Comments on: Flying lion Ltd

By: RecessMonkey » Blog Archive » So where’s that Tblisijet, Dave?

RecessMonkey » Blog Archive » So where’s that Tblisijet, Dave? — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:28:52 +0000

[...] Could it be that he’s too embarrassed to admit that he flew on ConAir – Lord Cashcroft’s Flying Lion Ltd? [...]

By: Political Penguin » Flying with Con Air

Political Penguin » Flying with Con Air — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 02:52:39 +0000

[...] other day Tom Watson posed the question who are Flying Lion Limited? Always up for a bit of an investigative challenge I decided to have a little look around to see [...]

By: Croslander

Croslander — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:34:24 +0000

I vaguely remember Flying Lion giving Michael Howard some free flights from a past Register of Members Interests, but I could be wrong.

By: Political Penguin

Political Penguin — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:59:15 +0000

You might be interested in this little post Tom.
http://www.politicalpenguin.org.uk/blog/p,262/

By: Lobster Blogster

Lobster Blogster — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 23:38:47 +0000

Flying Lion Ltd appear to run one aircraft. Registration VP-BMS which is a Dassault Falcon 900EX.

Here’s a picture of the same:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=0086041&size=M&width=869&height=579&sok=JURER%20%20%28nveyvar%20%3D%20%27Sylvat%20Yvba%20YGQ%27%29%20%20BEQRE%20OL%20cubgb_vq%20QRFP&photo_nr=1&prev_id=&next_id=NEXTID

VP-B means it is registered in Bermida.

It’s currently up for sale via an aviation company in Florida.
http://www.aviationbusinessindex.com/aircraft_details.asp?aircraft=14353

By: Unity

Unity — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:20:44 +0000

According to the Times (May 16, 2006) Flying Lion is another of Michael Ashcroft’s front operations:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article719003.ece

Mr Ancramâ€™s bemusement rings through in a letter to Sam Younger, the Electoral Commission chairman, obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act: â€œDear Sam, I remain somewhat confused about the position of Shadow Foreign Secretary, Shadow DFID and Shadow Defence Secretary and their teams for whom sponsored foreign travel is effectively the only way that they can carry out their duties as members of HM Opposition. From our conversation I believe that we both see this as somewhat of a grey area and, although it no longer affects me, I believe it is one which would benefit from clarification.

â€œFlying Lion Ltd is owned by Lord Ashcroft of Chichester KC MG, formerly treasurer of the Conservative Party and now deputy chairman and a donor to the party of long standing.â€

Andrew Mitchell, currently the Shadow International Development Secretary, is the only MP who declared to the commission his gifts of Â£12,000 travel to Africa from the offshore company before The Times began investigating. He seems to have known little of his sponsor, e-mailing the commission: â€œSomewhat akin to The Da Vinci Code this one, but I have finally tracked down the address for Flying Lions.â€

By: Tony Clarke

Tony Clarke — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:30:18 +0000

Tom,

Questions have already been asked in the house on this one see

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/templates/search/document.cfm/15546

and a google search brings up a host of hits.

I came across your query when directed from another Labour Blog site. http://www.labourhome.org Where all hell has let loose over my problems in Northampton South.

You may want to have a look. I am sure that some of the protagonists are party employees.

Hope you are well.

Tony

By: David

David — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:29:31 +0000

Tom

Quickest way to find out is to do a Companies House Search. You can pay a small amount to get their annual return and most recently filed accounts. For a small company such as this, the more useful doc is usually the annual return as it lists the directors; small companies are exempted from filing full accounts typically being restricted to a short form balance sheet.

There are various web companies (eg Onesource.com) who provide access to these documents.