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  • I remember McDonnell publishing his now, obviously caused less of a ripple at the time. I assume all of the expenses must be dealt with outside of the salary, etc and just recharged.

    In theory the shareholding didn't need to be declared on the HoP register, according to the rules it's only shareholdings over £70k http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmcode/1076/107604.htm Paragraph 51.

    Part of the trouble with this story and the ability for one side to claim it's a huge issue and the other to claim it's blown out of proportion is the crap reporting.

    It doesn't sell newspapers sadly but a bit less conflating tax avoidance with evasion, leaping into headlines whether knowing the rules, etc would make it a bit easier to understand and work out what the problems are.

    It's similar to the pig episode where the newspapers all concentrated on the pig (entertaining admittedly) but virtually ignored the Lord Ashcroft non-dom status issue.

  • In theory the shareholding didn't need to be declared on the HoP register, according to the rules it's only shareholdings over £70k publications.parliament.uk/pa­/cm201516/cmcode/1076/107604.htm Paragraph 51.

    Read 55.

    Any relevant financial interest or material benefit which does not clearly fall into one of the other categories, including any shareholding which falls below the relevant threshold, or any other financial asset, including an asset held in trust, if the Member nevertheless considers that it meets the test of relevance; in other words, that it might reasonably be thought by others to influence his or her actions or words as a Member...

    It was relevant enough that he sold it when he became PM, but not relevant enough that he declared it while an MP.

  • That's a weak argument.

    Even if he still had the shareholding, what about that might reasonably by him or others to influence his actions as an MP or PM?

  • Given he is pretty well off and shortly afterwards received a £200k gift from his mum you could argue that it wasn't material.

    You could also argue that the relatively immaterial level (for him) meant that it wouldn't influence his actions or words as a member and so wasn't relevant.

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