Bolitics The New Condem Government

[leviramsey]

The problem seems to be not enough "good" people want to get in to politics, so we end up with chumps like this bloke. Don't really know what we can do about it.

I strongly believe that not only is having absolutely nohing that could be called ethics or morals not an impediment to achieving political power, it verges on being a requirement for deciding to seek political power.

It's not a question of getting "the right sort of people" into power: if they were the right sort of people (e.g. someone with ethics or morals beyond "what benefits me in the short term") they'd very likely not accept the power.

[peterms]

David Freud's sterling work with the previous Labour government meant that he jumped ship to the Tories to continue his work in 2009.

He is now Baron Freud, Minister for welfare reform and government spokesperson for the DWP in the Lords.

He also recently had to apologize for an 'inadvertent' error in a foreward he wrote to a recent DWP report which was in no way 'meant to mislead', at all, honestly, cross his heart, &c.

I think he also told a porkie or two to a select committee about rent levels.

Must admit he'd completely escaped my attention. Heard him on the radio yesterday. "We will be spending more..."

"Spending more? I thought you were going to be reducing spending on benefits?

"Er..."

"So why do you tell us you're spending more when you will be spending less?"

I think I preferred it when I didn't know he existed.

[TrentVilla]

So Clegg and Cameron have both said their piece about the voting system in this country and for once they actually differ on something, it seems that Clegg might have realised he is still the leader of a individual party rather than just the PM's lackie.

Having forgotten his principles and beliefs in the pursuit of power Clegg seems to have suddenly remembered that he once claimed to stand for ideas of his own and of his party and voters and is making a stand on something to show he is about more than just power.

Oh but no its on voting systems isn't it, trying to change the system in order to try and ensure his party continue to have more of a say in Government. Only trouble is Nick you seem to not realise that while you have been selling out on your principles these last few months the very people that used to vote for you have been losing faith in you and your party.

I wouldn't be against a change in the voting system myself but your not going to get it Nick and even if you do your party are highly unlikely to benefit from it ironic then its the one thing you've opted to make a stand on.

[drat01]

The thing is though it's not just the voting style here. They are doing the usual trick of underhand politics and looking to change the number of constituencies, obviously to favour the Tory party and the LibDem's.

It's a very grubby bit of politics that they are playing out here, but only to be expected following things like the fixed 5 year term rules etc

[Gringo]

The thing is though it's not just the voting style here. They are doing the usual trick of underhand politics and looking to change the number of constituencies, obviously to favour the Tory party and the LibDem's.

It's a very grubby bit of politics that they are playing out here, but only to be expected following things like the fixed 5 year term rules etc

Hasn't the number of constituencies now been agreed - the law that brought in the rferendum may have been linked to the constituency changes, but the referendum itself isn't. Is it?

Reducing the number of constitiencies reduced peoples access to democracy.

Introducing AV should increase peoples access to democracy.

So hard to see how the gerrymandering would influence anyone to vote no.

[peterms]

Some info on the health cuts.

The government's repeated pledges to protect frontline NHS services have been dramatically undermined by the announcement that two hospitals are to axe almost 1,000 jobs, including hundreds of nursing posts.

St George's hospital in south London announced that it was shedding 500 personnel, including nurses and – unusually – consultants, its most senior doctors.

It is also closing three wards, with the loss of about 100 beds, and reducing the number of women allowed to give birth there from 4,200 to 3,000, as part of an attempt to save £55m in 2011-12.

"St George's Healthcare [trust] is not immune from the financial challenges currently facing the wider NHS," said a trust spokesman.

Meanwhile Kingston hospital in southwest London announced that it would be losing 486 staff, almost 20% of its total workforce, over the next five years.

In an email to staff, its chief executive, Kate Grimes, said two key government health policies had forced the decision and warned that its action would soon be repeated by others.

Job losses are mounting across the NHS as hospitals in England struggle to cope with a £20bn efficiency drive and decisions by the coalition to restrict budget increases to 0.1% a year and reduce the fees hospitals receive for treating patients. Doctors' leaders warned that the loss of 986 jobs at the two London hospitals would prove to be "the tip of the iceberg".

A spokeswoman for the British Medical Association said: "The BMA is extremely concerned to hear about clinical job losses in England. This undermines the myth that the NHS has been protected from the financial crisis.

"Despite the continuing claims of real-terms increases for the NHS, the reality on the ground is very different. The scale of the financial challenge facing the service is such that this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg."

Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "There is no way on earth the loss of almost 1,000 posts will not affect frontline care for patients. The gulf between the rhetoric of protecting the frontline and what is actually happening in hospital wards and community services is widening by the day."

The job losses in the capital take the total of NHS jobs earmarked to disappear since 1 January to at least 3,053, with another 360 personnel put at risk of redundancy, according to research by the RCN, seen by the Guardian.

