Browse content similar to 05/04/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Tonight on Newsnight Scotland. Rangers' debts are even larger than | :00:09. | :00:11. | |
we thought, but despite that, the administrators are entertaining | :00:11. | :00:16. | |
three bids for the club. But are they really in a position to sell | :00:16. | :00:20. | |
Rangers to anyone? Also tonight, should the Lockerbie | :00:20. | :00:22. | |
prosecutor become a High Court judge? | :00:22. | :00:25. | |
And we'll be examining why politicians have been preparing for | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
the Easter break by making even more gaffes than usual. | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
Good evening. Well, it turns out that Rangers owe the princely sum | :00:34. | :00:37. | |
of �130 million - pretty small beer for, say, a major bank, but not bad | :00:37. | :00:40. | |
for a football club which the administrators say has three | :00:40. | :00:46. | |
bidders desperate to take it over. But is this scenario where there's | :00:46. | :00:55. | |
a beauty parade of would-be owners really the whole story? There's | :00:55. | :00:59. | |
been a change in language by the administrators over the last few | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
days. Less about an orderly exit from administration and more about | :01:03. | :01:06. | |
the very real possibility of liquidation. At the weekend they | :01:06. | :01:11. | |
referred to the toxicity of the business. Well, they weren't wrong. | :01:11. | :01:14. | |
Today's publication of the creditor list is a requirement of the | :01:14. | :01:17. | |
administration process. It tell as story of a business which appears | :01:17. | :01:25. | |
to owe money to just about anyone it has had dealings with. As things | :01:25. | :01:31. | |
stand, Rangers owe the company to which the current owner sold future | :01:31. | :01:40. | |
ticket income almost �27 million. The fans who coughed up cash in | :01:40. | :01:44. | |
advance, that's almost �8 million. Current tax liability is just over | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
�14 million. Adding in other unsecured liabilities that's �55 | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
million. And crucially that figure doesn't include both ongoing tax | :01:53. | :01:58. | |
cases over whether Rangers avoided tax. The administrators estimate | :01:58. | :02:03. | |
the smaller tax bill at �4 million. What's become known as the big tax | :02:03. | :02:08. | |
bill at �75 million. When you add that little lot together you goat | :02:08. | :02:14. | |
the eye watering sum of �134 million. That's more than twice the | :02:14. | :02:17. | |
annual turnover of the club, nearly three times if they haven't | :02:17. | :02:23. | |
featured in European Commission. So apart from the tax liabilities | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
estimated at over �90 million, who else do Rangers owe money to? The | :02:28. | :02:33. | |
list is almost endless. Everything from �8,000 to the Scottish | :02:33. | :02:40. | |
Ambulance Service, over �1 million to Ran id Vienna, to just over �60 | :02:40. | :02:46. | |
to a hire company. In a sign of just how much money the club's been | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
haemorrhaging, since going into administration in February, in a | :02:50. | :02:56. | |
period of six weeks to mave it took in �1 million in revenue but spent | :02:56. | :02:59. | |
three-and-a-half times that. So despite being in administration the | :02:59. | :03:04. | |
business was still spending more than it was earning, to the tune of | :03:04. | :03:11. | |
�2.5 million. Oh, and don't forget the advaitor fees - over �1 million. | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
-- administrator fees - over �1 million. The administrators are | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
poring over three perspective buyers but it is not clear what is | :03:20. | :03:25. | |
being sold and what the bidders are proposing to bite. | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
-- buy. Maureen Leslie is the director of | :03:28. | :03:30. | |
insolvency practitioners MLM Solutions with over 20 years | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
experience in this area. I began by asking her whether the situation | :03:33. | :03:39. | |
with the club is any clearer tonight. Not substantially. There's | :03:39. | :03:42. | |
still huge uncertainty about what the administrators can actually | :03:42. | :03:48. | |
sell. If they want to sell the club, they have to have Craig Whyte's | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
