Osborne’s tax avoidance failure reveals the facts about Coalition policies

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Andy Hamilton, Atos, avoid, BBC, Customs, Department, DWP, G4S, George Osborne, haven, high net worth, hmrc, Huffington Post, London Olympics, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, News Quiz, Pensions, public sector, Radio 4, Revenue, Serco, tax, Vox Political, work

Embarrassed: And so George Osborne should be!

What bad luck for George Osborne to get two sums wrong in the same week!

The first sum was a simple times-table question; a school pupil asked him to multiply seven by eight and he couldn’t do it.

The second sum was more serious because it was a sum of money. Rather a lot of money. £1.9 billion, in fact.

The Boy had claimed that around £3 billion in extra tax had been recovered from “high net worth individuals” – tax avoiders – after investigations by HM Revenue and Customs.

Unfortunately, errors in the way HMRC’s performance targets were set meant that these improvements were… well, “overstated” is how the Huffington Post described them.

This meant that, when HMRC said it exceeded its target for tax compliance in 2010-11 by £1.9 billion, in fact it had only just hit its target. The following year, its claim to have exceeded targets by £2 billion was out by the same amount; in fact it had made gains of just £100 million.

There is around £21 trillion in unclaimed, avoided tax sitting in ‘haven’ bank accounts around the world – many of them British territories – and Osborne has managed to collect just £100 million.

Meanwhile unemployed and low-paid working citizens – who have no income apart from state benefits, due to the systematic destruction of the UK’s industrial base by neoliberal politicians who were intent on increasing insecurity among the lower classes – are being starved to death.

Osborne has only himself to blame. When the Coalition government came into office, the Tories insisted that they didn’t need anything like as many public-sector workers as were then on the books – and started laying people off wholesale.

Now the DWP has a claimant assessment backlog of 700,000 for ESA alone (compared with less than 30,000 in May 2010) and the government’s flagship Universal Credit project is hopelessly bogged down, to quote just two examples of the remaining public servants being unable to do their jobs.

Meanwhile, outsourcing of government jobs to private companies has created a disaster: The National Health Service in England is slowly falling over the cliff, with privateers taking so much in profit that the service will go £2 billion into debt next year while waiting times at Accident and Emergency departments continue to increase out-of-control (no matter what lies David Cameron dribbles in Prime Minister’s Questions); a £116 million IT programme arranged with French firm Steria to run staffing, procurement and payroll services for civil servants was scrapped at a cost of £56 million – and then Steria was re-hired to outsource British jobs to India, Poland and Morocco, again at UK taxpayers’ expense.

Does anyone remember the fiasco when G4S was hired to run security at the London Olympics, failed to meet requirements, and the Army had to be called in at the last minute?

Atos and the DWP, anybody?

Andy Hamilton commented on this phenomenon during this week’s News Quiz on BBC Radio 4: “For decades, we have watched governments hand over the utilities and services to companies like G4S and Serco and we have watched as they basically ruined them.

“And then once they’ve ruined them, they get given some more to ruin until they’re running all sorts of services; they’re now huge!

“I still hanker after the good old days when G4S was just Group 4, and its core business was letting prisoners escape from vans.”

Some of us still hanker after the good old days when George Osborne was just a department store employee, and his core business was folding towels.

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History is made as Vox Political agrees with David Cameron

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avoid, Bernard Madoff, corporate, David Cameron, dodge, evade, evasion, Glaxo, haven, Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Pearson, ponzi scheme, Private Eye, tax, Tesco, Vodafone, Vox Political

 

Jean-Claude Juncker, tax avoidance mastermind and now President of the European Commission.

Believe it or not, David Cameron was right to oppose the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission.

If Private Eye is to be believed, Juncker has a record of wreaking fiscal havoc across the continent, thanks to his behaviour embracing corporate tax dodgers as finance minister and prime minister of Luxembourg.

Anti-EU readers will be interested to note that he was chair of the EU’s council of economic and financial affairs, in which role he played a key part in shaping the economic and monetary aspects of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

Eye 1368 (June 13-26) states that Luxembourg has turned itself into a tax haven, “but, crucially, one at the heart of Europe entitled to tax-free flows of money in and out of its borders in a way traditional sunny island havens… could only dream of.

“The Grand Duchy became the member of the economic club that pilfered from the club’s funds.”

Let’s look at examples: “An especially fruitful line has been multi-billion-pound corporate tax avoidance at its neighbours’ expense. In the most infamous case, Vodafone still routes more than £50bn worth of loans through Luxembourg for no purpose other than taking advantage of tax laws and administrative rulings carefully tailored by Juncker’s governments to facilitate large-scale tax avoidance… The company is sitting on a £17.4 billion “tax asset”, ie reduction in future tax bills around the world, courtesy of [Mr] Juncker.

