Over five years, the UK faces a loss of nearly £300bn in unpaid tax
Do you know how much tax is unpaid in the UK? The graph below shows the HMRC estimates of Tax Unpaid for the most recent data available which happens to be 2008-09.
In total there is £42billion regarded as being unpaid just in one year.
This takes the midway point between the highest and lowest estimates.
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Eric Pickles’ latest wheeze: ensuring poorer areas get left behind
Communities Minister Eric Pickles has revealed that councils will be able to keep the rates they raise from local businesses, a change from the current system which sees councils collect rates on behalf of central government, which then redistributes it to councils according to population size.
But critics have pointed out that poorer areas will benefit the least, since they’re the ones having difficulties in attracting local business.
Pickles has promised central government will pay a fee to councils as a safety net, in case business rates fall – but this will not suffice to cover costs in area improvements or bids to attract businesses.
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Piegate goes global and gets animated
Update: Piegate now animated!
Have you watched Piegate enough times yet? I bet you haven’t.
Rather than having to keep rewinding videos, here is a gif on loop that allows you to even count how many MPs had their mouths open during the incident (including Tom Watson).
(the image is 3mb though, so may take some time to download on slow connections)
Meanwhile, Google News is recording nearly 10,000 articles mentioning Jonnie Marbles!
His Twitter account went from just over a 1000 followers yesterday to over 15,000.
He tweeted last night around 3am:
So, no chance of a job at Sky, then?
At least he got name-checked on Mashable, Business Insider and TMZ!
I’m assuming he isn’t in prison then, which is good.
But debate on his actions raged across the web. Tim Hardy wrote in praise of Jonnie Marbles:
Those rushing to condemn Jonnie Marbles perhaps have more faith in the willingness of the powerful to regulate themselves than I do.
What Jonnie did was crude and disrespectful and childish and silly. It mocked that veneer of pomp and decency behind which crimes are hidden daily – which is exactly why it was needed.
Hmmmm.
Jim Gilliam replied in the comments:
“The role of the clown is to show the ridiculousness of power. This man to whom politicians have frantically paid court for decades has been shown as a fool.”
That’s not even remotely what happened. This stunt didn’t show the ridiculousness of power, and it certainly didn’t show Murdoch as a fool. Why anyone would want to show Murdoch to be a fool is completely beyond me as practically the entire planet already thinks he is evil.
“It mocked that veneer of pomp and decency behind which crimes are hidden daily – which is exactly why it was needed.”
Uh no, that’s not at all what it did.
All this did was make people feel a twinge of empathy for him, and it completely changed the tone of the rest of the questioning and overwhelmed the news coverage that followed. This stunt was a total fiasco, and this comes from someone who made a documentary 7 years ago called Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.
I agree with Jim. To show the ridiculousness of Murdoch’s power would have required something more ingenious and clever. Something that awes and exposes Murdoch. This was just a lazy pie-in-the-face. Are activists just getting too goddamn lazy?
Also turns out Jonnie was a member of the Labour party, which have now suspended him.
The full extent of US drone attacks in Pakistan revealed
contribution by Jamie Thunder
On June 29 this year John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counter-terrorism advisor, said in a speech at John Hopkins University that there ‘hasn’t been a single collateral death’ in the past year from the USA’s use of unmanned drones in Pakistan.
This echoed earlier assurances from unnamed US and Pakistani officials, who claimed some militants had been allowed to escape rather than risk civilians being killed.
But research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism published yesterday shows that claims no civilians have been killed are wrong.
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Watch: Jon Stewart on the Murdoch hearings
This segment is hilarious, with the added bonus of Daily Show’s Jon Stewart also skewering Fox News for its pathetic coverage of #hackgate.
Plus, piegate also gets a mention!
Even MigrationWatch think Maurice Glasman is over the top
Maurice Glasman recently called for a moratorium on all migration to the UK, as part of his Blue Labour project. Sir Andrew of Migration Watch UK called this “over the top.”
Yeah, they of “as seen in the Mail and Express” fame, oft also seen spurting bile against migrants. They think he is being “over the top.
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Two very important Coulson and Cameron revelations come out
Today, first an email exchange between John Yates and the PM’s Chief of Staff Ed Llewellyn, which was referred to by John Yates in his Select Committee appearance this afternoon, was released.
Second, and more importantly, it was also admitted by the Conservatives that Neil Wallis was advising David Cameron while he employed Andy Coulson.
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The Murdoch hearings – LOLcat edition
Today Select Committee hearings will have several people in the dock, including the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks (full list at the end).
So how could we cover the hearings differently to national media organisations?
Yes – its LOLCATS time!
(LOLcats are simply pictures of Cats with captions, usually in pidgin English. CREATE YOUR OWN FROM HERE)
Send us links to your own creations below or by twitter and I’ll update the page throughout the day.
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by @HelenLewis
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by @Fainche_1
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by @chuzzlit
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by @null_loop
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by Sebastian Tombs
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by Michael
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by Hengist
Order of hearings today
12.45pm: Dick Fedorcio, director of public affairs at the Met, gives evidence to the home affairs committee.
1.15pm: John Yates, who resigned yesterday as assistant commissioner at the Met, gives evidence to the home affairs committee.
2.30pm: Rupert Murdoch and his son James give evidence to the culture committee.
3.30pm: Rebekah Brooks gives evidence to the culture committee.
5.30pm: Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, gives evidence to the home affairs committee.
6pm: Keir Starmer, the current director of public prosecutions, gives evidence to the home affairs committee.
6.20pm: Mark Lewis, the solicitor representing the Dowler family, gives evidence to the home affairs committee.
Now is not the time for Police and Crime Commissioners
Plans are afoot for a move in this country to elected police and crime commissioners. The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill 2010-11 is currently going through the House of Lords and will see it’s third reading on Tuesday (today).
They’ve been pushed forward by the Conservatives, the only party to suggest such a plan in their manifesto.
The plans put forward are to “shift power directly into the hands of the public as they elect police and crime commissioners to lead the fight against crime and disorder in their areas.”
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Shouldn’t the police also investigate the Daily Mail over #hackgate?
contribution by Andy May
Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is falling apart at the seams, but we are at grave risk of missing the big picture here.
It is excellent news that the illegal activities at the News of the World and subsequent cover-up are finally being properly investigated but it is also abundantly clear they did not happen in isolation. Any journalist who worked in those years will tell you that other powerful press barons were up to their neck in it.
So who are the other culprits when it comes to illegal activity – could the Daily Mail be next?
continue reading… »
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