Will the govt really crack down on Tax Havens?

by René Lavanchy    
May 14, 2009 at 9:50 am

“We agree… to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens. We stand ready to deploy sanctions to protect our public finances and financial systems. The era of banking secrecy is over. We note that the OECD has today published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information.”

Those were the stirring words of the G20’s London Summit communiqué last month. In advance of the summit, Gordon Brown was keen to put himself at the vanguard of the heroic assault on those foreign resorts. “Old tax havens and the regulatory havens have no place in this new world,” he declared. So is his government going to start cracking down on tax havens?
continue reading… »

Watch: Clegg – I’ll punish MPs abusing expenses

by Newswire    
May 14, 2009 at 5:00 am

Miliband hosts far-right Israeli nationalist

by Chris Barnyard    
May 13, 2009 at 6:22 pm

Foreign secretary David Miliband will today meet the foreign minister from Israel Avigdor Lieberman. The Guardian describes him as “hardline”, but others have dubbed him as “fascist”.

So why is the foreign secretary giving time and space to someone who should be shunned by a liberal democracy?
continue reading… »

A different approach to the BNP?

by Rowenna Davis    
May 13, 2009 at 4:10 pm

This week the anti-BNP coalition Hope Not Hate released a video depicting Nick Griffin as Hitler leading the next Reich. A viral tool to help prevent the BNP obtaining a seat in the fast approaching European elections, the video made my mates laugh – but it made me feel uncomfortable.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of Hope not Hate. In fact, I’m currently sitting in front of several large boxes of their leaflets to deliver around Tower Hamlets and Islington. But I’m worried about the one-sided, overly negative approach we’re taking.
continue reading… »

Help beat the BNP!

by Sunny Hundal    
May 13, 2009 at 3:06 pm

I’ll be going next Saturday morning folks, join me!
—
Campaigning for HOPE in Barking & Dagenham
Saturday 16 May 10.30am
St Margarets Church, Broadway, Barking IG11 7LS (map)

We are looking for 166 people to deliver 50,000 leaflets across 10 wards in the borough on Saturday 16 May. Will you be one of them?
continue reading… »

Introducing Magna Carta 2.0 – our way forward

by Anthony Barnett    
May 13, 2009 at 9:30 am

You want to know where we go from here? We need a new Magna Carta. Sunny recently said he wanted “an insurgency to take our rights back from the state”. This now includes our right to honest government, though I think we always knew that. The emphasis needs to be on achieving this.

In February the Convention on Modern Liberty in London and across the UK showed a clear public concern with the threat of authoritarian power and a hunger to debate and confront it in an intelligent and democratic way. Guy Aitchison, Clare Coatman and Tom Ash are, from today, launching Magna Carta 2.0 with the aim of taking the spirit and intelligence of the day to the country.
continue reading… »

Watch: Blears to pay back tax!

by Newswire    
May 13, 2009 at 3:53 am

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears is to pay £13,332 to the Inland Revenue, the sum she would have paid in capital gains tax when she sold a flat in London had she not classified it as a “main residence”.

The move comes as MPs face growing scrutiny over their expense claims, following a series of embarrassing newspaper revelations.

She said “People feel incredibly angry about the whole system… and that’s why I’ve taken a personal decision to send a cheque”.

See the video interview at the BBC website

How to deselect your MP (2009 edition)

by Don Paskini    
May 12, 2009 at 10:53 pm

In one way, the dilemma about what to do about Labour MPs who have been abusing the expenses rules is very simple. In about a year’s time, most of them will lose their jobs and their career in politics will be over. The same is probably true for the Lib Dems, (though less so for the Tories). So there is an argument that the thing to concentrate on is reforming the rules for the future, rather than punishing wrong-doers.

Furthermore, it is hard to decide who is at fault and who is not. Should anyone who ‘flipped’ their second homes to enrich themselves be punished? Anyone who claimed for a bath plug or other items which they should jolly well have paid for themselves? Anyone who claimed anything except the real essentials? There aren’t any hard and fast rules here.

But the disadvantages of just leaving it to the voters outweigh these concerns. So here’s an idea about how I think the main political parties, and particularly the Labour Party which I think is most at fault, should give people the chance to have their say on the behaviour of their local representatives and start to rebuild after this scandal. continue reading… »

The New Benefit Thieves

by Sunny Hundal    
May 12, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Will Rhodes sent this in, which just needed publishing.

And something else: Conservatives are always crowing on about the importance of MPs having private sector experience so they’d understand the value of cutting costs and of efficiency. What a pile of bullshit that theory now turned out to be hey? They turned out to be just as big scammers of the system as Labour MPs.

Whatever happened to all the private sector experience regarding efficiency and value for money for the taxpayers? Not so evident now is it? (h/t sally)

Legalising drugs: lessons from Portugal

by Martin Robbins    
May 12, 2009 at 2:21 pm

Back in 2001, the Portuguese government defied stiff opposition from right-wing groups to decriminalise drug use, making drug laws far more liberal than even the Netherlands.

The right predicted Bad Things: Drug use would explode, tourists would travel from far and wide to get high on the streets of Lisbon, law and order would collapse, and people would start riding around in modified cars and fighting in Thunderdomes. The reality was quite different as two reports published in the last 18 months have demonstrated, the Libertarian Cato Institute have declared the policy an undisputed success on the basis of a report by Glenn Greenwald, and this has been a popular assessment among liberal people.

How correct is it though? Let’s look at the evidence.
continue reading… »

RECENT OPINION ARTICLES

How useful is Tesco’s u-turn on Workfare? 62 Comments Watch: Obama sings the blues at White House 14 Comments Why is YouGov’s Kellner endorsing the NHS bill? 23 Comments ‘Move Your Money’ planned against RBS 8 Comments Rupert Murdoch cheers Rick Santorum to win 24 Comments Labour: public pay won’t be frozen entirely 16 Comments Revealed: That ‘dossier’ on Progress 16 Comments Is Guardian as bad as Tesco on experience? 83 Comments Bigots launch coalition against gay marriage 203 Comments Revealed: other companies benefit from ‘work experience’ 85 Comments

LATEST COMMENTS » Jonny Mundey posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » mushroom77 posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » James KM Blake posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Steve Rooney posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Andy Hicks posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Ian posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » LibertarianLou posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Colette Browne posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Wayne Blackburn posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Samantha Young posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Tim Ireland posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » Nemesis Republic posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » sunny hundal posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show? » pjt posted on The real agenda behind Telegraph's abortion investigation » Paul McGlynn posted on Workfare - what does the evidence show?