £12.5m like they were BT shares. £How much earned so far?

Surely the question should be: "As of (say) 31-Dec-2013 how much income has been received by Treasury from the monies (£12.5m & £25m) invested with Pinewood?" Supplementary question if he avoids "Is there a more suitable date on which an actual figure can be given?" There would be no commercial confidentiality surrounding that question. How £much have WE received. Neither does it ask about future income or income derived by indirect means. She could ask that at next sitting.

Or hard work

Why would Allan get tough on Barclays? He's probably getting a finders fee Or at least really nice xmas presents. Is that slander?

Yes, my maths are slightly out. Plus the £000s a year you donate to support the Public Sector Pensions. Allan Bell has caused every man woman and child (that chooses to stay on the Rock) around £2,000 worth of pain a year. He will live out his retirement (coming very soon, not opinion) in luxury.

I reckon £620 per household per year to pay it off including interest (@5%) over 30 years. This £50 is nothing.

Could they belong to a Mayor? Of some town in England I mean.

The whole thing has always sounded like insider trading to me. Maybe the Planning was a "done deal" and people over here were let in on the secret. But it all went wrong.