The Government says it notes, “with disappointment”, the European Parliament’s objection, today, to the entry into force of the European Commission’s decision to remove certain jurisdictions, including Gibraltar, from the EU’s list of ‘high-risk’ third-countries with strategic deficiencies as regards anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (“AML/CFT”).
Responding to the GSD’s statement on the Future Job Strategy and it’s high cost to the Government, No.6 has stated that the GSD’s former Vocational Training Scheme was not structured. A statement adds, ‘the useless GSD Vocational Training Scheme (VTS) which used to pay cheap labour rates of £400 or less a month up to 2011. According to the GSD this discredited scheme had resulted in 28% of those participating obtaining employment after completion. They called this 28% a huge success..’
The Governement says that the GSD's “new found interest” in the City Fire Brigade (CFB) is a “curious change” from their approach when in Government, given the huge problems the Brigade suffered at that time, as best evidenced, it says, by the demonstrations firemen carried out to the doors of No6 Convent Place on more than one occasion.
Writing in yesterday’s edition of The Telegraph, former Navy boss Lord Admiral West has claimed that Spain’s recent behaviour is more akin to that of a Fascist dictatorship or banana republic. Recent tensions have seen an extension in stringent checks being made by Spanish customs officers, with pedestrians having to queue for up to 2 hours last week, to enter Spain. Lord West insists that ‘this is extraordinary behaviour for a democratic European state in the twenty first century.’