Telegraph signatories earned £14m a year
Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph featured 35 business leaders signing a letter backing the cuts.
We’ve done some quick digging around and so far we have got their total annual salary up to £14.6 m a year, though there are still some gaps.
I don’t think they are going to be hurt very much by the cuts. Tax would perhaps be another thing.
Warren East – CEO, ARM Holdings
Salary/benefits/bonus/pension contributions: £824,971 in 2009; £761,154 in 2008. Also received £45,250 in 2010 as a non-executive director of De La Rue plc. (up from £39,375 in 2008). (Annual Report 2009)
Sir Christopher Gent – Non-Executive Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline
Total remuneration £680,000 in 2009 and £651,000 in 2008. (Annual Report 2009)
Neil Johnson – Chairman UMECO
From 19 October 2009, the date of his appointment to the Board, to 31 March 2010, Neil Johnson received fees totalling £125,000 per annum for his services to the Company.
Ian Livingstone – CEO, BT Group
Salary, benefits and bonus in 2010 from BT amounted to £2.105m. In 2009 it had been £1.174m.
Also receives an annual fee of £25,000 as a non-executive director of Celtic and an additional annual fee of £5,000 for chairing the audit committee.
Ruby McGregor-Smith – CEO, MITIE Group
Salary/fees, plus bonus (including deferred as shares), pension contribution and benefits: in 2010 was £1.157m; in 2009 was £898,000.
Also receives fees of £45,000 per annum in respect of her role as a Non-Executive Director of Michael Page International plc.
John Nelson – Chairman, Hammerson
In 2009 £225,000 from Hammerson (Annual Report 2009).
Stefano Pessina – Executive Chairman, Alliance Boots
Salary and benefits from Alliance Boots (excluding one off payments and pensions) in 2010 was £666,000; in 2009 was £701,000.
According to the 2010 Forbes billionaires the resident of Monte Carlo’s net worth is $1.4bn. (www.forbes.com)
Nick Prest – Chairman, AVEVA
Current salary and fees from AVEVA: £85,000 which was unchanged from 2009. (Annual Report 2010)
Nick Robertson – CEO, ASOS
Salary and ‘other’ (no pension/benefits) in 2010 amounted to £341,596. In 2009 it was £436,800
Sir Stuart Rose – Chairman, Marks and Spencer
Salary reduced from £1.16m to £875,000 from 31 July 2010.
£57,000 from Land Securities Group plc.
Michael Turner – Executive Chairman, Fuller, Smith and Turner
Total of salary, car allowance, benefits in kind and bonus: £487,000 in 2010 and £398,000 in 2009 .
Paul Walker – Chief Executive, Sage
2009: salary/bonus/benefits in kind £1.161m.
Including gains on share options, the total emoluments of the highest paid director, which was Paul Walker, were £1,354,000 (2008: £1,307,000).
In 2009 received £75,000 as non-executive director of Diageo plc
(Annual Report 2009)
Paul Walsh – Chief Executive, Diageo
Total remuneration in 2010 was £3.178m; in 2009 it was £1.706m
Received £76,000 from Unilever Plc. and £62,000 from FedEx Corporation as a non-executive director.
Robert Walters – CEO, Robert Walters
Total emoluments in 2009 was £630,000 and in 2008 was £820,000
(Annual Report 2009)
Bob Wigley – Chairman, Expansys, Stonehaven Associates. Yell Group
As non-executive director and chair of Yell his remuneration from July 24th 2009 to 31st March 2010 was £177,000 including benefits.
Simon Wolfson – Chief Executive, Next
Salary/benefit/bonus in 2010 was £1.737m and in 2009 was £831,000.
(Sources are the company’s annual reports from 2010 unless otherwise stated)
New poll brings great news for Ken4London
YouGov’s first polling for the 2012 London mayoral race shows Boris Johnson just narrowly ahead of Ken Livingstone, in contrast to a Comres poll a few weeks ago.
It shows Boris only narrowly ahead on first preferences, by 46% to 44%. That is within the margin of error.
On a forced choice between Johnson and Livingstone, Boris would beat Ken by 46% to 41% with 14% saying don’t know.
The poll also shows that while Boris Johnson has a positive job approval, his predecessor is also seen as having performed well. 58% think Johnson is doing well as Mayor, but 56% think Livingstone did well during his time as Mayor.
On specific measures, Boris has a positive rating on the London buses, crime and the Olympics, but a negative approval on his handling of the tube.
Ken Livingstone has higher ratings than Boris Johnson on both competence, and being in touch with the concerns of ordinary Londoners. His attack on the Coalition’s cuts must be working.
