Cameron's patricide, or how immoral is Jimmy Carr?

When it comes to criticising a comic about his tax avoidance,
which until loosey-goosey UK law is not illegal, it's not far
for one to assume that David Cameron is criticising his
dead father and the offshore millions which that father hid
in the Caymans.

IshitUnot: 2 texts
Telegraph

Jimmy Carr: 'I've made a terrible error of judgement'

By Hannah Furness | Telegraph

Jimmy Carr has pulled out of a tax avoidance scheme after it was described as "morally wrong", saying he had made a "terrible error of judgement".

The comedian had been exposed as the biggest beneficiary of the K2 scheme, which protects money from tax in Jersey.

In a statement released via his Twitter page, Mr Carr apologised and promised to conduct his financial affairs "much more responsibly".

He told his 2.3 million followers: "I appreciate as a comedian, people will expect me to ‘make light’ of this situation, but I’m not going to in this statement as this is obviously a serious matter.

"I met with a financial advisor and he said to me 'Do you want to pay less tax? It’s totally legal.' I said 'Yes.'

"I now realise I’ve made a terrible error of judgement.

"Although I’ve been advised the K2 Tax scheme is entirely legal, and has been fully disclosed to HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs), I’m no longer involved in it and will in future conduct my financial affairs much more responsibly. Apologies to everyone."

[Related link: Earn interest tax free - the top-paying cash ISAs]

His mea culpa came after David Cameron said it was "morally wrong" to avoid tax using such a scheme.

In response, Labour leader Ed Miliband said politicians should not lecture people about morality.

Mr Miliband said: "I'm not in favour of tax avoidance obviously, but I don't think it is for politicians to lecture people about morality.

"I think what the politicians need to do is - if the wrong thing is happening - change the law to prevent that tax avoidance happening and I think that is the right course the Government should take.

... The tax scheme is understood to protect £168m a year from the taxman in Jersey, with Jimmy Carr as its largest beneficiary.

Speaking at the G20 summit the Prime Minister told ITV News : "I think some of these schemes - and I think particularly of the Jimmy Carr scheme - I have had time to read about and I just think this is completely wrong.

... Today it was claimed that members of pop group Take That had also invested at least £26m in a scheme believed by HMRC to be a method of avoiding tax.

... Chancellor George Osborne has claimed he was left “shocked” after finding the extent to which multi-millionaires were exploiting tax loopholes and vowed to take “action”. [nice bit of acting, George- ]

 2  

guardian.co.uk

Cameron family fortune made in tax havens

Revealed: David Cameron's father built up legal offshore funds in Panama and Geneva

Ed Howker and Shiv Malik

Friday 20 April 2012 22.01 BST Article history 

David Cameron's father ran a network of offshore investment funds to help build the family fortune that paid for the prime minister's inheritance, the Guardian can reveal.

Though entirely legal, the funds were set up in tax havens such as Panama City and Geneva, and explicitly boasted of their ability to remain outside UK tax jurisdiction.

At the time of his death in late 2010, Ian Cameron left a fortune of £2.74m in his will, from which David Cameron received the sum of £300,000.

Cameron and other cabinet members have recently suggested that they would be willing to disclose their personal tax filings amid growing scrutiny following the budget, but this would only shed light on annual sources of income rather than accumulated wealth or inheritance.

how one picture can scare a nation

Does this man look like he's in control of his mind or his sphincter, let alone
the economy of one of the world's biggest countries?




Well, at his alma mater, Eton, there is a statue of Heracles/Hercules
holding one of the heads of the hydra. Herc kept cutting off heads
and they kept growing back.
It sounds like the banks. You just can't kill them. This world needs a Herc.
NOW!

stamped 'FAIL'

a couple of report cards just came in for the Ruling Classes, and the marks
are similar to Greece's Fitch rating. Caa with a 'K', for knockout. caak. sh*t

George Osbourne is lambasted for not rearranging the bank thing. The bonehead
writing in the Guardian (see below) actually thinks that Ozzie or anybody else would
do the right thing. I wonder how stunned he is, but he is correct.
The great thing is that the rest of the media is still selling the

"all is well" message
to keep the protests to a minimum
and to make sure that the poorest will lose the most
when it all comes crashing down.
They probably know the date and time.