“Hundreds of other multinationals, including the UK’s Glaxo, Tesco and Financial Times publisher Pearson, use Luxembourg in similar ways at enormous cost to Europe’s economies.”

And the buck doesn’t stop rolling with tax, either: “Juncker pursued an aggressive regime of financial deregulation, especially in the area of investment fund administration. So it was no surprise that when Bernard Madoff’s ponzi scheme collapsed in 2008, a large chunk of the money had come through loosely-regulated Luxembourg funds set up by Swiss banks.”

The man responsible for the above is now in charge of the European Union. David Cameron was right to oppose his appointment.

Be afraid.

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Labour’s Living Wage tax break exposes the Tories’ ‘making work pay’ lie

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avoidance, BBC, benefit, benefits, break, Conservative, Deloitte, economic, economy, Ed Miliband, Ernst & Young, food bank, Frances O'Grady, George Osborne, growth, haven, household, income, KPMG, Labour, living wage, making work pay, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, people, politics, PricewaterhouseCoopers, social security, tax, Tories, Tory, Trade Union Congress, Treasury, TUC, Vox Political, welfare, work

Ed Miliband’s Living Wage gamble: It’s a stop-gap solution while a Labour government works on re-balancing the economy, but will small businesses go for it? [Picture: BBC]

Just one day after the TUC leader said the Coalition has broken the historic link between economic growth and rising household incomes, Labour has proposed a way to restore it.

Since the recovery began, earlier this year, Vox Political has been pointing out its lack of impact on the poorest households in the UK – readily evidenced by the rise and rise of food banks across the country. This is because any profits are being funnelled up to those individuals who are already earning the most and – thanks to our bizarrely-slanted tax (avoidance) system – into tax havens.

According to the BBC, Frances O’Grady told a conference yesterday that “households are being excluded from the benefits of growth. Unless this changes, the recovery will be meaningless to the vast majority of people across Britain.

She said the government was “desperately short of solutions”.

A Treasury spokesperson said the government’s economic plan (wait a minute! The government has an economic plan? When did they come up with that?) was “the only sustainable way to raise living standards” despite all the evidence to the contrary.

This person also said the government’s plan was “slowly but surely working”, even though the economic recovery has nothing to do with any government action.

But today Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, unveiled a plan that made nonsense of the Tory mantra that the government is making work pay because, instead of cutting benefits to make it seem more desirable to have a wage (even though the amount earned is still a pittance), it will actually add cash to working people’s pay packets.

There is a drawback, in that it means a Labour government will offer businesses a 12-month tax break if they agree to pay employees the Living Wage. A tax break is legalised tax avoidance, and we really have enough of that going on already, thanks to the efforts of the Big Four tax avoidance accountancy firms – KPMG, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young – who happen also to write UK tax law for George Osborne (because he doesn’t know how).

But it’s only for a year while the Living Wage gets bedded in. It’s a stop-gap solution to lift workers out of poverty while Labour introduces long-term plans to re-balance an economy that has already been seriously damaged by three and a half years of crazy Conservative ideological pummelling. Who can predict the harm after a full Parliamentary term?

And the Living Wage is becoming even more desperately-needed in the UK than ever, after a study showed the number of workers earning less than its £8.55 per hour (in London) and £7.45 per hour (elsewhere) increased by eight per cent in the last year (from 4.8 million to 5.2 million).

Mr Miliband’s proposal means private firms would be able to claim back about one-third of the cost of raising their staff members’ wages to the Living Wage. This would be good for the government as it would save money on benefit bills and tax revenues would rise.

But costs to businesses would increase. While these could be absorbed by larger companies, smaller firms might struggle to stay afloat.

It is possible, though, that the wage rise would reinvigorate previously-downtrodden workers (as Vox Political has suggested in the past), giving them a sense that they are valued and a reason to invest their energy in the company’s success.

More dodgy numbers on jobs for the disabled from the fake statistics machine

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Access to Work, aid, avoidance, benefit, benefits, business, Coalition, commission, competitive, Conservative, Democrat, Department, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, disabled, discriminate, DWP, economy, electorate, Employment and Support Allowance, equipment, ESA, firm, government, Group, haven, innovation, insolvent, job, Jobseeker's Allowance, judicial review, Lib Dem, Liberal, mental health, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Pensions, people, Plan for Growth, politics, private sector, provider, self employ, skills, social security, support, supported internship, tax, tax system, Tories, Tory, trainee, travel, Treasury, unemployment, Vox Political, welfare, work, work experience, Work Programme, work-related activity, WRA, WRAG, young, Youth Contract

Making up the numbers: Thousands more disabled people are becoming self-employed, contributing to a huge boost in the number of private businesses – or are they?