The London poll also found:
• 48% think tube workers should have the right to strike, 40% think they shouldn’t. A solid majority of respondents supported Boris Johnson’s suggestion of minimum turnouts for strike ballots to make strikes harder though (62% support to 22% opposed).
• 70% of respondents thought “Boris bikes” were a good idea, 64% thought it would encourage people to take up cycling and 46% that it will help reduce traffic. 28% of people think that users of “Boris bikes” are a danger to other road users, and 22% think there are too many cyclists on London’s roads already.
In 2008 YouGov was the only company to correctly predict Boris Johnson’s election as London mayor. They correctly projected Johnson to beat Livingstone by 53% to 47%.
Full data here
From a press release
The class politics of Lord Wolfson and his pals
Genuflection to the opinions of those we have come to call ‘business leaders’ has formed an unquestionable norm of economic orthodoxy under every British government since 1979.
Trade unions are repeatedly castigated as vested interests. By contrast, the agenda of the wealth creators is routinely presented as ideologically neutral.
OK, these guys dodge a bit tax here and there, and get to run a yacht or three. But what’s good for business is good for Britain. Now shut up, chill out, and be intensely relaxed as governments tailor each and every policy to the facilitation of people getting filthy rich.
The banker ‘exodus’ that failed to materialise
Earlier this year London Mayor Boris Johnson was full of dire warnings that a tax on bankers bonuses could see up to 9000 bankers leave London for other countries.
It was THE END of the City of London AS WE KNEW IT.
On Friday we reported that people within the city had called such fears ‘over-blown’
Over the weekend an article in the Financial Times confirmed that view.
It says that ten months on from the introduction of the bankers bonus tax, far fewer bankers and traders have left the UK than some tax advisers initially forecast.
What a surprise eh?
From practical concerns over infrastructure and regulation to quality of life issues, executives are proving “stickier” than many feared.
That isn’t to say some didn’t leave. The FT reports that around 1000 hedge fund managers did end up transferring to other countries.
But the vast majority stayed put.
Analysis of the impact of the 50 per cent tax rate on take-home pay reveals that the gap with other jurisdictions may not be wide enough to justify a move out of London, particularly for junior and middle-ranking bankers.
For example, a married banker with two children, one of them aged under six, with gross income of £250,000 and a mortgage of £750,000, would net £141,000 in the UK, after deductions for tax and social security, according to PwC’s calculations. In Geneva, that same employee would take home about £156,000, 11 per cent more.
The gap with other European financial centres and the US is significantly smaller. The same worker would net £150,000 in Paris, £149,000 in Frankfurt and £145,000 in New York.
That was not enough of a difference for many people to relocate their families, Mr Drury said.
Last year, Tullett became one of the first organisations to offer to help relocate teams looking to move out of the UK.
This week it emerged that it has yet to be taken up by a single team. Someone please call Boris and tell him.
[hat-tip The Third Estate]
Why higher tuition fees will hurt women more
contribution by Richard Morris
Much of the tuition fees debate has centred around the effect of the proposals on the ‘squeezed’ middle classes (at least it is when we Lib Dems are not all shouting ‘liar liar pants on fire’ at the leadership).
But we seem to be forgetting that various other groups will be penalised by the proposals as they stand – most obviously women.
While we struggle to address the earnings gap that exists in this country, (which the EHRC suggests is getting worse not better), the fact is that on average a woman in this country earns 16.4% less than her male equivalent.
continue reading… »
Clegg scores negative ratings for first time
The personal approval ratings of David Cameron and Nick Clegg have both taken a battering according to a Sunday Times / YouGov poll published yesterday.
David Cameron is now only at +11, while Nick Clegg is now at -6.
It is the first time the latter has registered a negative approval score since the general election, says Anthony Wells.
Ed Miliband has the highest approval rating of the three party leaders, but remains largely undefined in the eyes of the public (42% don’t knows). It suggests attempts by right-wing media to frame him negatively have failed so far.
The poll asked voters whether the government are running the economy well or badly. 42% thought they were doing well, 45% thought they are doing badly.
YouGov’s Anthony Wells says that is also the first negative score on the economy since the election.
YouGov also asked who people think will bear the biggest burden from the cuts. 48% said middle-income people compared to only 35% who said people on low incomes.
More on the poll here.
There was more depressing reading for Libdem activists over at LibdemVoice this weekend too.
A poll of party activists found 35% said they remained an enthusiastic party member, but were “angry” with the party leadership. A slightly larger proportion at 45% said simply they were enthusiastic party members.
