Thursday Thoughts

 

Interesting to read how Bernie Ecclestone, the 93 year old one time owner of Formula 1, has been given a suspended sentence for dodging £400 million tax.  A Trust he did not comprehend, I think is the excuse.  He has agreed to pay £650 million to the tax man to avoid jail.

In itself there is not much here in this story, except that a rich man has been forced to pay money to the taxman.  Bernie himself has always been his own man, that's how he became rich, and after paying this cash he will still have millions, if not billions, put aside 'for the family.'  I am left considering why a 93 year old needs so much cash?

He is described as 'frail' in court, but such 'frail' men are often seen on their yachts with young ladies later looking quite frisky.  Remember that Guinness man who developed dementia while on trial and then forgot about it after release?   What does a 93 year old require billions for?  He must have family, he must have friends, but once again I think, had it been me, I would be making positive use of this money.  Maybe of course it is having the riches is where his life is based.  The wealth, the boasting, the power, is what matters, the actual cash means little.  

I wonder when the HMRC will decide to take such action amongst the present cabinet...?

I wonder if Benjamin made a mistake?  We hear from many sides that an attack by Hamas was expected.  Lat night I heard two BBC correspondents mentioning this, and the BBC foreign correspondents are quite good, unlike those in London.   The problems on the border, the jailing of Palestinians, the difficulties in Gaza, the deaths of young Palestinians, all have created tension.  Hamas have been looking for an excuse to launch an attack, did Israel misunderstand this?  

The more I read the more I wonder if Benjamin considered a small outrage by Hamas worth suffering as then he could go in heavy and deal with it, and strengthen his leadership.  He is not one to avoid an excuse to build himself up.  However, the Hamas attack was very creative, totally beyond what was expected, hundreds killed, many wounded, and total shock in an Israel slowly building itself into a 'European/World State.'  The immediate response was expected, but who suffered Hamas or others?

Now there has been created a 'national government' of sorts.  Maybe this will save Netanyahu, maybe not.  Many on Twitter blame him, indeed a poll today almost 60% blame the man himself.  The problem with playing with war is that you can get hurt.  If he overdoes the response now it could go very wrong, much more dangerous for the world that Ukraine, which we now all ignore.     

Prospect

I've just been listening to a podcast on 'Prospect' magazine, featuring a 'Haarez' journalist in Tel Aviv.  It was good to listen to a calm thoughtful 25 minutes, including a big 'bump' in the distance, as she spoke of the situation there.  Well worth a listen.

When I am Poor then I am Rich...

The release of the files indicating the billions hidden away by the elite to avoid tax is no surprise to most of us.  Fiddling tax, especially when there are so many ways to do this 'legally' has gone on since time began and many grumbling about this will avoid tax on the 'Black Market' when possible.
So to be informed that leading Conservative parliamentary members of both houses are at it is no shock, to hear the queen is dodging tax is also no shock, she would not wish to tax herself would she?
However when her 'advisers,' she does not do her own accounts it appears, when her 'advisers, put ten million of her money in to tax havens and companies of dubious reputation then either she gets a  grip of her money men or begins to pay her own way.  This amount, £10 million, is only a small portion of her personal wealth they state, so why did she require a £10 million a year rise from the taxpayer for her royal duties bud?  If she has money in the bank why is she not doing what the nation has to do in these years of austerity and cutting costs?  Add to her tax paid income the £750 million being spent renovating Buckingham Palace while the nation attends one of the thousand Foodbanks that employed people have to make use of to pay their way is a question that requires an answer.   
Bone, famous U2 singer who asks people to pay for the poor also has money in tax dodges, Lord Ashcroft, a man who has bankrolled the Tory party and makes a noise about buying Victoria Crosses of the fallen while talking up his patriotism has many millions resting loyally abroad.  One of Trumps men, one Wilbur Ross has connections through such accounts to President Putin, no shock there, many foreign Johnnies are in on this, Canada's weird Premier Trudeau's top financier has of course got his fingers in the pile and foreign owners of English football teams are also in the game.
How lucky we are not one of those corrupt African nations where such behaviour is commonplace, how lucky the UK is so honest.