Someone in the Coalition government needs to watch what they’re saying – otherwise people all over the UK might come to unintended conclusions.

Take a look at this: “Over 2,000 more disabled people got the support they needed to get or keep their job, compared with this time last year, official figures released today (22 October 2013) show” – according to a Department for Work and Pensions press release.

It goes on to say that the number of people receiving support under the Access to Work programme between April and June this year increased by 10 per cent on the same period last year, to 22,760. Access to Work “provides financial help towards the extra costs faced by disabled people at work, such as support workers, specialist aids and equipment and travel to work support”.

Apparently the new stats show the highest level of new claims since 2007 – 10,390; and more people with mental health conditions than ever before have taken advantage of Access to Work.

The press release also states that young disabled people can now get Access to Work support while on Youth Contract work experience, a Supported Internship or Traineeship; and businesses with 49 employees or less no longer have to pay a contribution towards the extra costs faced by disabled people in work. It seems they used to have to pay up to £2,300 per employee who uses the fund.

Now look at this: According to a press release from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the number of private sector businesses in the UK increased by 102,000 between the beginning of 2012 and the same time in 2013.

There are now 4.9 million private businesses in the UK, with those employing fewer than 50 employees comprising nearly half of the total.

Some might think this is brilliant; that the DWP and BIS are achieving their aims of boosting private-sector business and finding work within those businesses for disabled people.

But dig a little deeper and a more sinister pattern emerges.

Doesn’t this scenario seem odd to anybody who read, earlier this year, that the DWP was having deep difficulty finding work for disabled people from the ESA work-related activity group?

Or, indeed, to anybody who read the BBC’s report that work advisors were pushing the jobless into self-employment?

Isn’t it more likely that the DWP and Work Programme providers, faced with an influx of disabled people into the programme from the ESA WRAG at the end of last year, encouraged them to set up as self-employed with their own businesses in order to get them off the claimant books?

Does it not, then, seem likely that a large proportion of the 22,760 getting help from Access to Work were offered it as part of a self-employment package that also, we are told, includes start-up money (that admittedly tapers away over time) and tax credits. The attraction for WP providers is that they would earn a commission for every claimant they clear off the books in this way.

So it seems likely that a large proportion of the 22,760 may now be self-employed in name alone and that these fake firms are included in the 102,000 new businesses lauded by BIS.

Is it not logical, therefore, to conclude that these are not government schemes, but government scams – designed to hoodwink the general public into thinking that the economy is improving far more than in reality, and that the government is succeeding in its aim to bring down unemployment?

The reference to jobs for people with mental health problems would be particularly useful for a government that has just appealed against the result of a judicial review that found its practices discriminate against this sector of society.

Some might say that this conclusion is crazy. Why would the government want to release information that directly indicates underhanded behaviour on its part?

The answer is, of course, that it would not. This government wants to convince an undecided electorate that it knows what it is doing and that the country’s future is safe in its hands. But its right hand doesn’t seem to know what its left is doing – with regard to press releases, at the very least.

And let’s not forget that, since the Coalition came into office, 52,701 firms have been declared insolvent and 379,968 individuals. Around 80 per cent of new self-employed businesses go to the wall within three years.

Therefore we can say that, in trying to prove that it is competent, the Coalition government has in fact proved the exact opposite.

So someone really needs to watch what they’re saying – if they don’t want people all over the UK to come to unintended conclusions!

AFTERTHOUGHT: The BIS press release adds that the government’s ‘Plan for Growth’, published with the 2011 budget, included an aim to create “the most competitive tax system in the G20”. By “competitive” the Treasury meant the system had to be more attractive to businesses that aim to keep as much of their profits away from the tax man as possible. It is a commitment to turn Britain into a tax haven and the VP post earlier this week shows that the government has been successful in this aim. What a shame that it also means the Coalition government will totally fail to meet its main policy commitment and reason for existing in the first place: It can’t cut the national deficit if the biggest businesses that operate here aren’t paying their taxes.

Let’s make abuse of power a crime and Lord Freud the first to be prosecuted

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Face of evil: Because of creatures like Lord Freud, Parliament should legislate against a new crime – abuse of power. (Picture by Black Triangle)

Lord David Fraud – sorry, Freud. That was a Freudian slip – the man who said “People who are poorer should be prepared to take the biggest risks; they’ve got least to lose”, has been at it again.

According to Inside Housing this man, whose principles allowed him to take Labour’s money and provide that government with his duff advice before running off to join the Tories as soon as it looked as though they would be in office after the 2010 election, wants to bully councils out of an entirely legal way to help their tenants avoid paying the punitive and unfair bedroom tax.

