This morning we learned that Sir David Nicholson has at last decided to step down from his key position as NHS chief executive. The great mystery is why he has taken so long to find his sword, and why he will hang around until March of next year. I always feel sympathy for anyone who loses their job, but in this case my tears will be few since Sir David will have the consolation of a pension pot worth almost £1.9m. There is also the inescapable truth that he has failed utterly.

Many of those who have campaigned for a new NHS head have focussed on Nicholson’s role in regard to the Stafford Hospital scandal. But to me that is the least of his failings. It was he that introduced the destructive idea of a £20bn efficiency saving, a ridiculous concept that allowed politicians to claim that NHS funding has been ‘ring-fenced’. The reality is that Trusts have been driven to cut staff numbers and already almost 10,000 nurses have been shown the door. One doesn’t have to be Einstein to work out that services inevitably suffer.

In my view Nicholson’s other major failure was his bland acceptance of the so-called reforms of Andrew Lansley. These have caused chaos and even our dear leader was eventually obliged to move Lansley on. Any leader worth his salt would have stood up to be counted rather than comply with plans that he must have realised were a recipe for disaster. And until the NHS is led by someone prepared to fight his or her corner the service will continue to be used as a football by politicians on the make.

This was very apparent on Newsnight last night when Jeremy Paxman chaired a discussion on the collapse of A & E services. The doctors argued that the situation is now unsafe, with a reduced number of clinicians being swamped with increasing patient numbers. The politician said that we have to find a way of joining up the various services. What on earth does this mean? The situation is easily analysed, we now have too few A & E doctors and nurses facing increasing patient volumes due, in part at least, to the inefficient privatisation of GP out-of-hours services.

The answer is equally obvious. GP out-of-hours services must be located alongside A & E units giving everyone needing help a well known location where they can be seen by the appropriate people. Where this is in place the result is a vast improvement in waiting times and the end to the new era of ‘who do we contact’ which is now perplexing patients and is leading to dangerus situations.

It will take a braver man than Nicholson to bring this about since privatised profit-making companies will be unable to accept the concept of diagnosis and treatment taking precedence over costs.

Meantime Jeremy Hunt is too busy playing politics to actually do anything. He is pointing a finger at the ‘new’ GP contract introduced by the Blair government.  It was ill-advised but are we really going to solve the crisis by constantly arguing about something that happened ten years ago? Clearly the Daily Mail intends to, for this morning it runs a story about GP’s  “Refusal to do their jobs”. Have the writers seen at first hand the pressure that GPs are now working under, a situation made much worse by the decision to impose on them the task of commissioning?

To add to the general feeling of unreality now being experienced by many in the NHS we now have Mike Farrar, who is merely the chief officer of the NHS Confederation – a sort of unadmired Union acting for NHS Trusts – being given headlines for his loopy idea of patients being obliged to email their symptoms to their doctors. The majority of patients are inevitably elderly and would find this impossible. It is also highly dangerous, diagnosis by remote control is not to be trusted.

One can bang on for ever but I won’t. Suffice to say that Nicholson’s exit is a moment of opportunity. We are in the last-chance saloon for a service that is critical for every family and we need an experienced clinician in charge, someone prepared to dismiss crazy ideas from politicians.

We also need a halt right now on so-called efficiency cuts and an end to privatisation. Ministers would be better, and more safely, employed tackling tax-avoidance! Upset Amazon or let patients die?

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY; ” Hospitals are at breaking point. The A & E care now being provided is frequently unsafe as a result of toxic overcrowding”…Letter to government of yesterday from senior doctors at 20 major A & E unit.

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Only Eric made any mention of politics. As a ‘swivel-eyed loon’ he is in a rebellious mood, a state of mind enhanced by the decision of our dear leader to enlist the help of the Labour Party to outvote his own ministers and MPs. And where was same-sex-marraige in the manifesto, he asked of no one in particular. No one responded, interest in the constant banging on about sexuality has reached zero on the eyebrow-raising scale.