agreement to transfer or sell his shareholding. If they want to sale | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
the business and assets they don't require that. But as the report | :03:55. | :04:00. | |
makes clear, they don't have his consent at this point to any | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
transfer, and they are still discussing both options. It is not | :04:04. | :04:09. | |
clear what the bids that they've received are actually bidding for. | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
Whether they are bidding for the club or whether they are simply | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
bidding for its assets. This is a crucial point, because it is not | :04:17. | :04:20. | |
clear, these administrators are in a position to sell Rangers as a | :04:20. | :04:25. | |
going concern to anybody. That's correct, Gordon. You can see that | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
they themselves acknowledge that in the report they've published today. | :04:29. | :04:34. | |
They make quite clear that they do not have Craig Whyte's consent, or | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
agreement, to sell his shares to anybody. We don't know the details | :04:38. | :04:43. | |
of these bids that are coming in, but there is something surreal | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
about this. What is likely... People are talking as if there are | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
bids and the administrators will decide between one or the other. | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
One assumes these bids are all conditional on minor matters being | :04:56. | :05:02. | |
resolved, like what are you going to do about Craig Whyte and the | :05:02. | :05:08. | |
taxman? Absolutely. Any bid I would imagine is heavily caveated as to | :05:08. | :05:14. | |
what it is I'm bidding for, what it is I want to purchase. Until they | :05:14. | :05:19. | |
can resolve that issue of Craig Whyte's shareholding or his | :05:19. | :05:27. | |
attitude to that shareholding, they can't be clear. The liabilities, it | :05:27. | :05:32. | |
is interesting they've unincluded a substantial liability, that they've | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
recognised that there's a likelihood or a possibility that | :05:35. | :05:40. | |
the big tax case will go against them. That's been included in that | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
�135 million figure. But just to be clear, because again people are | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
talking about this as if this is a normal transaction where something | :05:48. | :05:51. | |
a up for sale, there are various bids and the administrators will | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
decide between them. But what we have here is administrators who it | :05:56. | :06:00. | |
is not clear have any right to sell anything, with bids that are | :06:00. | :06:05. | |
probably so heavily conditional that it is stretching credibility, | :06:05. | :06:13. | |
perhaps, to call in the bids in a meaningful sense? I understand your | :06:13. | :06:16. | |
point, but the administrators have the right to sell, they have the | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
right to sell the business and assets of Rangers Football Club. | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
They don't have the right to sell the shares without the | :06:23. | :06:26. | |
shareholder's consent. They have got the right to sell something, | :06:26. | :06:30. | |
but it is not their first preference. Their preference is to | :06:30. | :06:35. | |
sell the shareholding, to sell Rangers Football Club. Is it | :06:35. | :06:41. | |
credible that someone would want to buy this club? �130 million in debt. | :06:41. | :06:48. | |
You think it is still doable? sell the club? Yes. Without a CVA, | :06:48. | :06:55. | |
absolutely not at all. No-one would put money into funding such an | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
enormous debt mountain. They are looking for something a bit cleaner, | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
so there must be an agreed CVA I would imagine before anyone would | :07:03. | :07:09. | |
want to purchase the club. So given all we've been saying, is a CVA do | :07:09. | :07:15. | |
you think still doable? Provided �25 million is on the table and | :07:15. | :07:20. | |
even if the worst case scenario that they lose the big tax case it | :07:20. | :07:26. | |
would still give creditors about 12p in the pound which is not too | :07:26. | :07:30. | |
unreasonable a return to be rejected out of hand. So yes I do | :07:30. | :07:40. | |
