Long overdue for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs to tighten up seriously on tax avoidance
November 8th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
The ‘Paradise Papers’ are just the latest in a long line of tax scandals. The system, which is rigged to benefit the privileged few at the expense of everyone else, is broken. The impact on our public services of these corrupt practices, protected by a veil of secrecy, has been devastating. After seven years of austerity, it is time for irresponsible tax dodging to come to an end.
HMRC, the government body tasked with policing the tax system, has seen its staff numbers and budget halved since it was formed in 2005. Meanwhile, the UK government has failed to take the opportunity to clean up the offshore system, in territories like Bermuda that are under its control, and make it harder for individuals and companies to avoid tax. It is little wonder that tax dodgers are taking advantage.
Tax Justice UK, the country’s leading campaign organisation for a fairer tax system, is now calling for the UK government to take decisive action to end the scourge of tax avoidance, once and for all, by tightening up on enforcement and introducing new transparency rules.
The Government needs to clamp down on tax avoidance in the UK by:
■ Increasing the resources available to HMRC to enforce UK tax legislation
■ Stopping the practice of granting amnesties to those who hide their money tax offshore
■ Abolishing ‘non-dom’ status
■ Tightening the regulation of accountants, lawyers and bankers
■ Introducing public registers of beneficial ownership for trusts as well as companies, and compelling the UK’s crown dependencies and overseas territories to do the same
■ Mandating public country-by-country reporting for all publicly quoted companies
■ Publicly reviewing tax breaks for corporates and wealthy individuals
A petition advocating these changes has been launched by the campaign organisation 38 Degrees. I’ve signed the petition. If you’d like to do so, you can do that here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
A review of the new life-affirming film “Breathe”
November 7th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Breathing is the most natural thing on earth, right? But when British tea broker Robin Cavendish contracted polio in Kenya in 1958, he found that he was paralysed from the neck down and could not breathe without the constant support of a mechanical ventilator. This true story is told with Andrew Garfield as Robin and Claire Foy as his wife Diana, both of whom give fine performances of nuanced emotion.
Inevitably the film will be compared with “The Theory Of Everything” but it is no bad thing to be reminded that people with disabilities can achieve remarkable things. In Stephen Hawking’s case, he was still able to make great contributions to theoretical physics; in the instance of Robin Cavendish, he transformed the treatment of those with paralysis, both in the UK and much wider.
For first time director Andy Serkis, this is clearly a very personal project. His professional partner and producer on the film is Jonathan Cavendish, the son of Robin and Diana, while Serkis’s sister has multiple sclerosis. Serkis is known for his acclaimed acting in performance-capture roles, but the only major use of special effects here is to enable Tom Hollander to represent both of Diana’s identical twin brothers.
At the end especially, the heart strings are well and truly plucked, but it is gratifying to see such a well-made and life-affirming work on our screens.
Link: Wikipedia page on Robin Cavendish click here
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
What are the Paradise Papers and what do they tell us?
November 6th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
What are the Paradise Papers?
The name refers to a leak of 13.4m files. Most of the documents – 6.8m – relate to a law firm and corporate services provider that operated together in 10 jurisdictions under the name Appleby. Last year, the “fiduciary” arm of the business was the subject of a management buyout and it is now called Estera.
There are also details from 19 corporate registries maintained by governments in secrecy jurisdictions – Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Cook Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Labuan, Lebanon, Malta, the Marshall Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, and Vanuatu.
The papers cover the period from 1950 to 2016.
What do the documents show?
The files set out the myriad ways in which companies and individuals can avoid tax using artificial structures. These schemes are legal if run correctly. But many appear not to be. And politicians around the world are beginning to ask whether they should be banned. Are they fair? Are they moral?
A fundamental question posed by the Paradise Papers is: has tax avoidance in all its guises gone too far?
These are extracts from a helpful question & answer summary of the current scandal as covered by today’s “Guardian” newspaper in nine full pages (but this is just the first day).
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)
How can you cope with Brexit, Trump, North Korea and all the crazy things happening in the world right now?
November 5th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
A feature in the colour supplement of this weekend’s “Guardian” newspaper concludes with five pieces of advice.
1 Look after yourself
“Self-care” has become a cliche, but while it is far from the panacea it is sometimes claimed to be, it is a crucial ingredient in staying sane. You may be surprised how frequently even the most dramatically apocalyptic thoughts and feelings turn out to be down to insufficient food or sleep. Meanwhile, plenty of research testifies to the enormous psychological benefits of even a small amount of time spent in nature.