Trashing #2 the Universities minister,

One boot to the head from that guy's university
(see below)

checkitout: 2 texts
The UK could be leading with a new economic approach, instead we follow
A consensus in favour of stimulus has disappeared – and Britain is leading the way in the wrong direction
o Will Hutton
o guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 June 2011 21.36 BST
Two years ago the world was agreed that the aftermath of the banking crisis required the most delicate handling. World leaders were alert to the example of the United States in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s after its financial crash. In both cases a too-early return to the principles of good housekeeping and premature public belt-tightening caused a terrible wobble in the recovery.

This time it would be different. Governments would spend and borrow to keep the recovery going, recognising their special responsibilities while both consumers and businesses were carrying enormous levels of private debt – and banks were crippled. They would spend to compensate.

Today that consensus has vanished. The varying stimulus packages in 2009, along with a worldwide bank bailout that cost some $14 trillion, worked almost too well. Everybody believes recovery is established and that they can focus on restoring their national balance sheets to order.

European governments, quailing before the markets' assault on Greece, Portugal and Ireland – with Spain and even Italy facing the tremors – are united in a belief that the defence of the euro requires budgetary stringency.
2
David Willetts's former tutor says: 'I have no confidence in him'

Universities minister faces votes of no confidence from Oxford and Cambridge dons calling for his removal from office
* Daniel Boffey, Policy editor
* guardian.co.uk, Saturday 4 June 2011 21.55 BST

Oxford and Cambridge dons attempting to force the resignation of the universities minister, David Willetts, have been given a boost by a declaration from the politician's former economics tutor that he had "no confidence in him".

The controlling bodies of the universities are due to stage a vote calling for the minister's removal from office amid growing unrest over the government's trebling of the limit on tuition fees and recent announcements on higher education policy.

Now, speaking to the Observer, Peter Oppenheimer, an emeritus professor at Christ Church, Oxford, and a tutor to the beleaguered minister in the mid-1970s, has admitted: "I have no confidence in him, absolutely. He was a highly intelligent and thoughtful person, very able – but no politician. He has got the kind of open-mindedness which enables him to see the value of a whole range of points of view, especially that of the person he last talked to."

Senior academics at Cambridge and Oxford are calling on Willetts, nicknamed "Two Brains" for his reputed intelligence, to reconsider the hike in undergraduate tuition fees, cuts to higher education and what they say are "incoherent" messages on university admissions. Almost 150 academics at Cambridge, including the renowned poet Jeremy Halvard Prynne, have signed a motion of no confidence in the minister. It will be sent to the university's council, which is expected to endorse it and the university will then need to tell the government that it has passed a vote of no confidence in Willetts by the end of this month.

this is the caring guy we need to help our children

@sarc Education Minister David Willetts, and in the painting, just Dave

a glowering technocrat, with a painting of his vainglorious boss.
Really approachable and down-to-earth bunch... for Oxford, anyway.

What is he really saying? Here's an American translation:

"One way or the other, you're kids are screwed."

From the interviews I've seen of Willetts, he does not really care to engage in debate. He shuts down any kind of real discussion of his policies, and notice how he's not even invited to the BBC anymore. That's democracy at work.

What he should be doing is smoothing the progress of students into university, especially into the courses that the UK needs, like engineering, visual arts (e.g. video game technology), sciences. You never know what advanced education will bring to the UK. As it stands, because kids are not well-educated and have few role-models for the above subjects, and ZERO encouragement, this has created a problem. It seems kids here need encouragement.
However, Oxbridge graduates don't really care, as long as they get to rule the roost in Westminster. They've never really worked in their lives before. So, there's your education ministry. Ministering to sycophants and the rich only.