:07:40. | :07:41. | ||
think it is doable. If only �13 million is on the table perhaps | :07:41. | :07:47. | |
that becomes unattractive to creditors, but if HMRC win the tax | :07:47. | :07:51. | |
case it really does give them considerable voting power. I would | :07:51. | :07:58. | |
like to read something to you which is HMRC's policy on how they treat | :07:59. | :08:03. | |
voluntary arrangements. They refer to rejecting a voluntary | :08:03. | :08:09. | |
arrangement., "We are likely to reject a voluntary arrangement | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
where there is evidence of evasion of statutory liabilities or | :08:14. | :08:21. | |
payments of other creditors whilst withholding sums due to the Crown." | :08:21. | :08:28. | |
My understanding of HMRC's position in relation to EBTs they consider | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
that an evasion of your tax liabilities, so they have a stated | :08:32. | :08:38. | |
policy that. May lead them to reject in any case. So there would | :08:38. | :08:44. | |
be two issues, to be clear. One would be is 5p or 10p in the pound | :08:44. | :08:50. | |
good value for taxpayers? Yes. would be that these EBTs, and we | :08:50. | :08:56. | |
don't approve of them, and I suppose three would be the | :08:56. | :09:00. | |
publicity, do we want to be seen as the tax authorities to be letting a | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
very important Football Club away with this? Yes. It is a huge issue | :09:04. | :09:10. | |
for them I think. There's at least two other clubs currently in | :09:10. | :09:17. | |
administration, both in England. For HMRC they are going to have to | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
consider the message they are delivering not just to football | :09:20. | :09:28. | |
clubs but to other businesses that fail to pay their tax obligations. | :09:28. | :09:31. | |
Potentially the whole moral hazard issue of people saying, "Thank you | :09:32. | :09:38. | |
very much, I will take some of that 10p in the pound as well." Maureen | :09:38. | :09:41. | |
Leslie, thank you. Now, the man who led the | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
prosecution in the Lockerbie case is set to be appointed as a | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
Scottish High Court judge. Lord Colin Boyd was made Solicitor- | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
General in 1997, then promoted to Lord Advocate in 2001 He led the | :09:50. | :09:52. | |
Crown Office prosecution team throughout the Lockerbie trial. | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
It's reported today that he is to be one of a new round of judicial | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
appointments. Last month the SCCRC report into Lockerbie said one of | :09:58. | :10:01. | |
the grounds for a new Megrahi appeal was a suggestion that Colin | :10:01. | :10:03. | |
Boyd's prosecution team had deliberately withheld important | :10:03. | :10:10. | |
information from the defence team. Lord Boyd has denied the suggestion. | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
And at the moment, there is no live legal process in respect of the | :10:13. | :10:16. | |
Lockerbie conviction. I'm joined now by Steven Raeburn, editor of | :10:16. | :10:26. | |
:10:26. | :10:28. | ||
legal magazine The Firm. Before we get on to Colin Boyd, for those of | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
us who are note in imminent take of being appointed as judges remind us | :10:33. | :10:43. | |
The process was revised about ten years ago. The Lord Advocate was | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
just appoint a judge, tap them on the shoulder and that would be that. | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
That was perceived to be a little bit too cosy. The arrangement was | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
overhauled. There's now judicial appointment board. The jobs are | :10:56. | :11:00. | |
advertised. Anybody who feels they have the qualifications can apply. | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
The applications are sifted and a recommendation is made. You have | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
been to be a QC, have you? You're not going to get very far unless | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
you're already in legal circles. The short answer to that is yes. | :11:12. | :11:18. | |
It's not limited to QCs. There's not a requirement, a constraint on | :11:18. | :11:22. | |
who may apply. The intention was to widen it from the usual coatery of | :11:22. | :11:32. | |