2 Limit your exposure
The straightforward advice issued by the American Psychological Association during the US election campaign – “If the 24-hour news cycle is causing you stress, limit your media consumption” – still applies. Every news update trumpets its own importance, but it hardly follows that each one matters.
3 Stop fighting reality (or your feelings)
According to several schools of psychotherapy, a great deal of the unpleasantness we attribute to external events, or to our emotions, arises from resisting them. It is worth remembering that “anxiety and similar feelings are fairly appropriate reactions, normal responses, to completely abnormal things going on,” says therapist Paul Saks. There is no need to feel bad about feeling bad.
4 Take real-world action
“Solidarity is huge and being active really matters,” says therapist Emmy van Deurzen. Any actions you consider meaningful will start to replace feelings of helplessness – which are closely associated with depression – with a sense of agency. If possible, keep the emphasis on those involving direct interaction with other people, rather than online “slacktivism”.
5 Keep a sense of perspective
None of this means the end of the world. (Well, probably not – and not just yet.) “Keep in mind that there’s a longer game to be played,” Saks says. Especially in the current climate, news that seems monumental today may not seem very significant in a month or two, let alone a year or more. “Not to negate the fact that real harm is being done now, but we’re resilient and, in the long run, this will pass.”
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (2)
Who would want to be Prime Minister of Lebanon?
November 5th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
It is disturbing news that Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has resigned, saying in a televised broadcast from Saudi Arabia that he feared for his life. Hariri’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, was assassinated in 2005.
In 2011, I visited Lebanon (having previously toured Syria). During the trip, I read a fascinating book called “Beware Of Small States” and my review of the work is essentially a very brief history of Lebanon. You can read this here.
In my web site account of our time in Lebanon, I wrote an introduction to the country which brings the political history up-to-date. You can read this here.
Hariri’s resignation is a feature of the current profound conflict in the Middle East between the Sunni and Shia strands of Islam, the former led by Saudi Arabia and the latter led by Iran.
Posted in History, World current affairs | Comments (0)
The centenary of the Balfour Declaration
November 3rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This week has marked the centenary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which led to the creation of Israel in 1948. The letter stated:
“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
I watched a BBC 2 television programme about the Declaration and its consequences, presented by Jane Corbin, a long-time reporter from the Middle East and a relative of Leo Amery who was one of the drafters of the document.
I have read at least one book on the Arab-Israeli conflict [my review here] and, as well as visiting surrounding Arab nations, I have been to Israel itself [my account here]. Despite Jane Corbin’s faith in the Oslo Accords of 1993, there seems little prospect of substantive progress in this conflict any time soon.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
Not the film I was expecting (1): a review of “Thor: Ragnarok”
November 2nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is the not the film I was expecting. As the third entry in the “Thor” franchise, I anticipated a traditional super-hero movie like the previous two: lots of drama and threat and the occasional humorous one-liner. But this is actually the funniest by far of all the works in the Marvel canon (now 17 films) and has clearly been influenced substantially by the commercial success of the two “Guardians Of The Galaxy” movies which came out in between “Thor: The Dark World” and “Thor: Ragnarok”. This makes for an immensely entertaining outing but inevitably dials down the tension. As well as different writers, we have to thank for the new style New Zealand director Taika Waititi who additionally voices the granite character Korg who could have stomped straight out of a “GOTG” film.
As always with super-hero movies, we have lots of noise and colour together with splendid sets and effective special effects, but ultimately what makes this movie work is the cast. As well as Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as brothers Thor and Loki, we have the wonderful Cate Blanchett as their gorgon-like sister Hela, another enjoyable female actress Tessa Thompson as a Valkryie, Mark Ruffalo as the Incredible Hulk, and the delightful Jeff Goldblum as an unlikely-looking villain called simply Grandmaster. The plot is rather confusing (but essentially Ragnarok = the destruction of Asgard) and the humour sometimes juvenile (a cosmic stargate is called “the Devil’s Anus”), but the whole thing is such F-U-N.