I found myself ruminating on none of these things, some revealing statistics having caught my rheumy eyes. No one can be unaware of the unending propaganda about benefits fraud, and the inference that here lies the reason for our parlous financial state. Today we learn that it accounts for £1.2bn. Big number, and action is justified. But tax avoidance is now calculated at £25bn! No doubt then as to which should be the prime target.

But the truth is that life becomes a lot cheaper when you are rich. The average taxpayer or small business cannot afford an army of accountants to systematically exploit every loophole to divert their profits to Luxemburg or Ireland. Ah – you might say – but benefit fraud is illegal, and there is nothing law-breaking about tax avoidance. This is of course the whole point. The law is rigged in favour of the wealthy; the state is at the service of rich types who don’t fancy paying their taxes. Big accountancy firms like Deloitte get their teams seconded to the Treasury, help draw up tax laws then make fortunes out of advising multinational companies on how to get around the legislation they’ve helped to create.

This month the protest group UKUncut dragged HMRC to court over a sweetheart deal with Goldman Sachs. It was “not a glorious episode in the history of the Revenue”, the judge ruled. True, but it was a typical example of what happens when rich companies rule the roost.

It is noticeable that when confronted with tax-avoidance Google, Amazon and the rest invariably point to the employment they create and the buildings they construct. It is of course the reddest of red herrings. They do this to win business and to make handsome profits in the UK market. They prefer to think of themselves as charities, and regard paying any tax at all as an act of corporate generosity.

As economist Ha-Joon Chang has pointed out, their property rights are defended by the state, capping the downside risk for investors and stopping their ideas being ripped off . They depend on government-funded research and development. The internet itself was a public sector creation, invented at taxpayers’ expense.

The chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, is due to meet his ministerial pals this week and says that his tax-avoiding company “aspires to do the right thing”. Perhaps we should take his aspiration at face value. But if Mr Schmidt is anything like the rest of us he might need a little push when it comes to parting with cash, however valid the bill.

How about we legislate to crack down on all forms of tax-avoidance; like passing the General Anti-Tax Avoidance Bill, drawn up by tax expert Richard Murphy and introduced by Michael Meacher MP.

Until we take the step that would transform our economy it is hard to justify the shredding of support for low-paid and disabled people. And confining our action to them will never narrow the national deficit.

It is time for our big companies to be force-fed humble pie. Put Eric Pickles in charge, he knows a thing or two about pies!

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY; ” Tax avoiders expect to benefit from corporate welfare and the national infrastructure but pay nothing in, yet no one calls them scroungers”. ..Owen Jones in Independent 

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But our area is now the exception to the rule. Across the country privatisation is taking its toll. Today a report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) highlights the death of a child who died after its parents were kept waiting for four hours by Harmoni, Britain’s biggest provider of out-of-hours care in the UK. The report concludes that Harmoni did not respond quickly enough to urgent calls because it did not have enough doctors.

Documents obtained by the Independent newspaper reveal that Harmoni won the contract for north London against rival bidders LCWUCC, a non-profit GP organisation, by beating it on price, despite scoring worse on quality. Harmoni talks of recruiting doctors as a “challenge”, but in January 2011 Dr Fred Kavalier resigned as clinical lead because he feared that “the service had become unsafe” due to “cost-saving cuts in clinician’s shifts”.

Private companies, whose prime aim is profit, understandably cannot contemplate having doctors sitting around in an out-of-hours emergency centre. But that is the nature of any on-call emergency role. This is not Tesco, this is a life or death service where costs cannot be the first consideration.

And ministers should stop hiding behind the system problems of the new 111 service. Like its failed predecessor, NHS Direct, it is not manned by experienced medics and, even if it were, diagnosis by telephone is highly dangerous.

Sadly people are dying as a result of yet another botched initiative by politicians, in this case those of the Blair era. Almost every week brings further examples of incompetence even if they do not all involve such an obvious risk to life an limb. All of which has made the public less than positive about national government.