The tax, as we all should know by now, affects people living in social rented accommodation with more bedrooms – as defined by the rent agreement (if I recall correctly) – than the government last year arbitarily decided they need. The options are to give up 14 per cent of your housing benefit if you have one ‘extra’ bedroom, 25 per cent if you’ve got two – or move to smaller accommodation which does not, in the vast majority of cases, exist.

Out of 600,000 affected families, 582,000 have nowhere else to go. So this is a thinly-veiled robbery, from people who can do nothing to prevent it.

It is a tax that has offended many councillors in local authorities across the UK, and some came up with the novel idea that rooms within the properties they own may be reclassified as offices or ‘non-designated’ rooms, thereby avoiding the need to pay the tax. After all, a room is just an enclosed space within a building, right? If it doesn’t have a bed in it, why should it be classified as a bedroom?

Lord Fraud – sorry! Freud – doesn’t see it that way. He wants that cash and couldn’t care less that people in social housing need it to keep a roof over their heads. He has been spending the last month or so (since the councils started re-classifying) trying to put a stop to it and now, it seems, he thinks he has found a way.

In a letter to council chief executives yesterday (Thursday), he has said redesignating properties without reducing their rent to reflect the loss of a bedroom creates an inconsistency for housing benefit and rent purposes.

“Blanket redesignations without a clear and justifiable reason and without reductions in rent, are inappropriate and do not fall within the spirit of the policy,” his letter states [italics mine].

“If it is shown properties are being redesignated inappropriately this will be viewed very seriously.” Meaning: The DWP will commission an independent audit to “ascertain whether correct and appropriate procedures have been followed”. Redesignation without reducing rent would lead to incorrect housing benefit subsidy claims being submitted to the DWP, he stated, adding, “Where it is found that a local authority has redesignated properties without reasonable grounds and without reducing rents, my department would consider either restricting or not paying their housing benefit subsidy.”

The flaw, of course, is this: The size of these properties will have remained the same, therefore so should the rent. But a room without a bed in it is not a bedroom.

Let’s move on to another tax avoidance issue. Since we’re discussing actions that are “inappropriate and do not fall within the spirit of the policy“, what about tax avoidance schemes that are used by very rich individuals, in order to avoid paying the full amount they owe to the UK Treasury?

This has been going on for more years than any of us can remember and the total currently parked offshore, where the tax inspector can’t get at it, is estimated at £21 trillion (it might actually be dollars, but either way it’s a heckuva lot of money).

If the turncoat Lord Freud’s new Conservative friends had been quick off the mark in dealing with this aspect of tax avoidance, he might have been justified in his own hasty behaviour, but they haven’t. Even now, there is no guarantee that the Treasury will get anything back from the tax havens, despite all its posturing and sabre-rattling. There’s just no interest. And by the time anyone gets around to actually taking action, the offenders will have had plenty of opportunity to move their capital elsewhere.

But the actions of the individual taxpayers who have chosen to put their money out of HMRC’s reach is no closer to the spirit of UK tax policy than the actions of the councils who have chosen to protect their tenants.

The difference is that one set of individuals is acting in selfish self-interest, while the other is taking action to help others.

Freud, by his own actions, has shown us all exactly where his loyalties lie. He’s not against tax avoidance, as long as it’s his kind of people doing it. And he loves to bully the little people. He really gets a kick out of threatening them, and he’s not above bending – or changing – the law to do it.

That’s why I say any new government coming into office after 2015 needs to enact a law that criminalises abuse of power – being any legislation or act by a government member that unfairly punishes any named individual or group within British society.

So for example here, it could be applied because Freud wants to penalise hundreds of thousands of people with a tax they can’t pay, when there is no alternative because they have nowhere else to go (except to be thrown out onto the streets, and then the question to be asked is, who takes over the properties after they have gone?) – and is now threatening to punish any attempt legally to avoid paying that unfair tax with another unfair punishment, because others who also legally avoid paying a – fair – tax are being allowed to do so.

As a criminal offence it should involve the sternest penalties possible – stripping the guilty of any titles and privileges, and all property, alongside a lengthy prison sentence involving the hardest labour to which prisoners may be put. Anyone who is willing to deprive the defenceless of everything they own should be made to lose everything as well.

So Lord Freud, for example, would have to kiss goodbye to his luxury mansion in Kent, and everything in it. When he finally came out of clink, he’d be living in council accommodation – and if nowhere could be found that didn’t have more bedrooms than he needed, he’d have to pay his own bedroom tax which would be poetic justice.

I know. It will never happen. Politicians look after their own.

But it should – and you know it.

Beware Coalition stooges who repeat Iain Duncan Smith’s lies for him!