Marvel movies always have a teaser clip at the end and this time we are treated to two: one early in the credits and one at the very end. The humour never stops.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
Not the film I was expecting (2): a review of “The Death Of Stalin”
November 2nd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
This is not the film I was expecting. Knowing that it was both written and directed by the British Armando Iannucci who gave us the outrageous delights of “In The Loop”, “The Thick of It” and Veep”, I thought that I was going to encounter a full-blown, satirical comedy (and the trailer had confirmed this impression), but instead – while there are certainly plenty of laughs from a sharp script – this is an altogether darker work, full of foreboding, terror and casual slaughter, than I was anticipating. It is not just the tone that is off-kilter; the brilliant cast makes no attempt to effect a Russian accent but offers everything from a Yorkshire accent to an unashamedly American one. Iannucci has moved from contemporary Whitehall and Washington to take us to Moscow in 1953 but, if we were expecting “Carry On Up The Kremlin”, we have something much more gut-renching and all the more effective.
Several of the characters (the dictator himself played by Adrian McLoughlin) and his eventual successor Khruschev (Steve Buscemi) are known to everyone, but others – like war hero Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) and spy chief Beria (Simon Russell Beale) – will be less-known and still others – such as Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) and Molotov (Michael Palin) – will be unfamiliar to many viewers, so you need to be something of an enthusiast for Soviet history to pick up on all the allusions. And real historians will rightly challenge some of the detail because there are some major errors (three of the major characters did not at that time hold the posts attributed to them) although these might be excused as deliberate distorions to enhance the plot.
A few weeks before the release of this film, I was in Georgia and visited Gori, the town near where Stalin was born. The year after Khruschev denounced Stalin, a museum was opened in the town to venerate Stalin’s leadership and essentially (and astonishingly) the messaging remains unchanged to this day. Oh, how I wish they could show this chilling movie at that museum.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
In praise of the 10-part television series on “The Vietnam War”
November 1st, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched recordings of every episode of a new 10-part American television series titled simply “The Vietnam War”. The script was written by Geoffrey C. Ward and narrated by Peter Coyote with direction by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. In the USA, the series was broadcast by PBS while, here in the UK, it was shown on BBC4 (two episodes at a time over weekly intervals). The whole thing runs to seventeen and a quarter hours.
I was a young adult at the time of the Vietnam War, so I remember all the major events and all the controversy. Indeed I spent three months in the USA in the summer of 1970 in the middle of it all. As someone who is British, I acknowledge the wisdom of Harold Wilson, our Prime Minister from 1964-1970, in resisting American pressure to commit British troops to the war.
In 2006, I visited Vietnam [my account here] and, during my journey, I read a novel by a former North Vietnamese soldier who is one of the 74 interviewees in the television series [my review here].
I’ve been enormously impressed by this series: the stunning – and often very disturbing – visuals, the eloquent – and often intensely moving – personal testimonies, and the balance provided by so many ground-level views from both American and Vietnamese participants.
Perhaps the major theme of the whole series is that, from an early stage, the most senior political and military figures in the United Sates knew that the war could not be won but felt that America as a super-power could not lose face by giving up on the South Vietnamese. And a result, so very many died unnecessarily: 58,318 Americans and anything between 2-4 million Vietnamese. Richard Nixon is revealed to have cynically blocked a peace initiative to assist his presidential election campaign.
Another theme, on the other side of the conflict, was the utter determination – and indeed ruthlessness – of the North Vietnamese leadership (notably Le Duan) which sacrificed huge numbers of young fighters to advance the Communist cause.
The series contains so many memorable incidents that it is invidious to single out one, but I was stuck – perhaps because I was unfamiliar with it – by the story of American soldier Hugh Thompson Jr who tried to halt the My Lai massacre and highlighted it to his superiors only to suffer ostracism as a result.
If you failed to see the series or cannot find it on catch-up-up TV, you can buy the DVD set.
Posted in History | Comments (0)
How can you understand what’s really going on in the world’s conflict zones?
October 30th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
There are so many conflicts around the world and each has its own complexities which are rarely covered in the media. Recently, a briefing was put together for British Parliamentarians by a significant number of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) under the leadership of the Humanitarian and Conflict Policy groups of the organisation Bond for which my son now works as Campaign Director.
You can check out the sections on individuals countries – with a note on key challenges and recommendations for Government action – here:
- Afghanistan
- Central African Republic
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Iraq
- Sahel and Lake Chad basin
- Somalia
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Syria
- Yemen
Posted in World current affairs | Comments (0)