Yet this morning we learn that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) has decided that a huge increase in salaries for MPs is appropriate. According to which report you believe the amount proposed is between £10,000 and £20,000. And the Speaker is reported to have complained that Cameron, Clegg and Miliband haven’t been “terribly brave or clever” to resist pay increases since they are all “supported by private family wealth”.

He is probably right about that, but has he ever considered the principle of pay beng linked to efficiency and performance? If not he should perhaps read the full-page ads appearing today in the name of Nigel Farage and Ukip.

In his open letter Mr Farage suggest that the political class in this country is “completely out of touch with the thoughts of ordinary people”. The administration, he contends, is run by a “bunch of college kids, none of whom has ever had a proper job in their lives”.

It has the ring of truth doesn’t it?

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY; ” GPs need to have a closer personal relationship with their patients. I think we need to go back to GPs having responsibility for making sure that for the people on their list there is a good out-of-hours service available”…..Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary, on yesterday’s Andrew Marr Show 

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Surely not! The man gets around but Lancashire is a long way from Chipping Norton, and the staff are extremely polite. It would be hard to imagine them referring to anyone as ‘Swivel-eyed loons’ and that is the latest description of Conservative Party activists to eminate from our dear leader and his Old Etonian pals. David Cameron himself used the ‘Swivel-eyed’ bit to describe those of his party who question his appraoch to Europe, and this morning’s papers publish claims that one of his ‘close friends’ has added loon to embrace those who dare to wonder why same-sex marriage has become a top priority given that it didn’t so much as feature in the manifesto.

The Daily Telegraph, hardly an enemy of the Tories, is standing by its story of an interview with “a member of Mr Cameron’s circle”, but is refusing to name names. Others have suggested that the mystery spokesman was Lord Feldman, and have published pictures of him and our dear leader together at university. The man awarded a peerage by Cameron has denied the charge.

But clearly someone said it and the effect on party activists has been electric. Last night Robert Woollard, the chairman of Conservative Grassroots, said that many of the Prime Minister’s inner circle live in a “Westminster bubble” and too often treat the party’s activists with “contempt”. Membership of the party has plunged from around one million to one hundred and it does seem to be an odd time to launch yet another attack.

The oddest thing of all is that today’s opinion polls suggest that it is the membership, rather than the Cameroons, that reflect public opinion. On Europe a clear majority wish to exit the EU and demand a referendum now. The response to same-sex marriage is broadly the same, and this week it is likely that up to 200 Conservative MPs will vote aginst the bill. It will pass, but our dear leader is relying on Labour and Lib Dem votes to achieve this.

This morning David Burrowes, who is leading the opposition to what he sees as a redefinition of marriage, has rushed into print to rant about the “swivel-eyed loons” slur. It has served to make him and the vast majrity of Tory bankbenchers even more determined  to fight a Bill which they believe is beng “hustled through with undue haste and minimum scrutiny”.

We increasingly gain the impression that our dear leader is leaping from one hole to the next in his frantic pursuit of what he believes to be vote-winning policies. The problem is that they are not – most people list the economy as their number one concern – and that most of his wheezes deeply offend loyal Conservatives.

All this is happening at a time when Labour is failing to make headway in the polls. Nigel Farage may have been bruised in Scotland but he is likely to be smiling inwardly. Already up to twenty Tory MPs are said to be in favour of Nadine Dorries’s idea of a Ukip-Tory alliance.

David Cameron would be well advised to remember the fate of other prime ministers who have tried to lead the country in defiance of their own party!

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY;  ” It has often been suggested that Mr Cameron surrounds himself with privileged men who do not share the problems or values of the average voter. “Swivelgate” gives his critics amunition That the comments were not part of a planned speech but the product of casual conversation will encourage those critics to interpret them as the unfiltered expression of how some of No 10′s metropolitan circle really feel about their own party”…Sunday Telegraph editorial of today.

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But at least we are free to express our opinions, which is more than can be said of the new national hero, Nigel Farage. On a visit to Scotland he needed police protection when a mob surrounded him to scream abuse. One of those not arrested later appeared on Newsnight to claim that they were merely using their right to free speech. He seemed unable to grasp that this is supposed to work two ways.

