The past two weeks have exposed British politics as squalid and dysfunctional.
Having probed for over a year without much success the right-wing press have at last exposed a chink in the armour of the Labour Party’s deputy leader and cabinet minister, Angela Rayner. She has been found to have failed to pay sufficient stamp duty, something in the region of £40 000, when she bought a flat in Hove, has admitted culpability and resigned.
The Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has joined the witch-hunt, having declared that Ms Rayner’s continuance in office would have been “untenable.” That’s a bit of a cheek, to put it mildly, given that the Conservatives, their friends and paymasters, have been ripping off the country for fourteen years (actually much longer if you go back to Mrs Thatcher) for sums involving millions if not billions of pounds.
There’s a strong case for claiming that the very continuance of the Conservative party is untenable and if they had any sense of decency they would dissolve themselves, though I supposed that would make things even easier for Nigel Farage (be careful what you wish for.)
Although a small fortune in the eyes of most families, M/s Rayner’s £40 000 is peanuts by comparison by comparison with the Tory record (and earlier abuses by MPs of all parties) However, it is important for politicians to set an example and live by the rules that they make, so the Advisor on Ministerial Standards, Sir Laurie Magnus, was justified in ruling that she had broken the ministerial code, and she herself has decided that she "has to go" (before she's pushed?)
The UK has a whole industry of accountants and the like who advise the wealthy on how to minimise their monetary duty to the state that protects their wealth. “Evading” tax is illegal and you might get your hand smacked if you try it, but tax “avoidance” (they call lit “tax efficiency” - it sounds nicer) is perfectly legal. So there’s a wide range of methods - putting money into trusts, (M/s Rayner had done that in order to ensure an income for her disabled son), holding it in tax havens abroad, calling your income “profit”, setting yourself up as a company, and probably many more schemes which reduce the subscription one pays to be a member of civilised society. Users of these services presumably sail as close to the wind as they think they can get away with. How many wouldn’t, given the chance?
Sir Laurie Magnus is a 3rd Baronet (perhaps his father knew Lloyd George) and was educated at Eton and )Oxford. I can’t help thinking that if M/s Rayner's case had been tried by a jury of her peers (or should that be peeresses?) they would have found her not guilty, especially if the jury had contained a couple of working-class teenage mothers and an Ed Davey-type who was also the parent of a disabled child.
Be that as it may, I’m pretty sure Angela Rayner will be a feature on our political scene lag after Mrs Badenoch is forgotten.
While our media and politicians have been fully absorbed in dramatising this relatively trivial affair the Israeli Defence Force continues to murder children, women and men in their homeland of Gaza, Putin's armed forces continue to bombard Ukraine and President Trump continues to pull at the threads of American democracy trash the World’s trading system and make war rather than peace.
In the UK for the time being the upshot of the chaos is that the Cabinet has been reshuffled. The Home Secretary has become the Foreign Secretary, the Justice Secretary the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary the Deputy Prime Minister and nothing much else. Each of these have been in their original jobs for just over a year – hardly long enough to get the hang of whatever they’re supposed to do. Now they “move on” probably to fail again in their new posts.
Has Sir Keir Starmer not read the books by informed commentators* which suggest that this “churn” is one of the main reasons why the British state is failing?
*Especially Ian Dunt: “How Westminster Works . . .and why it doesn’t”
and
Sam Freedman: “Failed State, Why Britain doesn’t Work and How we Fix it.”
So there’s a wide range of methods - putting money into trusts, (M/s Rayner had done that in order to ensure an income for her disabled son), holding it in tax havens abroad, calling your income “profit”, setting yourself up as a company,
ReplyDeleteWhile I am all in favour of tax avoidance and I do it myself (I have an ISA — do you not?) you’re way out of date. All those methods have been used in the past, but changes to tax law mean that trusts are actually pretty tax-inefficient these days, and it’s very hard to get income paid into a company or treated as profit since IR-35 came in (and stuffed up anyone trying to work as a contractor because these days lots of companies will just refuse to bring in contractors because they don’t want the IR-35 hassle).
the Israeli Defence Force continues to murder children, women and men in their homeland of Gaza
No, the IDF continues to kill enemy combatants in the defensive war they are waging to prevent Israeli citizens being kidnapped, murdered, raped and tortured by forces embedded in Gaza.
Putin's armed forces continue to bombard Ukraine
I’m not entirely sure what you think that one has to do with the British government.
President Trump continues to pull at the threads of American democracy trash the World’s trading system and make war rather than peace.
Again, Mr Trump can pretty much do what he wants and there’s nothing anyone else, including the British government, can do about it.
But I find it weird you claim he ‘make[s] war rather than peace’. Up to the strikes on Iran Mr Trump had been unique in American presidents this century in avoiding new military engagements, and still has done far less ‘making war’ than, say, Mr Obama.
Has Sir Keir Starmer
I think it’s clear (and has been for some time) that Mr Starmer is not up to his job.