Op-ed: If British PM David Cameron thought he had pulled a rabbit out of the hat last weekend when he published a summary of his tax affairs he is mistaken. At best he pulled out a poor imitation of his tax affairs. Following revelations that Cameron's father ran an off shore tax haven Cameron has experienced a bumpy week. A series of lies, half-truths and misleading information did nothing to satisfy his critics. Monday Cameron will address the Commons. If Cameron runs true to form it will be a well-crafted speech spinning information to within an inch of its very being. It will be high on dodgy figures and attacks across the Commons aimed at the Labour party but low on accountability and transparency. News Sunday that "HMRC chief was partner at law firm that acted for Cameron offshore fund" has left people wondering just how far the old boy network reaches. The well-funded Tory propaganda machine will have been working overtime to find any vague or real dodgy looking dealings that have roots in the Labour Party. Cameron will however find it difficult to find financial sleaze attached to Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Cameron may try to attack other political parties and their leaders but he may not. It is Labour that the Tories view as a real threat to their crippling policies and government. But when all is said and done Cameron is the Prime Minister of the UK and should be above suspicion. Tory bully boys will be out on force to bray like donkeys in support of Cameron. Every trick in the book will be used to try to undermine Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Sadly the Tories are predictable. But in the end further revelations that Cameron's mother gifted Dave and Sam Cam £200k in the hope that she lives more than seven years and so he pays no inheritance tax simply highlights we are far from 'all in this together'. Similarly Samantha Cameron has been attacked for allowing the taxpayer to pick up a £53,000 bill for her fashion adviser. Some in the media may have tried to defend Sam Cam but when her husband is part of a government trying to slash £30 a week from people with disabilities, money which in some cases is used to help them dress, she becomes fair game. The Tory government has stripped away Social Security trying to rebrand it as some sort of welfare hand out but it is not. We and our parents have paid for a range of benefits. If there is not enough money in the treasury to cover costs whose fault is that? The apple is not falling far from the tree on that question. Perhaps if money invested in off shore tax havens was actually putting some money into the treasury there would be money for all. But after all that is not the Tory way. Check back later after Cameron talks the talk. You may also like: The 1% hide their money offshore – then use it to corrupt our democracy Bungling tax boss slammed for 45-minute waiting times on HMRC phone lines George Osborne family business' £6m offshore deal
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Op-ed: A furious debate about what if anything UK PM David Cameron has done wrong is dividing opinion. It is fair to say the divide is fairly politically split. The Tory faithful are by and large, at least publicly, showing their support for the PM, calling those asking him to resign anything from a rabble to misinformed. Their argument is that Cameron has done nothing wrong; that the system may or may not be flawed but that seems to depend whether you are talking to a person who is gaining under the current system or not. Now Tories are in damage limitations mode and clutching eagerly at each and every straw anything goes. The latest is calling attacks on Cameron a smear campaign. To Labour supporters such as this writer that is both ironic and rich. It was not so very long ago a smug faced David Cameron used a dodgy Labour list to ridicule Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons. That list may have been a fictitious piece of Conservative nonsense or even supplied by a Labour political lightweight and backstabber but either way it lowered the tone. It was a cheap political shot and Cameron cannot bleat when we respond in kind. But either way we note the gloves are off and the Tories do not like it. They have played with fire and tried to damage the reputation of Mr Corbyn; they even attacked Ed Miliband and his father as they tried to win the 2015 General Election. Nothing was off limits. So are you persuaded that somehow publishing the panama data leaks is disrespectful to David Cameron's late father? If Cameron had come clean Sunday night when the story broke many people would still have been angry. It is the fact that Cameron preaches we are all in this together as paltry benefits for people with disabilities are slashed and even mobility allowances removed. As he tells us all it is because the country has such a huge deficit and it is all the Labour party's fault. But of course if money was invested in the UK rather than off shore tax havens perhaps the country would not be in such a financial mess. He is the King of Hypocrisy even telling us all to take a vacation in the UK to help flood hit areas of the country then dashing off to Lanzarote for his Easter break. The fact that Cameron lied over and over again this week has permanently damaged his reputation. He has lied and vague arguments from others that it is a private family matter and that he did want to drag his late father into the debate are simply nonsense. £31,500 from his Dad's shares was such a drop in the Cameron's financial ocean Dave was able to casually dismiss and forget it. Last week's leaks may just be a drop in that same ocean but hey could almost be a false flag with Cameron collateral damage. Certainly the elite will be happy to see the government of Iceland fall as that country has successfully jailed corrupt bankers. With other off shore tax havens still holding so many secrets there is still a lot of the proverbial to hit the fan. Will we ever get to the real truth of this story or not? By Saturday night Cameron has vowed to publish his tax returns for the last six years. But surely that is after the event in every sense of the word? Feel free to have your say in the comments section below but please no url links and keep it friendly. Mossack Fonseca director Ramon Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing. He said the firm had suffered a hack on its database and described the leak as "an international campaign against privacy", according to Reuters. All of those implicated in the ICIJ Panama Papers report have been afforded the opportunity to respond: Visit the ICIJ website to read the responses. Op-ed: As Del Boy David Cameron ducks and dives his way around the panama papers data leak can we really believe a word he or his ministers say? A day ago, as the PM of Iceland was forced to resign after been caught up in the off shore tax haven scandal, Number 10 said there was nothing to say and Mr Cameron's father's off shore tax haven links were a private family matter. It was a case of 'move along now nothing here to see'. But it did not take long for that statement to be superseded. And Wednesday on it goes. The latest from the BBC is "Downing Street has been forced to further clarify David Cameron's financial affairs after questions about his family's tax arrangements. No 10 said there were "no offshore trusts or funds" that the prime minister or his immediate family would benefit from "in future"" but is that an adequate response? [Thursday edit -More taxing questions for the PM: How Cameron's father stashed a fortune in Jersey that Dave could inherit from his mother Daily Mail] Many people are asking about the past and Labour say questions still remain and want him to publish his tax returns. 