 
The good news is that such corruption has taken the corruption of our Westminster leaders off the front page and moved it into second place.  This is good because women are still appearing, jumping on the bandwagon of fame, all accusing someone unnamed of touching, raping, abusing or just smiling at them at some date in the past, often way in the past.  Whether any of this is true or whether this is just women telling the world that even though they are ageing men still want them I am not too sure.  I suspect men do not want such women around preferring the more thoughtful type and not those on the make.  
It is interesting the Ambera Rudd the Home Secretary and Liz Truss also a cabinet minister of some sort should appear on the list of named MP's mentioned for harassment.

This is allegedly the list of miscreants and it is worth a read.  Amber is near the bottom (ooh missus) and Liz half way up, one with relationships and one fornicating!  Dear me is this right?  
The whole thing is of course a game.  Men and women have been touching one another up for centuries, both have abused the other in a variety of ways, yet it is only bad men that get publicity, not bad women.  It appears they are seen as 'being independent women, making their choices,' not 'sluts' as they used to be called.  Men are not keen on 'dirty girls' as they are called, and in parliament it is clear there must be a few of those willing to make use of themselves to gain advantage, just ask that nice Edwina Currie.
Tomorrow there might be some better news, like the end of Brexit perhaps.

Shocked!

George Osborne, our world renown millionaire Chancellor of the Exchequer, claims in a Telegraph interview today that he is 'shocked' to discover how the richest millionaires do not pay enough tax, using a variety of legal loopholes to keep their cash. I am somewhat taken aback by this.  If George, who has around £4 million to his name, was unaware of the £15-20 Billion tax avoided by his rich friends can we conclude he is either lying in his private dentist teeth or just too stupid to do his job?  Has he forgotten already how that nice man in charge of the Tax Office, after a decent lunch, gave the boss of Vodafone leave not to pay his £6 Billion tax bill?  "Just give us £1:25 Billion, and take your time in paying this," he said, "and that will be fine."  He even let one of your Tory donors off with a few million also, have you forgotten this too George?  Has George not noticed the Cabinet is full of millionaires just like him, does he think they pay all their taxes, really?  


In spite of his fathers successful business a privileged education and a Modern History degree,   George joined the real world by data entry, at the NHS he entered the names of the recent dead into the computer.  He moved on to a solitary week at Selfridges folding towels for ungrateful customers, who can blame him for leaving that shop?  I worked there in the early eighties and the nickname 'Selfishes' rings a bell still.  Joining Conservative Central Office Osborne soon found a home and gradually worked his way up, until becoming the MP for Tatton at the age of 30.  Like David Cameron PM, and so many other members of both sides of the house George was from the 80's youth.  These privileged young, a very different generation from mine, have no experience of the war, the "Never had it so good 50's," or the problems of the 70's, and I do not refer here to the music of that time!  Osborne and the rest have a mindset far from any 'Babyboomer.'  Their nation has always been wealthy, and not just because of their good fortune, everyone had enough, no-one appeared to starve, the UK, indeed the west, spoke of 'good times.'  How can someone with that outlook understand the needs of the nation, economically and 'spiritually?'  What does Osborne's nation stand for?  Can he really appreciate what his statement implies?  


I confess, as if you had not noticed, my mindset was reared in a working class family of the 50's.  A left leaning, but voting Conservative if they were better, family, and Scots nationalist when they arose in the late 60's.  Of course a quick perusal of the bible changed much of my thinking, but that leads to a natural left of centre approach.  (Thatcher in the 80's turned the evangelical church from right of centre to left of centre by her hard hearted attitudes.)  For George to say he is 'shocked' by something I heard about when I was 15 or so, and from those able to practice such tax avoidance, I find it hard to accept he really understands the responses to his every utterance.  Maybe he ought to go back to the towel department and ask a few questions of those rifling through the stock?


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