But as many as 20% said they had “little or no enthusiasm” as party members or were seriously considering resigning from the party.
The full resuls of that poll are here.
This is what happened the last time cuts were so drastic
contribution by Adam White
George Osborne will finally be announcing details of the Coalition’s plans to drastically cut public spending this week, in what the news has interestingly (and correctly) labelled “the largest reduction to public expenditure to public spending since the ‘Geddes Axe’”.
Even Krishan Guru-Murthy at Channel 4 calls them, “the biggest cuts since the twenties”.
So let’s shed some light on that period of British economic history and see the consequences of those cuts.
continue reading… »
Banks to avoid £19bn tax bill despite bailout
Despite being rescued by taxpayers during the crash, UK banks will avoid paying £19 billion of tax on future profits by offsetting their losses during the financial crisis against their tax bills.
This is equivalent to more than £1,100 for every family in the UK, a TUC report says today.
The TUC report – The Corporate Tax Gap – says that as well as benefitting from an £850 billion bailout from taxpayers and the Bank of England during the recession, banks are able to offset their £19 billion of tax losses between 2007 and 2009 against paying tax on future profits.
The report, authored by tax specialist Richard Murphy, has calculated this double subsidy from the accounts of five UK high street banks – HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and HBOS (later Lloyds Banking Group) – and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) data.
The Corporate Tax Gap warns that banks could soon be paying a lower rate of tax than small businesses.
The corporate tax gap – the difference between the rate of tax set by the Government and the actual rate companies pay – has grown by an average of 0.5% a year over the last decade.
Between 2000 and 2009, the effective corporation tax rate fell from 28% to 21%, much deeper than the headline rate cut from 30% to 28%, says the report.
With the Government planning to reduce corporation tax to 24%, the UK’s largest companies, including banks, will soon be paying an effective tax rate of 17% – three per cent lower than small businesses, who are less able to exploit loopholes and therefore pay a headline rate of 20 per cent.
As a result, the UK will soon have a regressive corporation tax regime, says the report.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:
Banks caused the global financial crash and triggered the recession that produced the deficit. Yet not only did they take almost a trillion pounds from taxpayers to bail them out, they are now using the losses caused by their irresponsibility to cut their tax bills for years to come.Small firms have every right to be angry too. Not only are they finding it hard to get credit from the banks, soon they will be paying more tax on their profits than the banks and other big companies.
The TUC has calculated that the banks’ £19 billion double subsidy could pay for the following cuts between now and 2015:
- switching the indexation of benefits from RPI to CPI (£5.84 billion);
- housing benefit (£1.77 billion);
- tax credits (£3.22 billion);
- child benefit for higher rate taxpayers (£3 billion);
- estimated cuts to the science research budget (£3 billion); and,
- stimated cuts in HMRC resources to tackle tax avoidance (£2.1 billion).
From a press release
Why Angela Merkel is wrong about ‘multiculturalism’
In Germany, Angela Merkel has stated that multiculturalism has “failed, utterly failed”. That the idea of people from different backgrounds living happily side by side does not work.
Further, that it is for immigrants to integrate and, by implication, not for the state that they live in to either accommodate or provide succour and encouragement.
This comes against the backdrop of rising racial tensions in Germany, a country with 3 million Muslims and senior officials publishing books accusing Muslims of lowering German intelligence.
continue reading… »
Why I support IDS’ universal credit system
contribution by Richard Shrubb
Tory Minister for Work and Pensions Ian Duncan Smith announced his plans for a Universal Credit “which will restore fairness and simplicity to a complex, outdated and wildly expensive benefits system.”
As a recipient of disability benefits I am in full agreement with him – the system I went through was unfair and prevented you from going back to work. I was on the taxable equivalent of £18000 annually when in recovery from my disability, and even with a MA in the field could not hope to get an equal income from work.
Up to the point of wanting to take the next steps from recovery to rehabilitation, this was great. But being penalised for wanting work? I don’t love my country enough to get stuffed for going to work!
continue reading… »
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» Do older people really need more NHS healthcare?
» There are alternatives to the reckless ‘Plan A’
» On Beecroft: it is already quite easy to sack people
» Why Cameron’s claim of 600,000 jobs created is plainly wrong
» By using age to allocate NHS funding, Lansley rewards Tory voters
» The rise in domestic violence deaths is not an “isolated” problem
» Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right
» The US is now a model for the Eurozone to save itself
» The IMF plan to revive the economy doesn’t go far enough
» The Boris brand is weaker than his friends think
» Nine things you can do to halt Lansley’s destruction of our NHS
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