Meanwhile ...

Tories try to protect Google's £30 billion tax haven from blacklisting

Britain has been privately lobbying the EU to remove from an official blacklist the tax haven through which Google funnels billions of pounds of profits, the Observer can reveal.

Treasury ministers have told the European commission that they are “strongly opposed” to proposed sanctions against Bermuda, a favoured shelter for Google’s profits and one of 30 tax jurisdictions in Brussels’ sights.

The disclosure is made in a memorandum circulated among Tory MEPs in Brussels that describes potential “countermeasures” against blacklisted tax havens as “unhelpful”.

Google is expected to announce on Monday that it has amassed £30bn of profits from non-US sales in Bermuda, where companies are not liable to pay corporation tax. The UK is Google’s largest non-US market, accounting for 11% of its global revenues, according to documents filed in America.

But of course, we all know the real reason for this. Namely, the Tories are on the fiddle themselves ...

The tories can say all they want but the Commission will not listen to them.

John McDonnell Makes His Tax Return Public And Urges George Osborne To Do The Same

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell today published his tax return online in the spirit of the “New Politics” – and called on George Osborne to do the same.

The Labour frontbencher posted on Twitter a screenshot of part of his tax return for the year 2014/2015, revealing he paid £14,253 on earnings of £61,575.

He claimed he was making his financial dealings public in the name of “openness and transparency” after the £130million settlement between Google and HMRC had “created a lack of confidence in those politicians who manage our tax system”....

http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/9124324

As well as gideon's trust income and dividends from inherited wealth both he and cameron are known to have substantial rental income from the homes freed up by the - what, 3? 4? - 'grace and favour' homes they are gifted by the taxpayer.

Who will notice?

Mrs Bernadette Simpkins of 73 Waterford Road, Coventry.

ED209 wrote:Mrs Bernadette Simpkins of 73 Waterford Road, Coventry.

Who else?

Mr. Harry Taylor of 13a Darwen Court, Blackburn.

ED209 wrote:Mr. Harry Taylor of 13a Darwen Court, Blackburn.

Not Dr John Smith of Lower Loxly, Ambridge

Northern Powerhouse: London consultants paid £200,000 for ‘close northern offices’ report

http://politicalscrapbook.net/2016/01/n ... es-report/

No surprise really.

I missed this at the time so apologies if it's been posted before, apparently this happened while Osbourne was covering PMQs in December, but it's truly astonishing. He's perfectly mirroring a parody of a Tory.

Brilliant.

GrahamH wrote:Northern Powerhouse: London consultants paid £200,000 for ‘close northern offices’

Worth every penny too, no doubt.

I bet I know what it says: "We're conservatives. We've got all the money. They can go fuck themselves".

ronmcd wrote:Brilliant.

I second the motion.

Being nasty is now seen to be an electoral asset, which has been pretty obvious for a long time, and this is from a Labour website

http://labourlist.org/2016/02/the-worst-has-happened-the-nasty-party-brand-is-now-an-asset/

This is why the Tories are in such a position they can now use their greatest perceived weakness –their nasty brand – as a weapon. If you believe the dead cat theory attributed to Cameron’s comments last week, the strategy seems to go as such: the Tories say something so nasty, so in-keeping with their brand, so stereotypical, so impossible for us not to gasp at, and so absolutely distracting, that the nastiness is now an intentional weapon. A Tory says something gasp-worthy, and they avoid headlines on their initial problem. A dead cat does not have to be objectively nasty, but it helps. And most importantly, it triggers outrage in our ranks.

Cameron was not employing a strategy, he simply let his mask slip. The fact that most of the electorate don't follow things closely and the media would rather talk about Corbyn/Trident/Foot/etc than focus on what is actually happening at PMQ's means that Tory sneering and nastiness is not condemned as widely as it should be. It's not noticed by most. It's certainly not an asset.

smudge wrote:Cameron was not employing a strategy, he simply let his mask slip. The fact that most of the electorate don't follow things closely and the media would rather talk about Corbyn/Trident/Foot/etc than focus on what is actually happening at PMQ's means that Tory sneering and nastiness is not condemned as widely as it should be. It's not noticed by most. It's certainly not an asset.

I was just about persuaded by the suggestion that the "bunch of migrants" remark was scripted and deliberate, not a slip.

GrahamH wrote:

smudge wrote:Cameron was not employing a strategy, he simply let his mask slip. The fact that most of the electorate don't follow things closely and the media would rather talk about Corbyn/Trident/Foot/etc than focus on what is actually happening at PMQ's means that Tory sneering and nastiness is not condemned as widely as it should be. It's not noticed by most. It's certainly not an asset.

I was just about persuaded by the suggestion that the "bunch of migrants" remark was scripted and deliberate, not a slip.

I think it was scripted but still a slip! He's a cocky bastard and forgets himself. I really don't buy the dead cat thing in this instance.

Calilasseia wrote:

Osborne The Tax Dodger.jpg

While I fully agree with the sentiment...

That doesn't make sense. You don't pay tax on turnover, you pay tax on profit. His family business could perfectly well have had a £200m turnover and made a loss all that time (or made use of rules that allow profits to be offset against losses in other years etc.)

I think that's largely a specious objection. Nobody is claiming that the firm doesn't file accounts or returns, the revenue is simply mentioned to draw attention to the fact that it's a company with significant turnover yet mysteriously doesn't report a tax liability year after year after year.

It's not run as a not-for-profit. Either the people running it don't have a clue what they are doing, or they know exactly what they are doing.

The picture is inaccurate in one important respect though. Gideon doesn't own the 15%, the 15% is owned by a discretionary trust of which he is the beneficiary, set up to avoid £millions in inheritance tax.

Oh, and when they sold off some london property they did it via a developer incorporated in the british virgin islands. Purely because it's really hard to find a local property developer of course, and nothing to do with the british virgin islands being a tax haven with reportedly £millions more avoided on the deal.

These are just some examples of the rules that we know gideon/his trust/his firm has made use of. I don't think they would be widely regarded as acceptable.

Trouble in paradise as every paper in the UK rides the brexit bandwagon directly up cameron's goatse-dilated arsehole:



The cabinet is split and they are making claims that 70% of his own MPs will oppose him over EU membership