First rule of protests – have fun at them
A video from the TopShop occupation on Saturday…
.
And another recent video of protesters having a party inside a Barclays bank, over tax avoidance.
Oxford Barclays Occupation from Pete Speller
Will Conservatives u-turn on NHS reforms too?
It was back to the drawing board for the Department of Health this week; as party policy extraordinaire Oliver Letwin was brought in to scrutinise Andrew Lansley’s NHS reforms.
Given that Letwin once declared he would ‘give his right arm‘ to send his children to private school, it seems unlikely he’ll take much issue with the looming prospect of privatisation: his concern is more to do with Lansley’s apparent inability to explain how his reforms will be implemented.
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Mail attacks Cadburys for tax avoidance too
Is Middle England also waking up to the evils of tax avoidance?
Today the Mail on Sunday attacks Cadburys and its own Kraft for avoiding £60 million in UK tax.
The plan has been hatched by food giant Kraft, which took over the iconic British chocolate manufacturer earlier this year after a bitter £11 billion bid battle. It will see ownership of much-loved Cadbury brands including Dairy Milk, Crunchie and Twirl handed to a holding company in Zurich, where Kraft already has a major base.
…
Cadbury’s average annual tax contribution in Britain during the past five years has been £125 million a year.
But if Kraft moves control to its European headquarters in Zurich, the tax bill could be cut in half. Cadbury would still have to pay some corporation tax in Britain because the bulk of its operations are here.
…
But Unite, the union representing Cadbury workers, said: ‘It is disgusting that companies that make billions of pounds of profits from sales in Britain are able to avoid paying corporation tax in this way.
Kraft is not the only company that has been able to take advantage of our taxation system. ‘Unite will continue to argue for changes in the law to prevent these global tax dodgers.’
Rather bizarrely, it then echoes the chant of yesterday’s protesters against tax avoidance by stating: “IF YOU WON’T PAY OUR TAXES, WE WON’T EAT YOUR CHEESE, KRAFT!”
Wow.
[hat-tip @arusbridger]
Britons don’t normally join protests, but something has changed
A couple of weeks ago, I went into a Vodafone store. I had an awkward 3 minute conversation with some I vaguely recognised about which phones we liked best. Neither of us really knew the differences between them.
Then, it was 2pm. We pulled signs from under our coats, and sat down. A few other people in the store did the same, and about 20 more from outside, accompanied by a video camera, marched in to join us. Customers were ushered out, and the store was shut
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Watch: Police use excessive force on women at tax protest
This video was shot at the protests yesterday against tax avoidance.
It’s not clear if it was in London or elsewhere in the country.
It comes less than a week after we revealed an unprovoked policeman punching students last week.
The UKuncut protests received widespread coverage yesterday.
Channel 4 News, Observer, Daily Mail (with most top-rated comments very positive), the Independent, BBC News, The Telegraph, Manchester Evening News. Pictures from the protest here.
Channel 4 News report
Another video from the protest is here.
Why it’s wrong to casually dismiss the allegations against Julian Assange
I’m happy to be among the first to admit on this site that I have no idea whether Julian Assange is or is not guilty of committing a sex crime during his recent visit to Sweden.
In fact I’ll go one further, and state for the record that I don’t know enough about Swedish law, and in particular Swedish sex crimes law, to even begin to speculate on the rights and wrongs, he said she saids, in this case.
No, my issue with John Band’s piece on this site the other day is not that I think Assange is a man and all men are rapists therefore Julian Assange must a rapist, or whatever other radical feminist straw-woman-thinking readers here might want to accuse me of.
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Live coverage: protests against tax avoidance
Direct action is today taking place across the country to highlight tax avoidance, organised by the activists at UKuncut.
Follow the live updates on Twitter from here. I am also taking part.
It all kicks off a few minutes after 11am.
Revealed: longer video of policeman punching students
Last week we posted a very short video of a policeman repeatedly punching a student protester.
A longer and clearer version of the video has now emerged.
It shows that many students were trying to escape the kettle that the police had put them in. That prompts the police to forcefully move in, push back protesters, and lash out at them.
Watch the video below – it does not show students creating trouble.
There is now a Facebook campaign to take officer U1202 to court over the incident.
WikiLeaks reveals how far the US has fallen in its principles
contribution by George Potter
Here’s an extract from the BBC article on the latest wikileaks revelations:
In 2004, a German citizen was snatched in Macedonia and allegedly taken to a secret prison by the CIA. Agents had apparently mistaken him for an al-Qaeda suspect. A 2007 cable from the US embassy in Berlin details the efforts the US made to persuade Germany not to issue international arrest warrants for the CIA agents accused of involvement.
In an account of a high-level meeting between US and German officials, the cables states that US diplomats “pointed out that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the US”.
This is the kind of thing that makes me very angry.
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The case for dropping ‘ConDem’ in political sloganeering
I’ve been particularly excised recently by the constant use of the phrase ‘ConDem’ to describe the coalition government. It’s on leaflets, placards, blog posts and even painted on faces. My problem is that it reeks of dogma.
The moment I hear someone use the phrase I know with absolute certainty that this is not a ‘normal’ person but a political activist.
I’ve never heard any member of my family use the phrase, any of my non-activist friends nor come across it in everyday conversation, even when discussing the government.
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