Prime directive:
Arrangements for their buddies kids to work at Finnish banks,
like the one Clegg-er worked for.

Finnishing school! AHAAHAhahAhAhAHAhAh
xD

-Cosine67 ~~

corruption needs a puritan response

I'm working on a cycle of British history which arrives once every 500 years or so.
When the populace is so displeased with the sleaze and corruption of government,
that they get off their barstools and take things into their own hands.
The last time it happened was in the 17th century, with the English civil war.
Cromwell's puritans took over government.
They were a bit severe, though. They wanted to cancel Christmas.

The King they beheaded was Charles I.

Today, we're seeing the government allowing the bankers to run roughshod over the
whole economy and doing nothing while thousands lose their jobs and benefits.

Also, there's the issue of a weak, unpopular heir to the throne, Charles.
I watched "would I lie to you", a tv game show. I'll explain when I can get the URL.
the humour used means that Chuckles is not going to have a good time, once he takes
over from the Iron Queen.

Is it the name, Charles, which causes me to expect a repeat?

more later

maybe Dave isn't so useless after all

If you were a selfish leader,
how could you double-cross your coalition partners
most effectively?
Make them go back on their most important
promise to the populace.

And you can make them work for it.
They were singing one way
before the election,
and now they've got another tune.
Because you convinced them that Labour's mistake
is the reason why the economy has failed,
they'll take your medicine.

The BBC guy said, last night, 'I wonder why Cameron's
made Clegg work so hard, with no support?'
Do you, really?

-cosusbelly67

The carbon footprint of a pair of lightweights

Now that Mervin King’s Wiki-pinion is added to that of Obama, it is well-known that Cameron’s passable presentation of himself as a leader may be being aided by hired Communications types.
He and his oik henchman, Osbourne, are indeed the private-school lightweight sons of millionaires who have never worked a hard day in their lives. Therefore,

it is their £9000-tuition university policy,
and they’re clueless,
as are the ranks of their party and the Liberal Democrats,
if they can’t see what these plans are doing to UK society.
Ya, it’s that big an issue!
[I assure you that British politicians, on the whole, are
either protesting unfair policies,
or they’re stupid, lazy and corrupt.
So that means about 60 Labour, 30 Liberal members and a smattering of Tories
are on the good side, out of 700. Haircut, anyone? Financial, that is.]

This says a lot about their plans for universities. They see it only short-term-wise as a boost to private universities, and have just about said it that clearly. They want to boost fees so that 3-year degrees cost £27 000 (with interest). Cranfield U, a private shop, for example has fees of £8500. Pretty competitive, and Cranfield didn’t even have to get their marketing team’s feet wet. The dynamic dodoes did it for them. But, I think that Tweedles Dee and Dum should go back to the drawing board, because Cranfield’s degrees, all legal, approved and everyfink, are completed in two years, not three. So, the private uni is truly the better deal, and the quality is decent, I guess. But, you gotta pay up front. The ‘Good for the economy’ mantra reminds me of Gordon Brown and his take on the Iraq war; stepping over bodies to help their rich friends, as they all are.
If they wanted to make it less obvious that they were helping out their Oxbridge buddies to start up universities, they could have made the rise in fees 20%, to £3600. By raising them 200% (they’re not Business grads, I’m certain), to £9000 pounds, they’ve raised a poll-tax-size ire in the public, and split the society clearly into haves and have-nots. And that’s only one piece of legislation, and they want, or Nick Clegg wants, 5 more years of this tripe.
If Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences courses don’t cease altogether, there will be a flood of kids going into Political Sciences or Public Administration, just so that these youngsters can plan to someday stick their foot up those fluffy, lightweight arses in the government that is saddling them with debt, and then keeping them from qualifying for a home loan (which is hard enough already) unless they pay off the 27000 as soon as possible. That’s their goal, perhaps. Make ‘em scramble to pay it off.
Or perhaps the goal is to get students learning foreign languages, because the only universities they’ll be able to afford will be those on that Continent that they love and hate
so much.
-Cosusbelly67