The research details 18 separate cases of job losses or other cutbacks announced or confirmed in that period. Ashford and St Peter's hospitals in Middlesex and Surrey are shedding 440 posts, as is the North Lincolnshire and Gole NHS foundation trust. Southend University hospital NHS foundation trust is losing 400 jobs and closing six wards.

In Croydon, the NHS trust is scrapping 12 elective surgery beds at its local hospital, while NHS Oldham has recently closed a 28-bed community recovery unit, leaving 15 staff at risk of redundancy.

Last month Barts hospital in central London announced it was shedding 630 jobs, including 250 nurses.

The job losses put fresh pressure on the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, who is already under attack for imposing radical structural changes to the NHS in England. He and David Cameron have regularly claimed that the NHS would escape the clampdown on public spending...

[Davkaus]

Amongst other things, David Cameron thinks AV is bad because "it could lead to a parliament of second choices". It'd be a ludicrous idea if we gave the gold medal in the Olympics to someone who came third or second (What about if they team up?).

Comedy genius.

[peterms]

This might be interesting, for the people who believe the tales we are told about how vital it is to keep the big banks in the UK, because they singlehandedly keep us afloat with the massive tax bills they pay. Why, between a quarter and a half of the economy is solely dependent on their efforts and the contribution they make to the Exchequer, or so I'm told.

I'm sure it's all made up, though. Next they'll be telling us that the people who advise others on the most effective ways to dodge paying tax don't really dodge tax themselves, and so we get back 50% of all that money paid out as bonuses to bankers. I'm sure they do.

Barclays bank forced to admit it paid just £113m in corporation tax in 2009

Admission stuns politicians and tax campaigners on the eve of a day of protests planned against high street banks

Barclays Bank has been forced to admit it paid just £113m in UK corporation tax in 2009 – a year when it rang up a record £11.6bn of profits.

The admission stunned politicians and tax campaigners. It was revealed on the eve of a day of protests planned against the high street banks by activists from UK Uncut, a group set up five months ago to oppose government cuts and corporate tax avoidance.

The Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who lobbied Barclays' chief executive, Bob Diamond, to reveal the tax paid by the bank, described the figure – just 1% of its 2009 profits – as "shocking".

The current rate of corporation tax in the UK is 28%, although global banks such as Barclays – which has hundreds of overseas subsidiaries, including many in tax havens – do not generate all of their profits in their domestic market.

Max Lawson, of the Robin Hood Tax Campaign, said: "This is proof that banks live in a parallel universe to the rest of us, paying billions in bonuses and unhampered by the inconvenience of paying tax.

"If banks paid their fair share we could avoid the worst of the cuts and help those hit hardest by the financial crisis they did nothing to cause."

UK Uncut, which has also campaigned against Vodafone, Boots and Top Shop, intends to take its first national day of action against the banks on Saturday with protesters expected to bring more than 30 high street branches of Barclays to a standstill.

On Tuesday – when Barclays announced 2010 profits of £6.1bn and a 23% rise in average pay in its investment banking arm, Barclays Capital – the tax campaigners turned a London branch of the bank into a library.

The disclosure of the size of Barclays' corporation tax bill was made in a letter by Diamond to Umunna, who had asked the Barclays boss about the tax paid by the bank when he appeared before the Treasury select committee of MPs last month.

Diamond told the committee that Barclays paid £2bn in taxes to HM Revenue & Customs in 2009, but it is now clear that most of this is payroll taxes for employees. Umunna argued that the sum paid directly in corporation tax to the exchequer is the best reflection of a bank's contribution to the country.

At the time, Diamond said the period of "remorse and apology" for banks was over. Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer who resigned as the party's spokesman in the Lords, said : "I agree with Bob – the time for remorse is past, but what British taxpayers need now is behaviour change from Barclays. Our banks must pay their full whack in corporation tax , not derisory drops in the ocean like this."

Barclays' bill for corporation tax illustrates a dramatic fall in the banking industry's contribution to the exchequer. Before the financial crisis, the industry paid more than £10bn in corporation tax, but this had halved by 2009.

Treasury minister Lord Sassoon admitted this week, in response to a question by former City minister Lord Myners, that while the banks would pay around £20bn in tax in 2010-11 most of that total would be income tax and national insurance paid by employees which the banks hand over on their behalf.

Only 20%, said Sassoon, which would come from corporation tax.

Myners said: "The combination of tax avoidance strategies with subsidiary companies together with losses brought forward means that banks will be not be making a meaningful contribution to corporate tax for some years."

Diamond also confirmed to Umunna that the bank had 30 subsidiary companies in the Isle of Man, 38 in Jersey and 181 in the Cayman Islands but stressed that the bank was making efforts to liquidate some of these of operations in the crown dependencies.