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account, avoidance, bank, bedroom, benefit, benefit cap, benefits, Brecon, Chris Davies, Coalition, Conservative, cut, Democrat, Department for Work and Pensions, disability, disabled, DWP, employer, Employment and Support Allowance, ESA, family, genocide, government, haven, health, housing benefit, Iain Duncan Smith, income, inflation, Labour, Landlord Subsidy, lemming, Liberal, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, Mrs Lloyd, offshore, Parliament, pay, people, pogrom, politics, Reform, sick, social security, tax, Tories, Tory, uk statistics authority, unemployed, unemployment, Vox Political, welfare

The pen is mightier: It is the war of words between Coalition distortion of the facts and those of us who value accuracy that will determine the outcome of the next UK general election.

It is most vexing when people refuse to believe facts that are presented to them.

Readers may recall an article on this blog nearly two months ago, in which the claims of Powys county councillor and Conservative general election candidate Chris Davies were thoroughly repudiated, using verifiable factual information. It was entitled ‘Does anybody believe this Conservative claptrap dressed up as information?’

You may be astounded to learn that, despite the veritable mountain of information in my 700-word missive, some people still did believe it!

Admittedly, they waited a while before breaking cover, but sure enough, in the letters page of the Brecon and Radnor Express dated June 6, a Mrs Lloyd of Brecon wrote the following:

“I must write to convey my disappointment at the handful of people who have written to your paper recently opposing welfare reforms. I assume from the tone of these letters that they are probably Labour Party supporters.

“Like lemmings blindly following each other off the cliff, these people have decided to oppose one of the most popular government policies in recent memory.

“I am no great fan of the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition but this handful of socialist Labourites must be the only people left in the UK who don’t think the welfare system needs urgent reform.

“I say I am disappointed because I have always voted Labour and it saddens me to see Labour so out of touch with public opinion.

“Our benefit system is far too soft and state handouts simply must be cut. Why can’t Labour see this?

“I am also ashamed that the local Labour Party… has decided to adopt a policy of scaremongering by trying to label one reform as a ‘bedroom tax’.

“It is not a tax and Labour knows that full well.

“A tax is a levy on something you own, earn or purchase: state provided housing benefit is none of these.

“Is it any wonder that people do not trust politicians when an established and legitimate political party like Labour resorts to such trickery?

“Having spare rooms wasting at the taxpayer’s expense is simply inexcusable and unaffordable.

“Why do Labour want the taxpayer paying for people to be in large flats or houses with unused bedrooms, when there are larger families who need this space?

“If people receiving housing benefit refuse to move to smaller housing and insist on staying in excessively large accommodation, then they should be prepared to pay for it just like every other family.

“To be fair to the Conservatives and the Lib Dems, they have decided to tackle an issue that Labour feels it cannot.

“The cynical amongst us would say Labour’s refusal to support benefit reform is because of their historic reliance on the votes of the unemployed and those receiving benefits.

“A turkey doesn’t vote for Christmas.”

You’re probably shaking your head in disbelief but in fact this is quite a cleverly-constructed letter. Look at the way she tries to establish that right-thinking people must approve of the way Iain… Smith and his mates are hacking apart our social security and that anyone who doesn’t – “probably Labour Party supporters” are a “disappointment”. She later attempts a feat of mind-reading when she tells Labour members that they feel they cannot tackle an issue that the Coalition parties have – and her final comment attempts to tar Labour with dishonest, or at least covert, intent by claiming that the party relies on the unemployed and benefit-receiving vote. One might hope that Labour’s recent adoption of a harder attitude to benefits will have persuaded Mrs Lloyd that this is not true, but this is by no means certain. It wouldn’t suit her purposes.

I particularly enjoy the next line because it conflates two gross misapprehensions: Lemmings do not fling themselves over cliffs suicidally. The makers of a Disney (!) documentary created that myth for reasons of their own, and it seems likely that Mrs Lloyd had reasons of her own for running it together with the myth that the Coalition cuts are “one of the most popular government policies in recent memory”. They’re not, and never have been.

Labour does not oppose welfare reform. It opposes the Coalition’s attack on the poorest and most vulnerable in society, carried out under the pretence of reform. The only Coalition welfare policy that has won any popular support – the benefit cap – is also supported by Labour. But the average family income is not £26,000 per year, as the Coalition states – that is a lie. That family would receive state benefits, bringing its income up to £31,500, or slightly more than £600 per week. This was glossed over because the Coalition would not be able to penalise enough poor people if the cap was set at that – realistic – level.

The other cuts to social security benefits have provoked a storm of protest – particularly the genocidal pogrom against the sick and disabled, and also the bedroom tax, which Mrs Lloyd singles out, and to which she applies her own quaint definition of ‘tax’.

