Vodaphone

The Vodaphone shop in Oxford Street, London,  was closed down this week when over a hundred demonstrators turned up on the doorstep. They were unhappy that Vodaphone has not been paying taxes in the UK. What on earth had been going on?

Johann Hari, writing in the Independent has the answer, "Vodafone has been refusing to pay billions of pounds of taxes to the British people that are outstanding. The company – which has doubled its profits during this recession – engaged in all kinds of accounting twists and turns, but it was eventually ruled this refusal breached anti-tax avoidance rules. They looked set to pay a sum Private Eye calculates to be more than £6bn."

"Then, suddenly, the exchequer – run by George Osborne – cancelled almost all of the outstanding tax bill, in a move a senior figure in Revenues and Customs says is “an unbelievable cave-in.” A few days after the decision, Osborne was promoting Vodafone on a tax-payer funded trip to India. He then appointed Andy Halford, the finance director of Vodafone, to the government’s Advisory Board on Business Tax Rates, apparently because he thinks this is a model of how the Tories think it should be done."

"By contrast, the Indian government chose to pursue Vodafone through the courts for the billions in tax they have failed to pay there. Yes, the British state is less functional than the Indian state when it comes to collecting revenues from the wealthy. This is not an isolated incident. Richard Murphy, of Tax Research UK, calculates that UK corporations fail to pay a further £12bn a year in taxes they legally owe, while the rich avoid or evade up to £120bn."

Although personally not a fan of Twitter, it is a good tool to mobilise like-minded people. This is what happened to Vodaphone. It also exposed the use of 'super injunctions' imposed on the BBC and The Guardian and was instrumental in getting the injunctions overturned. Protest can seem pointless yet a study of the significant social changes in our recent history show just how effective it can be. Votes for Women, Gay Rights, Anti-Racism and even anti-war movements. The latter may not appear to be too effective yet the biographies of Presidents Nixon and Johnson reveal how they were influenced by the anti-Vietnam protests.  

Johann Hari summed it up at the end of his article. "You don’t know what the amazing ripple-effect of your protest will be – but wouldn’t Britain be a better place if it replaced the ripple of impotent anger so many of us are feeling? Yes, you can sit back and let yourself be ripped off by the bankers and the corporations and their political lackeys if you want. But it’s an indulgent fiction to believe that is all you can do. You can act in your own self-defence. As Margaret Mead, the great democratic campaigner, said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Over-rated, overpaid and now tax dodgers too

Not one English footballer appeared in a list of the 23 best players in Europe which appeared earlier this week. However they do appear in an Independent article about tax evasion. 

"Experts in the football industry have told The Independent that around 75 per cent of Premier League clubs are now using a scheme known as EFRBS to allow players to avoid up to 50 per cent of income tax. It has come into the mainstream over the last 18 months as clubs try to find a way around the problem of losing out to clubs from across Europe on players put off by the new 50 per cent top level of income tax that will be introduced in April."

That means that Rooney who is not on the list of 'best players' is reputed to be getting over 200,000 per week and will avoid paying £100,000 tax every week. Every ten weeks that adds up to a million pounds that is not going to the taxman. Most folks would think £100,000 net is still too much for someone who kicks a ball about and is not doing what he is supposed to do - namely score goals. 

The avarice and lack of decency in big football is appalling. When will the fans wake up and smell the greed?

Beautiful game my arse. 

Another broken promise

In the Coalition Agreement published days after the General Election there is a section devoted to the restoration of civil liberties.

“The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion." 

Good - a much needed reaction to the appalling actions of NewLabour and its cringing posture towards 'security.' It also helped to get inconvenient issues such as torture and surveillance off the radar using the 'national security' cover all.

Included in the Agreement was this little nugget, "Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason."

Now move on a few months and tucked away in the Defence Review is a small paragraph. Plans to set up the ‘Interception Modernisation Programme’ were abandoned by the former Government ahead of the election, but they have now resurfaced in the hands of the Coalition. 

"We will introduce a programme to preserve the ability of the security, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to obtain communication data and to intercept communications within the appropriate legal framework. This programme is required to keep up with changing technology and to maintain capabilities that are vital to the work these agencies do to protect the public."