With regards to the Cayman Islands, Diamond was insistent that the majority of these are subject to tax in the UK.

Barclays said it complied with tax laws in the UK and all the countries where it operates and that in 2010 it paid over £2.8bn in taxes in the UK and £6.1bn globally. The £2.8bn UK bill again includes payroll taxes.

The bank said: "The corporate tax affairs of an organisation with the global footprint of Barclays are complex and not reducible to simplistic comparisons. Any link between Barclays Group profits and the amount of tax paid to the UK government is inappropriate - there is no direct correlation between the two."

Umunna blamed the coalition for not being tough enough on banks, but Tories said the Barclays tax bill related to a period when Labour was in government.

A government spokesman said: "As a result of negotiations by this government, banks will pay less in bonuses, more in tax and lend more than they otherwise would have done this year."

[peterms]

It's payback time!

The senior British diplomat who played a central role in pressuring the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigation into BAE Systems over the al-Yamamah Saudi arms deal has been hired by the defence group, the Guardian has learned....

Good job there's no corruption in our country, isn't it? It means we can lecture the morally weaker states, from a position of smug compacency.

[Awol]

It's payback time!

The senior British diplomat who played a central role in pressuring the Serious Fraud Office to drop its investigation into BAE Systems over the al-Yamamah Saudi arms deal has been hired by the defence group, the Guardian has learned....

Good job there's no corruption in our country, isn't it?

Which is why with the 3rd or 4th largest defence budget in the world we are still incapable of adequately equiping the men and women our government send into harms way.

Barclays bank forced to admit it paid just £113m in corporation tax in 2009

Outrageous. Someone will be along shortly to explain how this is the fault of those worker hating Tory toffs, despite not being in Government at the time.

[TrentVilla]

No not the Tories fault that one, something should have been done about it under the last government no question. That said the Tories aren't going to do anything about it either are they.

[Awol]

That said the Tories aren't going to do anything about it either are they.

No chance. Lib/Lab/Tory all work for the same people, and it ain't us. That's what I find slightly perplexing about the current anti-government rage, there seems to be a lack of awareness that Labour and the coalition are two cheeks of the same arse and things won't change as long as any of them are in charge.

[TrentVilla]

That said the Tories aren't going to do anything about it either are they.

No chance. Lib/Lab/Tory all work for the same people, and it ain't us. That's what I find slightly perplexing about the current anti-government rage, there seems to be a lack of awareness that Labour and the coalition are two cheeks of the same arse and things won't change as long as any of them are in charge.

I don't really agree. Labour may not have done anything about the banks, in fact they may have made things worse but they at least tried to make things better for people and tried to improve public services.

The Tories traditionally don't do this and the signs so far of this government are that nothing has changed.

They might be two cheeks of the same arse as I agree with you that our political system is broken but the backlash against the Tories is because they are bending over and spanking their bare ass cheak at large sections of the publc.

[peterms]

That said the Tories aren't going to do anything about it either are they.

No chance. Lib/Lab/Tory all work for the same people, and it ain't us. That's what I find slightly perplexing about the current anti-government rage, there seems to be a lack of awareness that Labour and the coalition are two cheeks of the same arse and things won't change as long as any of them are in charge.

For me, the point is more that banks have become beyond control by governments.

Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws.

[Dodgyknees]

The lady in blue, 30 seconds in is a legend for her attempts to go with the beat

I know the IoW means nothing to most of you but its a small part of a big question so like posting about us here and those who are standing up!

[peterms]

Back to the phone hacking investigation.

There's a very interesting list of private meetings between senior Met police and senior News International staff over the course of several years when the Met was supposed to be investigating possible criminal activity by News International staff, but apparently failing to do so. Some of the people the commissioner was meeting for dinner were potential suspects at the time.

I'm sure there must be guidelines and protocols about socialising with potential suspects, and representatives of organisations supposedly under investigation. I wonder if the guidelines were followed? Fuller article here.

2006 September: the then Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson – dinner with NoW deputy editor, and Dick Fedorcio, Metropolitan police director of public affairs

2007 November: Stephenson – dinner with deputy editor, and Fedorcio

2008 February: Stephenson – dinner with deputy editor

October: Stephenson – meeting with deputy editor and Fedorcio; Stephenson – dinner with editor, and Fedorcio

2009 February: Stephenson (now commissioner) – dinner with deputy editor and Fedorcio

May: Stephenson – dinner with editor and Fedorcio

June: Deputy Commissioner Tim Godwin – participation in NoW Save our Streets Roadshow alongside Jack Straw MP; Stephenson – attended News Corporation reception; Stephenson – dinner with deputy editor and Fedorcio

November: assistant commissioner John Yates – dinner with editor and crime editor

[peterms]

Don't forget - We're all in this together.