So let’s put her straight. It is a tax, as it is a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government against a citizen’s property, to support government policies. Mrs Lloyd seems unaware that 97 per cent of the 600,000 families it affects – that’s 582,000 families – simply have nowhere else to go. The smaller accommodation into which she expects them to move does not exist. And the definition of ‘bedroom’ has been applied to small box rooms that would not accommodate a bed, let alone the person who would be expected to sleep in it! The tax is therefore exposed as a scheme to screw money out of the very poor, put them into arrears with their landlord, and sling them onto the streets.

This is why I support the redefinition of these ‘spare’ bedrooms, as taken up by some councils, into ‘offices’ or ‘non-designated rooms’. This is legal tax avoidance – putting the tenants of such homes into the same category as the billionaires who are sitting on £21 trillion of untaxed earnings in offshore tax haven bank accounts. If the government kicks up a fuss about ‘bedroom tax’ avoidance, it can damn well go and get those trillions back first.

As for the taxpayer being made to pay for unused bedrooms, that decision was made by the Coalition government, not the Labour Party, when it decided to cut Landlord Subsidy (that’s Housing Benefit to you, Mrs Lloyd) rather than cap rents at a reasonable level.

The remark that people are refusing to move to smaller accommodation is so far removed from reality that it defies belief, as is the implication that they do not pay anything towards their rent. For Mrs Lloyd’s information, the vast majority of Housing Benefit claims are made by people in work, who do pay the majority of their rent; the amount of Housing Benefit they receive is a top-up because the wages they receive are too low. I don’t see you blaming employers who have increased their own pay eightfold over the last 30 years, while employees’ pay rises total just 27 per cent – far less than cumulative inflation, Mrs Lloyd.

The opinions expressed by this correspondent are based on nothing but myth and should be fought tooth and nail. If her distorted views are accepted as fact by the majority of the voting population, then the Conservative Party will win the 2015 election, and those of us who value facts and honesty will only have ourselves to blame if we have not done all we can to rectify matters.

By the way, the Brecon and Radnor Express‘s editorial email address is theeditor@brecon-radnor.co.uk

I was going to write about a more recent letter to the same newspaper, which prompted me to contact the UK Statistics Authority with a complaint. But that will have to wait for another day.

Why whine, Cameron? Labour can’t reverse Child Benefit cut because you cocked up the economy!

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accident, avoidance, benefit, benefits, borrowing, Child Benefit, Coalition, Conservative, consultation, David Cameron, debt, deficit, Democrat, economy, Ed Miliband, emergency, George Osborne, government, haven, Health and Social Care Act, Labour, Liberal, listening exercise, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, minister, NHS, Parliament, people, politics, Prime, questions, sick, social security, tax, Tories, Tory, Vox Political, welfare

Either David Cameron is suffering a touch of sunstroke left over from his foreign holiday, or he is suddenly happy to admit he is a braying buffoon.

That is what we learned from his determination to continually harp on about Labour’s policy on child benefit during this week’s Wednesday Shouty Time (Prime Minister’s Questions).

Also that he has no answer to any questions asked of him about the Coalition’s failure to manage the NHS, or indeed, the national economy.

Ed Miliband’s first question today was about Accident & Emergency waiting times, but Cameron responded about child benefit. To the general public, that makes him a man with no answer.

Pressed on the issue, Cameron resorted to his old standby – waiting times in Welsh hospitals. The last time Mrs Mike was at a Welsh hospital, she waited maybe 15 minutes, between the time she arrived and the time of her appointment. More recently, I had to take a neighbour to hospital for some emergency medication for a mouth abscess. She was seen immediately.

Immediately.

And we live in Wales.

(I’m not denying that the health service could be better but improvements are constantly taking place – and what’s more, over here, they make changes in consultation with the public! I mention this to make the distinction between it and, say, coming out with hugely unpopular plans, halting the process for a so-called “listening exercise”, paying no attention to the results of that exercise and pushing through the original plans regardless. That’s the Cameron method).

We had no sense from Cameron about A&E – but was he making a good point about Child Benefit? Was Labour now supporting the Coalition’s decision to change it from a universal to a means-tested benefit, despite its bitter opposition when the cut (and don’t think it’s anything else!) was first announced.

Of course not. That would be silly.

The fact is that, if Labour comes back into office in 2015, the party’s leaders believe it will be extremely unlikely that enough money will be available to fund the restoration of universal Child Benefit.

That’s not a U-turn by Labour – it’s economic mismanagement by the Conservatives (and their little yellow enablers, the Liberal Democrats).