21st Century western citizens are told to suck up austerity measures and slashed budgets to help pay off some vague national debts and deficits while the rich appear to have stashed their wealth away from the taxman or woman. This tax limitation has a negative knock on effect on those same debts and budgets. Cameron may have some of the mainstream media running scared of the Tories but the Conservatives are finding it difficult to make people move on and ignore revelations. And when you have Chancellor George Osborne cutting short interviews when tax avoidance is mentioned people smell a rat or two. Again it is the Telegraph reporting this time "George Osborne terminates BBC interview when asked twice if he benefits from offshore funds." But then George has also been under the Telegraph microscope in the past - Chancellor George Osborne reportedly "sold his constituency home, which has been part-funded by his MP’s expenses claims, for an estimated £400,000 profit" was also a Telegraph report. The MP Expense scandal Previously various MPs have been shown to abuse the political expenses system available for them. Following explosive revelations in the Telegraph a couple of years ago a handful of MPs were jailed after losing court cases. Most as I seem to remember where Labour MPs but fiddling expenses was a cross-party phenomenon. So MP expenses were overhauled and they were awarded hefty salary increases which allegedly would prevent further fiddles; that assumption of course works on the premise that the fiddles were legal within a flawed system and maybe even that some MPs were struggling financially; it takes no account of personal greed. In January we remembered Maria Miller who was embroiled in the expense scandal but never faced justice and is still an active MP. But in 2014 the "House of Commons authorities have destroyed all evidence of MPs' expenses claims prior to 2010, meaning end of official investigations into scandal" reported the Telegraph. One British politician that could be heard breathing a sigh of relief across the UK was Tory Maria Miller. We followed the Maria Miller saga as it twisted and turned before she came up smelling of roses. She quit her cabinet role of culture secretary after claiming she was forced out by Number 10 but she was never held to account or proven innocent or guilty of the dodgy expenses allegation but she remained in parliament. It illustrates how unfair and biased even political expense scandals can be. And now there is Tory Geoffrey Cox QC:
The Standards Committee found that Geoffrey Cox QC had committed a "serious" breach of rules, although it accepted he had not "intended to hide" the payments for hundreds of hours of legal work......Telegraph That Cox ruling was in early February 2016. What is a Tory apology worth? Is it worth as much as a Tory saying 'honestly'? The Torridge and West Devon MP [Geoffrey Cox] referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner and stepped down as a member of parliament's sleaze watchdog last October after it emerged he had repeatedly missed the 28-day deadline. Sleaze watchdog? British parliament is still in recess and there is little wonder that Cameron ignored calls for a recall due to the Tata Steel crisis; while he is away from the Commons he is left unaccountable simply drip feeding a little information to the media; information that most people do not believe. The dodgy off shore but somehow legal tax havens have other family links to the Cameron's though this time in the shape of wife Samantha Cameron. In February 2015 the Daily Mirror reported: David Cameron has come under more pressure over his wife Samantha’s family affairs after it emerged they have links to tax havens across the globe. This piece could roll on and on but we will leave it there, at least for now.
But now that we know we are being governed by crooks and liars the big question has to be - what are we going to do about it? Op-ed: Last weekend the so-called panama papers were released. A massive amount of data leaked to journalists in the mainstream media worldwide. The revelations showed a trail of money laundering and tax free off shore investments and that trail appeared to lead to many high profile figures, including some notable politicians. In the UK three former Tory MPs and six members of the House of Lords were involved though not named. Then there was UK PM David Cameron and his late father's off shore dealings. That was in many ways old news after being revealed by a C4 investigative team in early 2015. But the panama leaks led to fresh questions being asked. Downing Street seems to believe it is a private family matter for the Camerons but it is not. It raises suspicions and tarnishes the reputation of Cameron and therefore the office he holds. More than 11 million documents from Mossack Fonseca were released and some western journalists have preferred to try to implicate Russian President Vladimir Putin who is not named; however the panama papers do include the names of people close to Putin. But the scale of the leaks means that in the coming days, weeks, months and even years there may be more shocks to come. First blood is Tuesday as Icelandic PM, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, resigns. He cut short an interview at the weekend as soon as the question of the "panama papers" and his involvement was raised but it was too late to save his neck; last night huge crowds demonstrated outside the Icelandic parliament showing their displeasure by throwing eggs and calling for a snap election. What will happen to Gunnlaugsson now? Iceland has jailed bankers who were 'caught napping' during the 2008 global financial crisis. It is hard to imagine they will pat Gunnlaugsson on the back and let him walk away with his stash of cash. Gunnlaugsson and his wife had purchased an offshore company called Wintris in 2007. Gunnlaugsson never stated his interest in the company when he entered parliament in 2009, according to the BBC, one of the news organizations to examine the so-called Panama Papers. Eight months later, Gunnlaugsson sold his stake to his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Palsdottir. People across Europe and further afield have been told that austerity is necessary to balance the books; they have been fed a diet of misinformation and lies. There has also been an absence of some information. Will the real truth, no matter who it touches, finally be revealed or will it be a watered down version of events? C4 in the UK were at the cutting edge of allegations in July 2015 when they also published details of another 'family affair' this time linked to George Osborne. Chancellor George Osborne's family business made £6 million in a property deal with a developer based in a tax haven, a Channel 4 News investigation has found. |
British political scene
The next General Election in the UK may not be scheduled any time soon but the British political landscape is changing. With that in mind this blog will concentrate on the political scene but with a left wing perspective. Opinion pieces and news will bring you the stories that the MSM prefer to ignore. Archives
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