It's just like the Blitz, really. Only this time the ones crapping on us are from our own side.

"Not employed", though he's CE. Hong Kong. Jersey. Delaware. Tax-dodging, institutionalised.

HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver stays offshore for employment purposes

• Stuart Gulliver was top earner last year with £10m

• Bank says no tax benefit to employment arrangement

Stuart Gulliver, HSBC's highest paid banker on a £10m deal in 2009, is not employed by the bank's main holding company despite taking over as chief executive.

The British-born executive who has spent 20 of his 30 years at the bank working outside the UK, is seconded to work for HSBC Holdings – the overall operation – through a Dutch-based company called HSBC Asia Holdings.

His contract, seen by the Guardian, shows that his principal place of work is Hong Kong, where the bank moved the office of the chief executive a year ago. HSBC Asia Holdings has an Amsterdam address.

The contract, signed this month, also shows that he expects to pay income taxes in Hong Kong and Britain – with the bank paying for him to receive advice on filing tax returns in both places.

Gulliver's contract gives his address as the main HSBC Hong Kong office in Queen's Road Central, and confirms he is on a £1.25m salary. He is also entitled to an additional 50% as a contribution to his pension. About £375,000 is paid into a Jersey-based defined contribution scheme called Trailblazer while the remaining £250,000 is paid in cash.

Gulliver has been employed by the bank since October 1980 and is one of 443 HSBC bankers who are also employed through the Amsterdam offshoot, which HSBC said is designed to allow them to continue to receive benefits and pension entitlements regardless of where the bank – which has operations in 87 territories – locates them.

HSBC said: "Every one of our 400-plus international managers has their employment contract held through the same HSBC subsidiary, for administrative convenience. There is no tax benefit involved."

Bob Diamond, chief executive of Barclays, is seconded to the bank from a Delaware subsidiary known as Gracechurch. It is not known how many other Barclays bankers are employed in this way.

Gulliver's elevation to the top job took place amid a boardroom overhaul caused by chairman Lord Green accepting the post of trade minister in the government.

Green was replaced by former finance director Douglas Flint – who is on £1.5m a year without bonuses – while Gulliver replaced Michael Geoghegan.

Flint was replaced as finance director by fellow Scot Iain MacKay, who is on £700,000 a year before bonuses.

As a result of the upheaval, Sandy Flockhart was moved back to London from Hong Kong to become chairman of the European, Middle East and Africa operations. He is now employed by the holding company in London.

All directors are entitled to chauffeur driven cars from the HSBC pool while the bank will also pay for the membership of two clubs.

Flockhart retains some of the clauses from his Dutch-based contract and also has a mortgage from the bank, of an unspecificed size, according to his contract.

No monetary value is put on the pledge to provide Gulliver with accommodation of an "appropriate level" in Hong Kong, where is he is understood to have use of one of the bank's houses.

[blandy]

There's an element of that which is standard practice for people in many lines of work at high and low level positions, where they move internationally, or get seconded for a while.

It's done so that the contract and terms of employment remain consistent wherever they are based - pensions, wages, taxes and all the rest are kept to a standard level.

The bloke is highly remunerated, but I'm not sure there's anything wrong with his terms etc.

The thing that is far more significant is the Barclays tax bill

[drat01]

It gets grubbier and grubbier. A wife of a arms dealer it seems has recently contributed 300K to the Tory party

link

The Conservatives received a £300,000 gift from the wife of a billionaire former arms dealer caught up in the furore that forced a Cabinet minister's resignation.

Details of the donation emerged as David Cameron neared the end of a tour of the Gulf in which he was forced to defend weapons sales to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

The money was handed over by May Makhzoumi, whose Lebanese husband, Fouad, is a businessman, politician and philanthropist. It was among the largest gifts to the party, which received more than £3m in the last three months of 2010, new figures from the Electoral Commission disclosed yesterday...

[Awol]

It gets grubbier and grubbier. A wife of a arms dealer it seems has recently contributed 300K to the Tory party

link

The Conservatives received a £300,000 gift from the wife of a billionaire former arms dealer caught up in the furore that forced a Cabinet minister's resignation.

Details of the donation emerged as David Cameron neared the end of a tour of the Gulf in which he was forced to defend weapons sales to authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

The money was handed over by May Makhzoumi, whose Lebanese husband, Fouad, is a businessman, politician and philanthropist. It was among the largest gifts to the party, which received more than £3m in the last three months of 2010, new figures from the Electoral Commission disclosed yesterday...

Despite the courageous attempts of The Independent to make something out of nothing, what exactly is the issue here? The guy helped negotiate the sale of some second rifles between the UK and Lebanese Government (ooooh, evil arms dealer) which is perfectly normal and legitimate business. 18 years later his wife makes a political donation. So what?