suspects. The whole point of the board was to broaden that all. Once | :11:32. | :11:34. | |
they've made the recommendation it goes forward to the First Minister, | :11:34. | :11:37. | |
who puts it forward to the Queen for approval. That's a formal | :11:37. | :11:44. | |
process. That's how it's done. is Colin Boyd a controversial | :11:44. | :11:49. | |
candidate? The short answer is yes. There's never really been a | :11:50. | :11:53. | |
controversial candidate since the judicial appointments board was | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
constituted. They have mostly been just acceptably waved through. For | :11:57. | :12:04. | |
the reasons that you mentioned in the report, and his stewardship of | :12:04. | :12:09. | |
certain cases, you mention the Pan- Am 103 case being notable for its | :12:09. | :12:15. | |
controversies. There was the legacy of the Chokar case which caused the | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
form of the double jeopardy legislation. What was his role in | :12:18. | :12:22. | |
that? He wasn't there at the Genesis of the problem. The | :12:22. | :12:29. | |
conclusion of that was that the entire prosecution process was | :12:29. | :12:33. | |
institutionally racist. It met to massive inquiries and soul | :12:33. | :12:38. | |
searching. He came in at the beginning of the Pan-Am 103 trial | :12:38. | :12:45. | |
and he was in tenure of the Shirley McKey affair, which led to a | :12:45. | :12:50. | |
further inquiry and apologise to the current Justice Minister and | :12:50. | :12:53. | |
the demolition of the fingerprinting apparatus and 78 | :12:53. | :12:57. | |
recommendations to get that overhauled. So these three cases | :12:57. | :13:03. | |
really marked out his tenure in the role of Lord Advocate. He had | :13:03. | :13:09. | |
leadership of the prosecution service at that point. Where are | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
the murmurings coming from, is it within the legal community, if I | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
can call it that? There's been a lot of chatter about it since the | :13:16. | :13:20. | |
news was broken this morning. Yes, from within the legal community, | :13:20. | :13:24. | |
from all sides of the community, but also from those that are active | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
campaigners from the outside as well, those that have no direct | :13:29. | :13:36. | |
interest in who becomes a judge, but they have access to grain and | :13:36. | :13:42. | |
crosss to bear. To say he's controversial would be a fair | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
assessment. You were talking a minute ago about wide being the -- | :13:46. | :13:51. | |
widening the list of applications, do any of the people who, all of | :13:51. | :13:56. | |
the people who have been suggested look like, there's a lot of people | :13:56. | :13:59. | |
you expect to become judges, don't they? It has been a problem that | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
the judicial appointments board, whilst it has done its level best | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
to have a transparent process instead of a gentleman's club | :14:07. | :14:13. | |
approach to the appointment of the Jew dishery, the actual -- | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
judiciary, the actual cross-section of membership has not radically | :14:17. | :14:21. | |
changed in that time period. It may take a generation to bed in. It's | :14:21. | :14:26. | |
not had too long, too much of time to do it. It's only about ten years. | :14:26. | :14:31. | |
The roles don't come up so very often. There is an element of how | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
much has changed. The composition of the board, there are some lay | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
members, people from local Government, but there's the | :14:39. | :14:44. | |
sheriff's principal and senior members of the judiciary on that | :14:44. | :14:49. | |
board, some have close connections to local government and so on. The | :14:49. | :14:53. | |
composition really is not that different from the circles that the | :14:53. | :14:59. | |
Lord Advocate would have moved in in the old regime. Thank you. | :14:59. | :15:02. | |
Finally tonight, one of the happiest aspects of Easter is that | :15:02. | :15:07. | |
we're unlikely to hear much from politicians in the next week or so. | :15:07. | :15:12. | |
Not that they haven't been make a rish hash up in the run up to the | :15:12. | :15:19. | |
holiday break. Easter madness. Bunny rabbits | :15:19. | :15:23. | |
laying eggs and hiding them in the garden. That's what all about? And | :15:23. | :15:29. | |
