The world is being driven by the morally bankrupt and the utterly corrupt for whom accumulated wealth has more worth than life itself and in the hunger for which, globally, they destroy the lives and livelihoods of billions of people.
It is impossible for most ordinary people, including me, to know how corrupt the UK government is, and, indeed, governments and corporations across the world.
In the UK corporations are invited to advise on writing tax law and help design the loopholes they will later exploit. In 2010 Ian Brimicombe, described as a tax guru for AstraZeneca, was appointed as an adviser to a government liaison committee, along with senior executives from some of Britain’s biggest companies, to develop UK corporate tax policy. Within 5 months of the new tax regime coming into effect in 2013 ‘AstraZeneca had set up an unusual and intricate Dutch tax avoidance structure that would enable it to take full advantage of the new loopholes it had so helpfully advised on.’
Meanwhile over at Forbes, Tim Worstall writes, ‘Now They’re Chasing AstraZeneza: If Only These People Understood The System’. He goes on to say, ‘To be honest, it does seem reasonably sensible to have the world’s experts in corporate taxation advising on how to tax corporations but perhaps other people don’t see it quite that way.’
I rather think that Worstall knows the system and displays his disingenuousness well. Britain is languishing under a terrible misapprehension, the myth of the great and the good. Leave it to the experts and don’t worry our little heads about why the system is so complex and why it is, according to Tax Justice Network (TJN), that between $21-32 trillion dollars of private wealth is held offshore in tax havens. TJN goes on to say, ‘Measuring the size of the offshore economy is an exercise in night vision. It is hard to define it; it is fragmented and messy, and it is swathed in secrecy.’ But, but, but, wasn’t the system designed by the great and the good, the worlds finest, so there’s nothing to bother our little heads over? It’s 2017 and we didn’t discover financial literacy yesterday and yet somewhere in excess of $500bn per year of corporate profits is shifted by multinational companies into tax refuges and (unsurprisingly) ‘as a percentage of their gross domestic product, developing countries are hit hardest.’
But I need not delve so far into the twisted la la land of the financial interests of the super wealthy to gather hints of the enormity of corruption that bedevils us.
In 2010, as manifesto pledges, David Cameron promised, ‘With the Conservatives there will be no more of the tiresome, meddlesome, top-down re-structures that have dominated the last decade of the NHS’, ‘absolutely no plans to raise VAT’, ‘No cuts to front-line services’, to name but three. How great the lies that trip off the tongues of the great and the good to bedazzle and beguile the minds of those they rob blind.
As important as lying to the public is, the lies and deceit that Cameron and his cronies and the present government under Theresa May spin so glibly, provide only the merest glimpse of the tip of the iceberg of the fantastic corruption of those who lay false claim to serve the best interests of nations.
2013 also saw the introduction of the ‘bedroom tax’ and David Freud and Iain Duncan Smith were busily redesigning Britain’s system of social security, transforming it into a secret penal system that, it is now horrifically clear, is more brutal and far harsher than any punishment delivered by the nations justice system, and which, with casual indifference, has wiped out the lives of tens of thousands of people, and targets the poorest and most vulnerable people in the UK many times over. A report from The Centre for Welfare Reform in 2013 revealed that under the governments welfare reforms, ‘People in poverty are targeted 5 times more than most citizens, Disabled people are targeted 9 times more than most citizens and People needing social care are targeted 19 times more than most citizens.’
Austerity means hunger, deprivation and death for the poor and tax cuts, bonuses and protection for the rich.
Britain is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world and in 2015 was found to be the most unequal country in the EU. The UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has established that ‘welfare cuts have created a ‘human catastrophe’ for disabled people in the UK and accused the government of “grave and systematic violations” of the rights of disabled people. Damian Green, then Work and Pensions Secretary, dismissed the EU’s findings as, ‘an outdated view of disability which is patronising and offensive’, and claimed, ‘The UK is a recognised world leader in disabled rights and equality.’ If so, then this disabled person says to the government, “Spare me your tender ministrations and the Judas kiss of your treachery.”
The problem with corruption in high places is that it is so much a part of the system and so normal that its magnitude is barely discernible to even the most determined investigative research. It is not that there might be a few rotten eggs in the basket, but that the entire system is based on corruption as an absolute, it is written into its DNA, corruption is its raison d etre, backed up, supported and underwritten by a right wing media that targets and vilifies those who oppose and expose this obscene orgy of corruption.
In 2015 David Cameron spent over £10 million on what was described as ‘his army of spin doctors and advisers’ to purposefully deceive the nation. They are the living proof that not only is it entirely possible to polish a turd, but too many people are far too willing to feast on it, digest and regurgitate it in virulent retribution and hate and attack disabled people, immigrants and vulnerable people on the streets as if they are the cause of the all the worlds woe and, as we’ve seen time and time again, much to the delight and braying laughter and mockery of the architects of despair in government.
David Cameron, just prior to an anti-corruption summit in London, said, in front of the Queen and televised, “We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain… Nigeria and Afghanistan, possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.” leading the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to disagree and say in defence of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, “But this particular president is not corrupt… he’s trying very hard.” James Landale, BBC diplomatic correspondent, said of Cameron, one of the most corrupt Prime Ministers in UK history (and certainly the most blandly shiny faced), ” it is perhaps one of the most undiplomatic things a prime minister could say – to describe two countries as fantastically corrupt just hours before their leaders visit Britain.” And therein lies the real problem of the fantastically corrupt, like Cameron, a wholehearted belief in their own righteousness and outspoken in their appalling ignorance.
Just like May’s government, Cameron served on an entirely corrupt platform of lies and deceit, penalising and brutalising millions of ordinary people, who they despise, whilst transferring the nations wealth into the hands of a grasping elite which is corrupt to the bone.
And children starve and the innocent die young.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/13/tories-big-business-tax-loopholes
https://www.taxjustice.net/topics/more/size-of-the-problem/
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/11/pre-election-pledges-tories-are-trying-wipe-internet
https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system
https://www.centreforwelfarereform.org/library/by-az/briefing-on-how-cuts-are-targeted.html
https://www.indy100.com/article/the-uk-is-the-most-unequal-country-in-the-eu–l1It2nHEZb
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37899305
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-spends-10million-army-7029803
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41648865
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36260193
