Mossack Fonseca

[Inglorius]

I would like to know how Boris Johnson paid a quarter of a million quid in income tax last year not earnings but tax. I would also like to know why Jeremy Corbyn thinks it's acceptable to send a tax return in late.

[uttoxram75]

13 minutes ago, Inglorius said:

I would like to know how Boris Johnson paid a quarter of a million quid in income tax last year not earnings but tax. I would also like to know why Jeremy Corbyn thinks it's acceptable to send a tax return in late.

The fact that we now know these details is quite promising. I hope the media continues to hold our leaders to account and force a new openness and transparency on those in power, and probably more importantly, those who finance our political parties.

 

[Rev]

We have a PM who finds it acceptable to cut disabled persons benefits, make it harder for the deserving to claim such benefits in the 1st place, tax the spare bedrooms of the poorest in society, and is presiding over a decision to charge a household earning the national minimum wage full market rents for council/housing association housing in the near future.

In return, to show we're all in it together, while residing in 2 tax payer funded properties, lets out his non-mortgaged property to the tune of 90k a year between him and his wife and pockets the cash, paying all due taxes of course. 

Just because it's legal, doesn't make it moral, it shows he just doesn't get it.

By the way, I'd love to see Blairs tax returns since he left office, I'd guess it would make a Tory blush.

[1of4]

3 hours ago, jono said:

I wouldn't be happy with a one party state where there isn't a functioning 21st century health service for anyone other than the party elite and we were all told by our illustrious leader that it was time to eat the root of the grass. 

You need to expand your reference sources, improve your comprehension, develop some realistic analysis of how things work in the real world rather than using a purile, jealousy based didactic that hides behind a faux claim of social justice. 

oh yes and read what people write taking in To consideration, context, nuance and balance. 

I wouldn't be happy with a one party state either, just a fair and honest government I`m a socialist not a communist there is a difference. Sorry you don`t like my opinion but where did I state I was jealous of anyone and I know how the world works I`ve lived in it long enough. Oh yes I do read what people write but won't give puerile responses.

[eddie]

I see Dennis got 'named' by the Speaker for suggesting that our esteemed PM is 'dodgy'.

 

[jono]

7 hours ago, 1of4 said:

I wouldn't be happy with a one party state either, just a fair and honest government I`m a socialist not a communist there is a difference. Sorry you don`t like my opinion but where did I state I was jealous of anyone and I know how the world works I`ve lived in it long enough. Oh yes I do read what people write but won't give puerile responses.

I never was very good with spell autotex/predictive spelling. I tend to just type but well done you for spotting the spelling mistake. 

I think most people are socialists to one degree or another. In response to your original comment, nowhere did I say that I happy with greedy politicians I just said that they were a fact of life and that we had to do our best to find them out. And if you read my other posts I suggest that bad law is the biggest failing rather than individuals of one party or another, furthermore that there are as many socialist wide boys as there are Tory sharp suits. 

National health funding and pensions are the biggest trial for politicians of our time. As a nation we have a debt close to 80% of our GDP. 6 X as many pensioners per head of the population as we did 100 years ago. Trying to find a way to pay for what we want is virtually impossible. The top 10% of earners pay 50% of all tax and something like 25% of us get more out than we put in. We have a fair tax system. We live in a socialist nation. suggesting any mainstream party isn't committed to the national health service is pathetic and wrong. 

What Cameron has done is embarrassing for him but it was legal, pretty modest in scale, doesn't make him a paragon of virtue but it isn't the huge scam that the left would like it to be portrayed as. The good thing to come out of this is that we should see more openess and more politicos might begin to mind their manners in front of the electorate. 

[Wolfie]

I'm no Cameron/Osborne fan but all the hand-wringing now is just looking more like wealth (class) envy. It's not a crime to be rich.

If any of us had enough money and had an accountant who said that we just have to tick a different box on a form and legally pay a lot less tax - we would all do the same.

[Stive Pesley]

42 minutes ago, jono said:

We live in a socialist nation. suggesting any mainstream party isn't committed to the national health service is pathetic and wrong. 

WOAH hang on - are you serious? The current governement is dismantling the NHS and handing it to the private sector as quickly as it thinks it can get away with. What makes it worse is that they are being so underhanded about it. All the false promises that Cameron made in the run up to the election about protecting the NHS really cut deep. At least if they were honest and open about it and said - we want to hand as many NHS services as possible over to private enterprise, then the electorate could have judged them on that. I know there are plenty of Tory voters who would support that move anyway, but equally plenty that wouldn't. By lying and being so underhanded about it, too many people are fooled into thinking it isn't happening. Are you one of them?

 

[Animal is a Ram]

The one thing I can say for certain is that the Tories are committed to the NHS - pulling its plug.

Day after day more and more contracts are put out to tender, the NHS is being drained millions upon millions each time.

[Tombo]

2 hours ago, Wolfie said:

I'm no Cameron/Osborne fan but all the hand-wringing now is just looking more like wealth (class) envy. It's not a crime to be rich.

If any of us had enough money and had an accountant who said that we just have to tick a different box on a form and legally pay a lot less tax - we would all do the same.

I wouldn't 

[Stive Pesley]

My wife works in the NHS. She moved around roles quite a few times in the first ten years of being there and advanced her career.

Now when she looks for jobs, there is virtually nothing in the NHS - all the roles that come up are working for private healthcare companies doing her role, because the services are being tendered out left right and centre.