As Liberty put it on their website, "Communications service providers (CSPs) already hold large amounts of communications data and an EU directive that came into force in 2009 now requires that data is retained for 12 months. The proposed measure will require Internet Service Providers and telephone companies to store all the traffic details of their customers’ phone and web use for 12 months, including all third-party communications data that crosses their networks. 

This represents a huge extension of the data currently being collected.  It is also unclear whether the data will be processed differently – previously mooted proposals were to require CSPs to process data on each individual.

Hundreds of public bodies, not just the police and security services, can have access to this type of data, including local authorities.  And there is no need for them to go to a court or any other body to access the data – access can be self-authorised (under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000).  

While access to data already held by CSPs can be important in crime-fighting, the scope of this proposal goes beyond that which is necessary and sweeps the innocent up with the guilty.  

So much for the pledge to, "end the storage of internet and email records without good reason". 

We cannot rely on Labour to fight these proposals - their hands are tied by their awful record.

Shameful and Shameless

Having just watched Channel 4's Dispatches chilling programme on the Wikileaks revelations it is useful to see what an official Pentagon mouthpiece says on the issue.

"This is an extraordinary disservice to America’s men and women in uniform," according to Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell.

"More than 150,000 forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are already in considerable danger," he said. “That danger is now exponentially multiplied as a result of this leak because it gives our enemies the wherewithal to look for vulnerabilities in how we operate and to exploit those opportunities and potentially kill our forces. That is just shameful.”

Interesting use of the word 'shameful' by an American stooge. As well as being such a stupid thing to say it is deeply shameless. 

To shoot innocent civilians in their hundreds, collude with torture, cover up hundreds of civil rights abuses, bomb and murder children, create an effective Al Qaida network where none previously existed, spawn thousands upon thousands of insurgents and jihadis, jeopardise security and safety in participating countries, to promote the repugnant Ahmedinijad into some sort of heroic leader figure, to ally our nation with the vicious Israeli regime, to blacken the name of all those engaged in the enterprise around the world, to lower the standing of the invading countries, to not even count the number of Iraqi dead, to not prosecute those responsible for this unholy mess.

Now that really is shameful. 

Lies, Damned Lies and the good ole US of A

Whether it be Vietnam, Central America, Chile, Iraq, Afghanistan or even Western Europe, the USA stands repeatedly convicted in the court of world public opinion. Yet nothing changes. Generations of US citizens are brought up to revere their President despite tons of contrary evidence stating that as a bunch they are among the most mendacious, untrustworthy and downright dangerous people on the planet. 

The Pentagon's peculiar reaction to the latest Wikileaks revelations fit the template perfectly. Consider what the reaction would have been if the leaks had shown less civilian casualties and less atrocities whilst the US were in charge and so on. It would have been trumpeted from the rooftops about how good the US of A were and there would have been few qualms about the release of sensitive material. 

Drones which kill hundreds of innocent civilians and turn their families into 'insurgents'? You got em. Bombing villages into dust and creating many more anti-NATO insurgents? You got it. Killing thousands of innocent people by 'collateral damage' - (one of the most obscene terms in modern usage)? Ditto.

A military who had to, "Destroy the village to save it from the Vietcong?' You got it.

A CIA who engineered countless revolutions and had dictator after dictator imposed on long-suffering civilian populations in Central and Southern America?

You got it - over and over and over again.

They have learnt nothing. Commanders babble on about 'hearts and minds' and then do everything possible to turn 'hearts and minds' into bitterness and hate. 

A US who believe that Western Europe should co-operate with their military bases to the extent that at one point in the cold war there were many more American service personnel in the UK than British troops. It was not public knowledge then - how many are here now? What do you think the reaction in Hicksville would have been if it became known that there were more foreign soldiers on their sacred soil than homegrown ones?

And do not even mention the Chagos Islanders and the way the Wilson government removed them from their island paradise to make way for an American airbase. Also do not mention how successive governments ever since have fought tooth and nail through the highest courts in the land to maintain that immoral and sickening decision. Yes, that means you, Jack Straw, who used the arcane rules of Parliament to avoid even going to court to keep his tongue firmly embedded in the yankee arse.

Especial thanks should go to Mr T.Blair who took the UK further up the rectum of the USA than any previous Prime Minister. The latest revelations add further fuel to the charge that he should be indicted for war crimes immediately. Don't hold your breath. Although it is believed that he is very careful which countries he visits.