As is so often the case it was left to Knacker’s army to restore a semblance of public order, and we codgers are the first to acknowledge that they do a difficult job. However we are becoming increasingly concerned at the growing evidence from Hillsborough, Savile, Murdoch, and a host of other cases that the forces of law and order are not as squeaky-clean as we would like to imagine. Collusion and bribery are not part of the job spec, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that all is not Dixon of Dock Green like. And last night’s Newsnight claims by the head of the Independent Police Commission of obstruction did little to dampen our suspicions.

This morning’s news of gagging orders strikes us as the final confirmation that all is not well in regard to police behaviour. It transpires that more than 300 officers have signed gagging orders at a cost to the taxpayer of up to £250,000 each. The government has rightly banned such orders in the NHS on the grounds that they prevent whistleblowers revealing what is in the public interest, but it seems that the police are free to use similar sinister practices.

Biggest user of gagging orders is the Metropolitian Police. It has signed 230 such agreements and the force’s 2011-12 accounts reveal that the biggest payout was to Martin Tiplady, the former head of human resources, who pocketed £259,462. Sir Paul Stephenson, the former commissioner received £178,838 in addition to his £98,000 salary, and John Yates, former anti-terrorism chief, received £86,000 on top of his £120,000 salary. Both resigned amid controversy over the Met’s links to the News of the World.

Elsewhere Lancashire Constabulary has signed 34 agreements with former employees in the past year alone, while Surrey police has signed 28 over the past three years. It is highly probable that the practice is widespread but to date establishing the actual extent is difficult.

The Police Federation claims that there is a fear factor for officers who want to “speak out”. That doesn’t quite add up since presumably no one has to sign a gagging agreement or to pocket the reward for doing so. And why are such agreements necessary?

Under the normal code of conduct it is illegal for an officer to reveal confidential details of investigations. We can therefore only assume that what is being hidden here is improper and unethical practices.

It is all very mysterious and potentially sinister. Just what is it that many of our police forces are desperately anxious to conceal?  

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY;  ” Your motto is ‘Don’t be evil’ but I think you do do evil in that you use smoke and mirrors to avoid paying tax”….Commons Public Accounts chairman Margaret Hodges to Matt Brittin of Google.

“Now Brittin’s boss Eric Schmidt will meet David Cameron. But there have been 23 meetings over the past two years and Rachel Whetstone, Google’s communicaton bigwig, is ” an old friend of Mr Cameron.”…..Liam O’Brien

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But two of our number find it hard to be bright even on mornings such as this. Both devote a great deal of their retirement to caring for relatives.  No one begrudges such a role, that is what families are all about. But the drastic cuts in support are turning what was a labour of love into a living nightmare and there is growing evidence that carers are now having to devote so much time to their missions of mercy that they are jeopardising their own health.

A new analysis of the 2011 census from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows a link between juggling with other demands on their time while caring for relations is damaging the health of millions of carers. The ONS says that there is a “uniform pattern of deteriorating health” the more unpaid care poeple work.

The ONS also reveals that almost 10,000 children aged five to seven in England and Wales provide care for their family members or guardians, almost double the figure in the 2001 census. At the same time the number of elderly people devoting their retirement to ill partners or their own ageing parents has surged by 35 % in a decade. Overall 5.8 million people  – 10 per cent of the population of England and Wales – are providing unpaid care to sick, disabled or elderly loved ones.

Helena Herklots, chief executive of the charity Carers UK, said yesterday; “Our ageing population has created a new generation of older people who are devoting their retirement to caring for their parents, relatives and partners – a challenge previous generations have not faced on this scale. Our care services are now struggling to provide support and the government must act, not just to preserve the dignity and independence of older peple who need support, but also to prevent their partners and children from being pushed to breaking point caring for them”.

Of the children now drawn into the role of carers Matthew Reed, of the Children’s Society, said that the recorded number of children providing care was likely to be the “tip of the iceberg”. He added that caring can cost children dearly; “They are missing out on their childhoods and school, gaining fewer qualifications and job opportunities and therefore are less likely to earn a decent living in the future”.