When George Osborne became Chancellor in 2010, he vowed to eliminate the national deficit by the next election in 2015. Some of you might have forgotten that; he said he would balance the books by then, making it possible for the (poor people of the) country to start on the national debt (because the rich people have parked £21 trillion in foreign tax havens and the Tories are determined not to do anything about it, even though collecting some tax would solve our problems in a stroke).

The 2015 election is now less than two years away. You might think the Coalition has done well, as it continues to claim the elimination of a quarter of the deficit. That was announced in 2012. In the year to 2013, it eliminated something like a quarter of one per cent of the deficit – maybe even less!

Borrowing continues to increase under this Coalition government. It has failed in its reason for existing.

That’s why Labour won’t be able to restore universal Child Benefit.

And that’s why David Cameron is a babbling buffoon.

History Repeats Itself, or The Decline and Fall of the Tory Empire

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avoidance, civil, Conservative, corporation, David Cameron, economy, fall, George Osborne, government, haven, Justice, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, multinational, NHS, people, police, politics, prison, public services, Roman Empire, Rome, security, sell, service, sold, tax, Tories, Tory, Vox Political

A possible future: The city of London is sacked by barbarian hordes. As a priest watches from the steps of St Paul’s, a burly Brixtonian drags David Cameron away from his wife Samantha. Or is it the fall of Rome?

My brother phoned up to inform me that he has passed his PHd and is now a Doctor. This is a terrific achievement for a man who has been on incapacity benefits, of one form or another, for much of his adult life, and will open many doors for him.

During the conversation, he mentioned some very interesting facts.

Did you know that the fall of the Roman Empire began when its richest citizens decided not to pay their taxes anymore and withdrew to their private estates? Public services were divided up and sold off, and the bulk of the tax burden was placed on the poor, who were in no position to pay up.

Neither did I.

Isn’t that similar, though, to the situation in the UK right now? Never mind all the nonsense George Osborne and David Cameron have been talking about getting tough on tax avoidance; the fact is that the richest corporations – the multinationals and those with the ability to follow their example – have been paying far less than their due for many years, sequestering the rest of their money away in foreign tax havens, well away from prying tax inspectors’ eyes.

And David Cameron made it clear as early as 2011 that he wanted to sell of as much of Britain’s public services as he possibly could, retaining only justice and the security services (although we can see that justice is also being broken up, with plans to get lawyers to bid for the privilege of providing “adequate” service to defendants). The NHS is already being carved up; parts of some police forces have been privatised; we have some private prisons. Parts of the civil service are to be sold into private ownership. The list is growing.

The whole situation mirrors that of the Fall of Rome, and begs the question: Is David Cameron trying to engineer the end of British civilisation as we know it?

Just a thought.

Government talks tough on tax-dodging – while helping corporations cut bills

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avoidance, Chancellor, Coalition, Conservative, corporation, debt, deficit, economy, evasion, Exchequer, George Osborne, government, haven, intellectual property, mailbox, Mike Sivier, mikesivier, multinational, patent, people, politics, sales, tax, territorial, Tories, Tory, Treasury, VAT, Vox Political, Yvette Hodgson

Public unrest: Thousands of people across the UK have demonstrated against government decisions that have increasingly burdened poor people with higher taxes while the rich, and fabulously wealthy corporations, have received tax breaks. The government’s response has been to order water cannons from Germany. Think about that.

How long does George Osborne expect us to believe his blather about cracking down on corporate tax avoidance when we have evidence all around us that he is helping multinational firms to get out of paying the tax they owe this country.

This is taking place at a time when the UK tax take should be maximised, in order to get borrowing down and help the country pay its bills.

And it is being organised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer – the government member whose principle job is to ensure that those bills can be paid.

All this doubletalk suggests he has a personal agenda that is different from what he’s been telling us, doesn’t it?

Vox Political has already dealt – at length – with the fact that the Coalition government has legislated to make it easier for UK-based multinationals to shift their income into ‘mailboxes’ in tax havens, in order to avoid paying tax in this country.

Why is Osborne doing this, when he knows we need the money?

We know that Osborne has cut Corporation Tax by a quarter – from 28 per cent to 21 per cent – during the course of this Parliament, even though changes in the rate of this particular tax have been proven to have no effect on economic improvement. Look at the USA, where a Corporation Tax rate of 40 per cent has done nothing to hinder the resurgence of that country’s economy.

Why is Osborne doing this, when he knows we need the money?

Meanwhile, we have been hit with a large increase in sales tax (VAT) which hits poor people hardest. As a result, they have to reconsider their purchases and buy fewer items, meaning the Exchequer takes less money, with this tax, than it should.

Why is Osborne doing this, when he knows we need the money?

The European Commission reckons it has declared war on tax evasion and avoidance – but has instructed member nations to single out only non-EU countries as havens, even though member states including Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium are known to have engaged in potentially harmful tax behaviour.