It is awful to appreciate the harm that has been done to our international standing and reputation for fairness by the egregious Blair and his supine cronies. 

We will have to live with the consequences for generations. Thanks Tony. 

And thank you Wikileaks for exposing the lies that we are told repeatedly by our leaders.

Speaking Truth to Power

That is what newspapers and the media are supposed to do in a democracy. Yet listening to the familiar whine from the MOD and the Pentagon, that is the last thing that should happen. Heaven forfend. The people might find out that their military get up to all kinds of illegal acts. And the people may rise up and say unto their leaders, "Piss right off. Up with this we will not put." And that would not do, would it? Think of all the arms sales lost because we actually realised that we were doing more harm than good. And think of all those politicians (of all parties) with very little willies, who get their rocks off making VERY IMPORTANT DECISIONS which we, the common herd would not understand. And think of all the oil we would be unable to make our millions from....

It is not as though the latest Wikileaks disclosures are a surprise. Throughout our recent history our leaders have always suppressed the truth whenever military action occurs. 

From the carnage of the First World War - with its reportage of 'great victories' when nothing of the kind was taking place (which lead inevitably to even more carnage); through the second world war fiascos of Slapton Sands, the uselessness of the RAF in the early years of the war (including an RAF Wellington bombing  one of our own airfields…true, see Max Hastings book 'Bomber Command'); the Korean War and General McCarthur wanting to use the atomic bomb on the North Koreans and the Chinese; many many Cold War incidents; Vietnam: Mai Lai; Iraq and now Afghanistan. Throughout, there is an underlying theme of saying nothing. 

First - cover it up. Second - blame the messenger. Third - launch an enquiry with a vague remit and kick the problem well into the long grass. Fourth - launch another enquiry (or in the case of the Iraq War, launch several, that way they can then disagree with each other- brilliant). Fifth - many, many years later - an approximation of the truth may emerge. By this time most of the villains of the piece will have been long dead. 

This process does not apply to third and some second world countries hence the appearance of certain leaders and ex-leaders at the War Crimes Court in the Hague. Unless and until Tony Blair and his ilk appear in said dock, the court will not be truly International - nor fair.

And this Ladies and Gentlemen is democracy in action (or democracy inaction). It's  sick bucket time again.

Dirty Digger Praises Thatcher and Cameron

Says all you need to know. The despicable head of News Corp tonight praised Thatcher in a speech to the right-wing Centre for Policy Studies. He also praised the drastic action that  Cameron was taking. Do not expect to see any critical voices in the Times, Sunday Times, the Sun, News of the Phone Tap and Sky. 

What is really sickening is the way New Labour arse-licked their way round Rupert's backside before and when they were comfortably in power and did not put in place the necessary controls to curb his empire. The current bunch will be just as craven. So much for telling truth to power.

Just how important this is cannot be overemphasised. New Labour did nothing to row back the Thatcherite policies they inherited. Both major parties were in hock to the City. The Lib Dems have fallen for the siren-song of power. The open festering sore that is the vast amounts of unearned lucre paid to Bankers and Wankers has not been addressed. Yet the Institute for Fiscal Studies looked at the governments figures released yesterday and declared, "poor people would be hit harder than the rich." 

As Tariq Ali wrote in a small column in the Guardian this week, "This is a country without an official opposition. An extra-parliamentary upheaval is not simply necessary to combat the cuts, but also to enhance democracy that at the moment is designed to further corporate interests and little more. Bailouts for bankers and the rich, an obscene level of defence expenditure to fight Washington's wars, and cuts for the less well off and the poor. A topsy-turvy world produces its own priorities. They need to be contested. These islands have a radical past, after all, that is not being taught in the history modules on offer. Given the inability of the official parliament to meet real needs why not the convocation of regional and national assemblies with a social charter that can be fought for and defended just as Shelley advised just under two centuries ago:

Ye who suffer woes untold

Or to feel or to behold

Your lost country bought and sold

With a price of blood and gold.

[. . .]

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you.

Ye are many, they are few."

No chance of a Sun or Screws reader rising from their slumber - kept fed on a celebrity and gossip diet. And the egregious Adam Boulton at Sky won't rattle any cages either.