Without doubt the reduction of support provided to carers is becoming a national disgrace. Of course families have a responsibility here, but without the provision of support they are being overwhelmed. And as each new medical breakthrough occurs the volume of people living to the age of dependency increases.

Is there an answer to this mounting crisis? It can only be a recognition by government that a support network is not a luxury, it is an essential. That brings us immediately to the question of funding, which in turn takes us back once again to tax avoidance. Yesterday Margaret Hodge and her parliamentary committee were back on the attack in regard to Google and Amazon. Those two companies alone avoid paying tax by an amount big enough to fund a zillion carers.

And they are far from alone. We codgers are mystified by the case of Goldman Sachs who were let off a £20m tax bill to “avoid embarrassment to the chancellor”. That was the term used by Tax Revenue boss Dave Harnett in an email warning colleagues against pressurising the bank for fear it withdrew its support for banking reform!

And the chancellor isn’t Goldman’s only friend in Downing Street. The bank’s London boss, Michael Sherwood, has become great pals with Samantha Cameron since taking a stake in her swish stationery firm, Smythson.

Oh what a tangled web they weave. Meantime millions of carers are the sacrificial lambs.

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY ” The long-term reduction of Christianity, particularly among young people, is now unstoppable. In another 20 years there are going to be more active Muslims than there are churchgoers and the time has come that institutional Christianity is no longer justified”….Keith Porteous Wood, National Secular Society

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He certainly has problems in that regard if yesterday’s decision by 114 Tory MPs to criticise the Queen’s Speech is any indication. Inevitably that has sparked yet more debate about membership of the EU, but something more profound occurs to us.

The massed ranks of the Labour and Lib Dem members crushed the attempt to turn a promise of a referendum into a legal obligation, and the debate in the Commons focussed heavily on their belief that a referendum is “dangerous”. What they were saying is that the public is not to be trusted, not to be relied upon to consider the facts and make an objective judgement. This was not a debate about membership of the EU, it was about the extent to which the public should be given a say.

Few would deny that trust in politicians has sunk to an all time low. This is partly down to things like the expenses scandal, but the patronising assumption that only those in the Westminister bubble have the wit and wisdom required to understand anything has played its part. We dim-witted plebs are sick of being talked down to by people who do not strike us as budding Einsteins.

To an extent this resentment links up with the clear evidence that the politicians are incompetent. Today we hear yet more panic in their voices as they prattle on about ‘rescuing’ our A & E services, which are only in freefall as a result of ludicrous budgetry decisions taken by the coalition. Today we have more evidence that many of the disastrous cuts applied to essential services could be obviated by a tougher approach to tax avoidance.

Yet more published analysis of the activities of such as Amazon show that timid implementation by HMRC of tax rules is allowing our biggest retailers to avoid making the contribution to the treasury that their rocketing sales demand. Common sense says that when a company employs a huge staff in the UK to conduct trade with UK customers it is doing business in the UK and should pay corporate tax. If the HMRC thinks its hands are tied, it should expalin why.

But as in so many things the attitude that the public understands nothing, and should therefore be told nothing, prevails.

There will always be disagreement on policy but what is happening now is altogether more sinister. As illustrated by the new planning laws, which effectively remove the right of local people to have involvement in development decisions, politicians are rapidly silencing any remaining public voice.

Clearly we have reached the point where all trust between elected and electors has disappeared. It is, to say the very least, cause for concern!

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY; “I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. House of Commons and House of Lords appear to me to be Fools; they seem to be something Else besides Human Life.”….William Blake in 1810

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The question has haunted us from the very day when the Thatcher government began auctioning off Britain’s utilities. Our doubts have strengthened over the following years as more players have become privately owned assets often in the hands of foreign investors. Yesterday Severn Trent announced that it had rejected a £5bn bid on the grounds that it is too low. But the likelihood is that a Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund will up the ante and yet another of our water suppliers will be at the mercy of owners whose prime interest is not compatible with our own.

