GRIMLY FIENDISH

This bit of the article says it all... "It has emerged that, in 2000, five years after he joined the Met, PC Harwood was involved in what was described at Mr Tomlinson's inquest as a "road rage" incident but his employment record was kept from the jury. He was off-duty and the other driver complained of unlawful arrest and abuse of authority. PC Harwood denied the accusation but retired on medical grounds in 2001 before a disciplinary hearing took place. He rejoined the Met in late 2004 - Scotland Yard's vetting unit had considered the road rage incident but had not reviewed the full file." So, Harwood has previous for violence and abusing authority, but, plays the "jump before he's pushed" trick, the Met lets him back in without properly vetting him and, surprise, surprise, he ends up finally killing someone.... What a f***ing disgraceful institution the Metropolitan Police "service" is.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-21...c-cleaners.html Warning, it IS the Daily Mail though....

Oh, what a blooming surprise, found "innocent" in spite of the blatant video evidence.. Funny how video evidence is emphasised when it's in favour of the establishment but when it favours the general population against the establishment or the law enforcement agencies, all of a sudden, it becomes "unreliable".... This is such crap.... There will almost certainly be more riots on the streets though, maybe not on the back of this, but there are so many other things to be pissed-off about with regards to cuts to services, the tinkering with the NHS and, ironically, the Police service privatisation plans, then I reckon it's a case of when, not if.....

Well, it's not a very nice place to be if you're a cleaner though....

Which one..? I posted three.... :lol: :lol: Mind you, I could probably discount the one written by the copper..... :lol:

Nick Buckles then yesterday gets up in front of a Parliamentary inquiry and has the nerve to say that G4S will take their £57 million "Management Fee".... I mean.... SERIOUSLY..?? :wacko: :wacko: This lot are as shameless as the bankers, but, tbh, in a way, I'm not surprised by G4S' shamelessness, the city bankers have been getting away with murder and bailed out and subsidised since 2008, it's little wonder that others kind of feel that they can take the piss as well.... <_<