Why are these countries doing this, when they know they need the money?

Beginning in 2009 (meaning we started this under a Labour administration, please note), the UK began switching from taxing worldwide income to solely taxing profit that companies claim is earned within the country, a so-called “territorial” system. It eliminated taxes on dividends paid to a UK company, even if coming from a subsidiary in a tax haven.

Why is Osborne continuing with this, when he knows we need the money?

Beginning last month, the UK slashed the tax rate to 10 per cent from the regular 23 per cent rate on profit attributed to patents and intellectual property.

Why is Osborne doing this, when he knows we need the money?

Here’s why, according to Yvette Hodgson, a spokeswoman for the Treasury. She said the government is “committed to creating the most competitive corporate tax system in the G20.

“Global tax rules have stood still for almost a century. Britain is leading the international effort to bring them into the 21st century.”

So 21st century taxation means beggaring not only populations but governments as well, while allowing multinational corporations to make off with all the cash?

No wonder people in Britain are so angry. We have every right to be.

GDP figures due – will Gideon have anything to show for his austerity idiocy?

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Triple-dip breakfast: Will we all be dining on the sour cereal of recession again, when GDP figures are published on Thursday morning?

Thursday will be another ‘crunch’ day for our part-time Chancellor of the Exchequer – he’s having quite a lot of those lately, isn’t he?

Only last week, the academic justification for his austerity policy was disproven by an American student (oh, the shame!), and then his former allies at the International Monetary Fund distanced themselves from him (oh, the betrayal!) saying he should calm down a bit.

That’s the best advice this columnist has ever heard the IMF provide; if not for his own health, then for the nation’s.

Thursday, though, is a really big day. On Thursday, GDP figures for the first quarter of 2013 will be published.

It is a sign of how low expectations have fallen, that all the economic commentators are saying the best we can expect is to have kept out of a triple-dip recession – with falls in output due to the weather, among other things, making that unprecedented outcome more likely.

There is a problem with all of these predictions, which should be obvious to those of us living in the real world: Short-termism.

It’s all about how the UK managed in the last quarter, how it will manage in the next; what the situation is today. What about six months from now? What about next year? What about 2015, when we’re all expecting an election and the chance to banish this nightmare? What about 2017-18, when 0sborne still reckons he’ll have eliminated the budget deficit (fat chance)?

The fact is that the only options open to a Chancellor in the current climate are unpalatable to the Boy.

He could boost investment in infrastructure, in a bid to make this country a better place to open – and carry out – business. The trouble is, this tends to be a long-term project and he no longer has the time. His chances would have been better if he had started this in 2010, but his government cancelled as many such projects as they could back then, claiming it was more important to cut public spending in order to balance the books.

That was a vain hope. Without new investment, the country has lost revenue.

But if that is unpalatable, the other alternative is likely to make him choke on his pate de foie gras (or whatever it is these posh boys ingest): Increase the spending power of the poor.

It is known that the ‘trickle-down effect’ is a myth – giving all of a country’s money to the very rich, in the belief that they will spend it, boosting the economy and the income of the poor, is nonsense. What they actually do is bank it – in offshore tax havens, most likely. That is what 0sborne has been doing; it is another reason the economy has bombed.

It is also a rock-solid fact that poor people do spend their money – or as much as they can get their hands on. When you are constantly struggling to make ends meet, it’s very hard to keep cash in the bank – you have to spend it on food, clothes, rent, heat, light, water… the list is endless, because it constantly repeats.

When you don’t have much cash, as Edmund Blackadder once said, you feel like a pelican. Everywhere you turn, there’s a large bill in front of you.

That money does work for society. It reinvigorates the economy as it filters through different hands. And it brings with it the extra joy of fiscal multipliers – every pound that gets put into the economy is worth more after it has been through.

The trouble is, Gideon shut off that money supply. He raised VAT, making it harder for working-class people and those on benefits to buy certain economy-boosting products, and then he and Iain Duncan Smith spent the last few years on their project to depress wages.

(For clarity, it goes like this: The DWP makes the benefit system so difficult to navigate that people in receipt have to do their utmost to get off-benefit as soon as possible. This means they are constantly looking for jobs, which in turn makes it possible for employers to refuse pay rises for their workforce, with the classic line that “there are plenty of other people who’d be happy to have your job, you know!” You didn’t really think the benefit cap was about making work pay, did you?)

Say what you like about Labour, but they’ve got the right idea when it comes to the money supply. Ed Balls wants to cut VAT; he wants to bring back the 10 per cent tax rate for the lowest-paid; he wants to bring in a National Insurance holiday for companies that agree to take on new employees.

These are measures that will help.

What is Gideon going to do?