As the new chair of the toothless water regulator, Jonson Cox, pointed out in a speech in March, the big institutions that now own the vast majority of the water industry have been speedily loading up their companies with debt; “The overall proportion of equity has diminished from 42.5% in 2006 to 30% today with several companies at 80% gearing”. Such precarious financing is a cause for “serious concern”, he added.

And not just for the companies; the Treasury allows interest payments to be offset against tax, so public services suffer from such balance-sheet chicanery, and tax income plummets. Take Thames Water, which to minimise tax prefers debt to an increase in equity. It now carries a whopping £8bn in debt. For years now the company – which serves 14 million customers – has considered building a super-sewer. But the cost of £4bn is more than it can raise without jeopardising its credit rating.

On the one hand, Thames is paying out hundreds of millions in dividends to its private-equity owners and minising tax ; on the other it is pleading for public-sector largesse. Customers bills are going to rise by 25% to pay for the development. Heads the private-equiteers win; tails the British public loses.

More and more suppliers of an essential service are located offshore under opaque arrangements. Whatever the Westminster orthodoxy, under such a crocked system ownership matters. Anyone in doubt should consider this : Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund is worth some $340bn dollars. According to leading analyst John Hawksworth, had Britain saved, through state ownership, even half of the revenues from North Sea oil it would today have a sovereign wealth fund of around $690bn!

It simply doesn’t make sense. We all have to use water, it doesn’t have to be sold to us. Handing its processing and supply to speculators who face no competition is lunacy. To make things even more bizaare the owners build debt to minimise tax liabilities on the money we pay them. And to complete the fiasco every necessary investment is funded by increases in consumer’s bills. We have not only lost control of our own water, we have handed over resulting revenue to overseas owners.

It has to be the greatest rip-off of them all. And judging from the news that our petrol prices may have been rigged for a decade, that is saying something!

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY;  ”All credit to the European Commission for taking action if they have evidence of collusion – but why have we had to wait for Brussels to find out if British oil giants are ripping off British consumers?”    …Lord Oakeshott, former Lib Dem treasurer.

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For that they should think their lucky avian stars. So obscenely high have Britian’s biggest energy supplier’s profits become that even they have felt shamed into announcing a price freeze for the forseeable future. In October prices were increased yet again, this time by 6%. Then came a fiercely cold winter and, hey presto, up went the profits and top executive salaries. Whilst the feeze is welcome news for the long suffering 10 million customers, it does throw into considerable doubt all the claims about tight margins. This looks like a desperate attempt to save face because of the public backlash.

But for us codgers the big news of the day is the publication of the latest Guardian/ICM poll. There has been a further dramatic rise in support for Ukip, the greatest shift since the creation of the SDP back in 1981. Ukip’s share of the ‘vote’ has risen to 18% and all three main parties have suffered losses. At 11% the Lib Dems have all but vanished, and the Conservatives have dropped to 28%. Labour still holds the lead but has fallen to 34%, a poor performance given the general impression of a failing economic policy and a coalition coming apart at the seams.

The statistics point to an inexorable rise in the popularity of Ukip, but it is the analysis of the reasons for that that will have sent shivers down many a minister or shadow minister’s spine this morning. A surge of Euroscepticism would seem the obvious explanation and our dear leader is turning cartwheels in his attempt to placate the large slice of the Tory party that is demanding an early referendum. Even the ardent Euro fans of the Labour and Lib Dem camps are attempting to climb on the fence on the matter of rule by Brussels.

But whilst there is some evidence that the new Ukip followers would like a say on Europe there is no sense of urgency or priority. Everything points to  an escalating disgruntlement about a political class perceived as hopelessly out of touch. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ratings given to the various leaders.

Ed Miliband gets the thumbs down from 76% of would-be Ukip voters. David Cameron is almost as unpopular at 68%, and 55% believe that the Cameron/Clegg partnership is bad for Britain. Against this sort of competition it is not hard to shine and Nigel Farage does just that with a positive rating of 40%.