So essentially she has no future career in the NHS. They are giving the work to private companies who don't even have the staff to deliver. They have to poach existing NHS staff, and it will a steady drain until the NHS ceases to exist

 

NB. An immediate red card for any Tory apologist who pipes up with "the Labour party started all this under Blair and Brown". I know that they did and they must take some of the blame for laying the foundations that made it possible - but what the Tories are currently doing is unforgiveable

[Animal is a Ram]

1 minute ago, StivePesley said:

My wife works in the NHS. She moved around roles quite a few times in the first ten years of being there and advanced her career.

Now when she looks for jobs, there is virtually nothing in the NHS - all the roles that come up are working for private healthcare companies doing her role, because the services are being tendered out left right and centre.

 

NB. An immediate red card for any Tory apologist who pipes up with "the Labour party started all this under Blair and Brown". I know that they did and they must take some of the blame for laying the foundations that made it possible - but what the Tories are currently doing is unforgiveable

I hate the 'its all the previous gov'ts fault' line. They've been out of office for 5 years - its your fault for not changing it!

[LesterRam]

I like when they say "don't worry the NHS funds are ring fenced" so the population explosion,health tourism and living longerhasn't risen in all that time ?

[jono]

12 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

My wife works in the NHS. She moved around roles quite a few times in the first ten years of being there and advanced her career.

Now when she looks for jobs, there is virtually nothing in the NHS - all the roles that come up are working for private healthcare companies doing her role, because the services are being tendered out left right and centre.

So essentially she has no future career in the NHS. They are giving the work to private companies who don't even have the staff to deliver. They have to poach existing NHS staff, and it will a steady drain until the NHS ceases to exist

 

NB. An immediate red card for any Tory apologist who pipes up with "the Labour party started all this under Blair and Brown". I know that they did and they must take some of the blame for laying the foundations that made it possible - but what the Tories are currently doing is unforgiveable

Surely a national health service is a means to deliver health care to the general population free.

if a government pays a private contractor to do that then you can't really say they are draining the national health service. They are trying to reduce the cost. As it happens I agree on the point that some of these private companies cut corners and need to be brought to book by proper oversight and contractual management.

what You Really mean is that the government is trying to cut its payroll while maintaining a level of service and you don't think it's working. .. Ok, I'd join you in fighting to get private companies to do a proper job but the principal of trying to be efficient isn't wrong. Under Blair and Brown we saw a huge shift in public employment. In times past there was a trade off .. Secure public sector job with decent pension but somewhat less in the pay stakes. Versus the private sector with higher wages but a less secure, a riskier environment and patchy pension provision.  What we have seen over the last 20 years is public sector pay outstrip private pay which in turn massively increases the burden on the public purse through actual wages and future pension guarantees. A large public sector with high wages and gold plated pensions is expensive. Like for like / contribution for contribution a pensioned state worker gets a benefit that is somewhere between 2 and 3 times the contributions they have made will actually support. 

You can't keep spending that you don't have no matter how noble the cause otherwise you end up like Greece and we all end up with nothing. 

[Ramarena]

32 minutes ago, StivePesley said:

My wife works in the NHS. She moved around roles quite a few times in the first ten years of being there and advanced her career.

Now when she looks for jobs, there is virtually nothing in the NHS - all the roles that come up are working for private healthcare companies doing her role, because the services are being tendered out left right and centre.

So essentially she has no future career in the NHS. They are giving the work to private companies who don't even have the staff to deliver. They have to poach existing NHS staff, and it will a steady drain until the NHS ceases to exist

 

NB. An immediate red card for any Tory apologist who pipes up with "the Labour party started all this under Blair and Brown". I know that they did and they must take some of the blame for laying the foundations that made it possible - but what the Tories are currently doing is unforgiveable

Indeed the HSC Act 2012 has a lot to answer for, this parliamentary act has even dissolved the responsibility for providing a health service to the British public from the Secretary of State for Health.

[Zag zig]

On 9 April 2016 at 11:12, Mafiabob said:

Funny that there's been complete silence from Nigel Farage et al over this.... 

Farage says where does it stop, all M.P's, Justices, Army generals, you get his point, he thinks tax affairs so long as legal should be kept private is his stance.

[jono]

Perhaps we should have a "General Ideology" so we can all voice our potted theories that will save the nation and turn us in to a Just, wealthy, green, bustling industrial powerhouse that is the envy of the world. But then again the arguments over deep lying midfielders might be a touch more harmonious 

[GboroRam]

12 hours ago, uttoxram75 said:

The fact that we now know these details is quite promising. I hope the media continues to hold our leaders to account and force a new openness and transparency on those in power, and probably more importantly, those who finance our political parties.

 

I see today's papers have plenty of rich owners fighting to defend our rights to inherit millions of pounds. Bless em, they're always on the side of the little guy.

[toddy]

I read somewhere that when Harry was at Spurs he tried to sign Mossaca Fonseca.....

[Stive Pesley]

1 hour ago, jono said:

Surely a national health service is a means to deliver health care to the general population free.

if a government pays a private contractor to do that then you can't really say they are draining the national health service. They are trying to reduce the cost. As it happens I agree on the point that some of these private companies cut corners and need to be brought to book by proper oversight and contractual management.

what You Really mean is that the government is trying to cut its payroll while maintaining a level of service and you don't think it's working. .. Ok, I'd join you in fighting to get private companies to do a proper job but the principal of trying to be efficient isn't wrong.

Hmm  - I see where you are coming from, and you quite rightly point out that private companies cut corners (or as they would have it "maximising profits")

In terms of providing health care that is simply unacceptable. The NHS should not be about someone making a profit.