politicians losing the plot. If the sybolism of Easter is baffling, | :15:29. | :15:36. | |
it's all about ancient fertility rites, so is the behaviour in the | :15:36. | :15:39. | |
party's search for credibility. They're on a kind of political egg | :15:39. | :15:47. | |
hunt. First the Conservatives. Trying to bat away doubts after the | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
Budget was monstered by the media. They're fighting to avoid the | :15:51. | :15:55. | |
perception of aloofness - too well off, too posh. Now possibly the | :15:56. | :16:00. | |
fatal charge of weakness as plans to monitor our electronic | :16:00. | :16:04. | |
communications and staged secret trials are tacked by coalition | :16:04. | :16:07. | |
partners. No wonder David Cameron's was asking for prayers this week. | :16:07. | :16:12. | |
Oh, I nearly forgot, there was the jerry can cock-up. David Cameron | :16:12. | :16:16. | |
spent time or six years trying to get rid of that posh boy image | :16:16. | :16:20. | |
around the schooling and the millionaires in the Cabinet, coming | :16:20. | :16:24. | |
together of the Budget, cutting the tax rate for those earning a great | :16:24. | :16:30. | |
deal of money. The donor sleaze crisis and talk of supers in | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
Downing Street, for �250,000 and then the fuel crisis and talk of | :16:34. | :16:38. | |
Gerry cans in one's garage. It just all added to that feeling of | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
actually same old Tories. I think in Scotland there's a shrugging of | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
shoulders, I'm not sure that anybody bought into the fact that | :16:45. | :16:48. | |
they were anything other than that any way. | :16:48. | :16:54. | |
Talking of happy bunnies, there was one of those in Bradford where | :16:54. | :16:59. | |
George Galloway, didn't he used to be a cat? Wiped the smile off Ed | :16:59. | :17:02. | |
Miliband's face. Instead of enjoying Tory discomfort the Labour | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
leader was forced onto the defensive. Galloway was the only | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
Easter bunny to claim his own Bradford spring. Miliband knows | :17:11. | :17:14. | |
he's struggling to convince voters that he has what it takes. He needs | :17:14. | :17:19. | |
to set out actually who he is, what he would do and why he's on the | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
side of ordinary working people. I think the by-election showed he has | :17:22. | :17:30. | |
a long way to go in terms of portraying himself as a credible | :17:30. | :17:34. | |
alternative Prime Ministerial figure and also said that his party | :17:34. | :17:40. | |
organisation message is in a bit of a mess. There is too a sense of | :17:40. | :17:45. | |
damned if we do, damned if we don't about the Lib Dems. Are they | :17:45. | :17:54. | |
clinging onto the coalition in hope that's it will all come good even | :17:54. | :17:59. | |
as 84,000 families in Scotland lose their tax credit. Junior coalition | :17:59. | :18:04. | |
partners get the became of what goes wrong. Very few of them, it's | :18:04. | :18:07. | |
very difficult to pull off the trick of identifying yourself with | :18:07. | :18:11. | |
delivering something that was good. It happened here in scoxed the | :18:11. | :18:16. | |
Liberal Democrats struggled to get any credit for free personal care | :18:16. | :18:22. | |
for the elderly or on ligs of tuition fees. The credit goes for | :18:22. | :18:26. | |
the big partner in the coalition pwhiel you're saddled with the mess. | :18:26. | :18:31. | |
The SNP, expecting to pick up all the biggest eggs until a candidate | :18:31. | :18:34. | |
spoiled the party with inappropriate remarks on the | :18:34. | :18:39. | |
internet and stole their headlines. There are too many of these | :18:39. | :18:45. | |
accidents now. The situation of a candidate in Labour's Lanarkshire | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
heart land attacking Catholic midwives in an area where they're | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
hoping town seat Labour, in a staging most where the Council | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
elections will be towards the referendum. They need to get a grip | :18:56. | :19:02. | |
of this stuff. Our politicians go into recess hugging their eggs and | :19:03. | :19:07. | |
hoping when they return the Easter madness will have melted. | :19:07. | :19:13. | |
madness will have melted. Tomorrow's front pages now: The | :19:13. | :19:20. | |
herald �134 million debt mountain looms over Rangers FC. | :19:20. | :19:24. |