Perhaps most significant of all is the sense of disconnection between former members of the English Tory tribe and its current leadership. Many former Conservatives miss the demotic straight-talking of your Thatchers and Tebbits. They sense not just that Cameron and Osborne have no understanding of the daily grind but that they are made from the same stuff as Tony Blair, whom they hate, metropolitan and superficial.

And Labour’s travails are partly of a piece with those of the Tories, and come down to a sense that Labour politicians have become uncoupled from their voters. Despite Ed Miliband’s efforts, soap box and all, this does not look like a breach that is likely to be quickly healed.

It is the revelation that the Ukip surge is not just about Europe that should worry the political establishment. They can, and undoubtedly will, produce all sorts of promises to douse that fire, but dealing with what is clearly now a deeply rooted mistrust of established career politicians is a far more difficult proposition.

If this trend continues Ukip will rock the cosy political show to its very foundations. Gone for ever could be the cosy Buggins-turn of Tory and Labour, coalitions will become the new order. The present incumbants will comfort themselves that under our first-past-the -post system it is entirely possible for Ukip to take a third of the vote yet win no seats, but does anyone seriously believe that such a system could survive in a democracy?

It is all beginning to sound in line with Bob Dylan’s protest classic The Times they are a-Changin’: The line it is drawn/The curse it is cast/The slow one will later be fast…The order is/ Rapidly fadin’.

It certainly appears to be!

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY;   ”The Tory party which was once anti-Powell is now becoming close to Powellite”…Gordon Brown, in Scotland yesterday.

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Neither is the behaviour of our top 100 companies. Yesterday we covered the suicide of a lady unable to face the prospect of finding an extra £80 per month ‘bedroom tax’, today we highlight the other side of the battle to save our near bankrupt economy. Figures just released by the charity ActionAid reveal that only two of the companies listed on the FTSE 100 have no subsidiaries in tax havens. And companies such as Barclays and Tesco own hundreds!

Corporate use of offshore subsidiaries has been roundly condemned by tax campaigners as a tactic to legally reduce corporate tax bills, with Vodaphone, Starbucks and Amazon attracting widespread protests and criticism from MPs. Now we learn that they are far from alone. In total, FTSE 100 companies have 1,685 subsidiaries in UK Crown dependencies such as Jersey, or overseas territories such as the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Gibraltar.

For the first time we learn that the banks are the most prolific users of havens with Barclays, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, among the top ten. Barclays alone has more than 120 subsidiaries in the Caymans, together with dozens of others in other overseas jurisdictions with low tax rates or limited disclosure rules. Even more incredible is the fact that the banks bailed out, and now owned, by the taxpayers are avoiding paying tax.

Lord Oakeshott, the Lib Dem peer, who resigned as the party’s Treasury spokesman after criticising the government’s deal on banking regulation as “pitiful”, said the research showed new measures on tax havens are desperately needed. He said; “Tax transparency must start at home. ActonAid’s devastating research makes us ashamed to be British. Far too many of our top companies wash billions of profts through pipelines of British tax havens to vanish behind shiny brass plates in shady places. Cameron and Osborne can’t strut the world stage as fair tax crusaders until they end this tax abuse, starting with the banks we own!”

Most of the offshore jurisdictions used by the FTSE 100 have close ties with the UK. David Cameron has pledged to put tax avoidance at the heart of next month’s G8 summit, which Britain chairs this year. He may well be told to put his own house in order before preaching to others!

It really is astonishing isn’t it?  For the sake of a few pounds people are being driven to suicide, whilst millions are struggling to make their contribution to the Save Britain campaign by coping with fewer services. At the same time almost all of our large companies are going to great lengths to avoid paying their taxes. And amongst the front runners  in the taxdodger stakes are the institutions that caused the crisis in the first place – the banks.

Oakeshott is right, it is enough to make us ashamed to be British. It is also enough to make us very angry. It is surely time that our hopeless politicians began to tackle the most unfair situation ever to tear this country apart!

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THOUGHT FOR TODAY;  “A leader must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares. One must therefore be a fox to recognise snares, and a lion to frighten wolves”…..Machiavelli

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