Britain has placed tax avoidance at the centre of the global agenda as it prepares to host the G8 summit in June. But despite the headlines generated by high profile cases such as Google, Amazon and Starbucks, tax avoidance is not just an issue for the UK and the other wealthy nations of the G8. [...]
The SWP – one of the most successful organising forces on the British left over the last few decades – is close to death, its good work sacrificed on the altar of the cult a flawed model of democratic centralism created. I will spend no time mourning for there is no time to mourn. The [...]
When David Cameron blindsided Ed Miliband with an in-out referendum on the EU last month, he hoped to deal a devastating blow to the opposition by painting the Conservatives as the party of democracy with its finger on the pulse of public opinion against an out of touch Labour afraid to give people a choice. [...]
At 11.39pm, April 14 1912, a man called Robert Hitchins made the mistake of turning right instead of left. The RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, taking with it a captain who had blithely ignored all warnings of danger and plowed on full steam ahead with the arrogance of an Empire which was soon [...]
The government’s decision to extend VAT to hot pasties has enabled chain store Greggs to represent itself as champion of the working poor. ‘At a time when ordinary, hard-working people are under enormous pressure, they need help in making their money go as far as possible”, the company’s compassionate chief executive Keith McMeikan remarked. Unfortunately, [...]
On the Monday just passed which saw the heaviest rioting, I was getting something to eat from my local Chinese takeaway in Ealing Broadway when 40 masked and armed youths ran passed me towards the shopping centre. It was 8pm and I was relatively surprised to see the riots spread to the now baptised “leafy [...]
A version of this article was first published in International Tax Review Bongo players, Robin Hood, men dressed as drag dinner ladies and Mrs Doyle from Father Ted proclaiming the only tea she does not like is poverty greeted activists as they filed into Westminster Central Hall to lobby their MPs. But behind the fun [...]
“There is nothing necessarily dignified about manual labour at all, and most of it is absolutely degrading…To sweep a slushy crossing for eight hours on a day when the east wind is blowing is a disgusting occupation. To sweep it with mental, moral, or physical dignity seems to me to be impossible. To sweep it [...]
Mathew Bell’s interview with Lord Tebbit, in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday, predictably touched upon immigration. “When he steps off the train into London” the interview asks, “doesn’t he see an exciting and creative powerhouse, fuelled in part by the injection of foreign blood and money?” No, he says, he worries that Londoners are being pushed [...]
I swore I’d never write about tax in my private life, but given tax avoidance kills 1,000 children in the developing world every day since these countries lose more through multinational corporations shifting taxable profits abroad than they receive in aid, I feel the need to post this very important press release I received from Christian Aid today. Tuesday 8 [...]
