OK, I appreciate that this isnt topic of the week, but I’ve left it a while to let the dust settle deliberately. I wanted to see how long the outrage would last, and it appears not long, mainly thanks to Barclays Bank‘s rate fixing, mass resignations and general usurpation of top spot on the public enemy hitlist!
I didnt like then and still dont like Cameron’s attempt to personalise the issue with Jimmy Carr and not his hip Take That pals! Regardless of the morality of who did what and paid how much into which offshore fund to reduce their you know what tax rate by I don’t know how much, this episode smacks of hypocrisy from all sides.
Jimmy “Offshore” Carr makes a joke about Barclays, whilst allegedly behaving morally dubious himself. Barclays Bank admit to having manipulated LIBOR, and “missold” insurance fixing products to SME’s crippling and bankrupting a lot of them, both presumably for no reason other than profits. G4S’s Olympic security budget goes from £7.3million to £60million and still they 3,500 extra troops and some a- level students to plug the already gargantuan gaps in their “ring of steel” around the Olympic venues and paying no more than £9.50 per hour to catch would be terrorists.
Cameron is increasingly coming across as a stuffy, posh chap, slightly out of his depth and prone to a number of errors of judgement. My advice to Cameron is eat comfort food – maybe a pasty – you know the one from the shop in Leeds that had closed down years before he claimed he ate there!
The fact is that Jimmy Carr did nothing illegal, and he’s been made to look like a hipocrite. Though if we’re honest, we’re all hipocrites in one way or another. Isnt relying other people’s inner conscience and sense of general morality to pay their “full” rate of tax like leaving your wallet on a park bench for safekeeping. You wouldnt do it. Politicians have the the mandate to do something about it but then they’re also the ones who have done nothing about Goldman Sachs, Vodafone, Amazon and Lycamobile.
And what about the senior civil cervants and heads of Quango’s being paid as limited companies, like Ken Livingstone, and thereby paying less tax. Isnt that as scandalous?
theindispensableaccountant 