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18856922 London 2012: May defends Games security plans Contractor G4S "repeatedly assured" ministers they would "overshoot their targets" for Olympics security staffing, Theresa May has told MPs. Addressing the Commons, the home secretary also denied allegations the government knew before Wednesday there would not be enough guards. Labour said it was "incomprehensible" Mrs May had not known earlier. It comes after G4S admitted it would fall short last week, with 3,500 extra troops now being deployed for security. Meanwhile, it has also emerged that police have had to deploy extra officers from eight UK forces to do Olympic security work. Mrs May was answering an urgent question from Yvette Cooper MP, the shadow home secretary, on "security arrangements for the Olympic Games in light of the inability of G4S to deliver its contract". During the day athletes and officials have been arriving at the Olympic Village with Heathrow Airport experiencing its busiest day on record, and the first priority "Games Lane" in operation. Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was not time for a "witch hunt" against G4S. "What we actually want is for G4S to deliver on what they say they can deliver." In her statement to MPs, Mrs May insisted the government had reacted quickly when it discovered G4S was in difficulty. "G4S only told the government that they would be unable to meet their contractual arrangements last Wednesday and we took immediate action," she said. She also denied G4S had "deliberately deceived" the government, insisting the firm's problem was "workforce supply and scheduling". Mrs May did not confirm how many staff G4S would now provide, but added the government was "on course to deliver a safe and secure Games that everybody will enjoy". But Labour's Yvette Cooper said Mrs May should have known about the problem. "Even G4S say they have been discussing the detailed shortfall for eight or nine days, yet last Monday the home secretary told the House she was confident our partners will deliver. Members of Italy's Olympic shooting team arrive at Heathrow Olympic athletes, including Italy's shooting team, have begun to arrive at Heathrow Airport "It is incomprehensible that monitoring was that poor that no one told her until Wednesday," she said. "How on earth could the minister responsible for delivering Olympic security be the only person who didn't know?" Ms Cooper also told MPs Tory London Mayor Boris Johnson had admitted the problems were known about "ages ago", and his deputy Stephen Greenhalgh had claimed security concerns had been raised "repeatedly". G4S, whose shares have fallen by 9% since the problems arose, said security was being tightened at venues before "the full complement of accredited staff have been assigned". It said: "Some venues are being supported by police in the short term, while the private security workforce is being mobilised. "This situation is being rectified over the coming days, which should lead to the withdrawal of police from those roles assigned to private security." Earlier, Manchester police had to deploy officers to provide security at a hotel in Salford where four Olympic football teams will stay - after only 17 of an expected 56 G4S staff turned up for work. Police said there had been no failure to provide security for athletes. But Paul Murphy, chairman of Greater Manchester Police Authority told the BBC using staff on rest days had cost the force £30,000 a day. The prime minister's official spokesman refused to be drawn on when David Cameron was aware of G4S's Olympic recruitment failings, but said he was involved in the decision to deploy extra soldiers. On the issue of the cost of the unscheduled call-up to the armed forces, the prime minister's spokesman said: "We are very keen to make sure absolutely no one loses out. "G4S have been clear they will meet the costs." Olympic lane The first priority Games lane is now in operation Mrs May told the Commons last week that there were penalties written into the G4S contract but did not give details. Late on Friday, G4S said it faced a £35m-£50m loss on the £284m contract after failing to recruit enough security guards for the Olympics. There is now speculation that G4S chief executive Nick Buckles - who is due to appear before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday - could lose his job, after chairman John Connolly hinted that senior heads could roll. Mr Buckles admitted he was "bitterly disappointed" at his company's failure to meet the terms of the contract. http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2012/...e-the-olympics/ Why most police officers HATE the Olympics. July 17, 2012 by inspectorgadget Only 17 of planned 56 security staff turned up for work at the Olympic team hotel in Salford. Only 20 security staff,out of 300 planned, turned up at Box Hill cycling site in Surrey. 180 security staff were due at an induction and training session at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena, but only eight turned up. All these venues are now being covered by police officers who should be on the streets. Here in Ruralshire, our response teams are operating at dangerously low levels due to the planned Olympic deployment, let alone now, with further deployment necessary. It is important to note that while politicians point to the total number of police involved compared to the total number of police in the UK, they know perfectly well that it is from the frontline uniform response and neighbourhood units that these abstractions have to be found. Almost without exception, police officers below the rank of Chief Inspector I have spoken to both here in Ruralshire and in our neighbouring counties HATE the London 2012 Olympic Games, and hated it well before the current security fiasco. Chief Inspectors and above like the Olympics because they do not have to go, because they have managed to get exemptions from the annual leave ban and because they have been told to like it. Most Chief Inspectors want to be Superintendents, so they tend to think what they are told to think, since they (mistakenly in my opinion) believe that this will make them more attractive at the promotion board. Police officers HATE the London 2012 Olympics for three main reasons: 1. Summer leave has been cancelled so we can’t spend time with our children, time we don’t usually get because we work shifts. 2. The language and content of the training has been patronising, Orwellian and short on serious content. We have been treated like fools in the briefings, with most of the emphasis on political correctness and how to smile a lot. This pisses people off more than you can know! 3. The London 2012 period from 27th July to 9th Sept is being used to mess our lives about on an unprecedented scale, while senior officers and non-operational staff continue on as if nothing is happening. * The new farce with G4S failing to turn up all over the country has further depleted our frontline teams. The same is true for thousands of NHS staff and their families, for millions of people who couldn’t get tickets and for Londoners, who must now suffer the Zil lanes and traffic chaos. I am with Keith Allen, who recently gave a great ‘bah humbug’ interview about how much he hates the whole thing. The one great thing about London 2012, is the very public exposure of G4S. For me it is not necessarily the scheduling issue. It is the horrendous stories coming out about the training, the organisation, the quality of the staff and the general shoddy nature of whole squalid back-room deals over workfare candidates vs. profit. G4S and the politicians who defend them are saying that the whole thing is so complicated, they have to be so flexible and the demands can be unexpected and sudden. We know this. We do this every day. This is why we think it is a bad idea to privatise the police. The ability to adapt to these demands on a daily basis, not just once in a lifetime, is why it is a bad idea to abolish the office of Constable and turn us all in to workers who can be made redundant, have out pay cut and essentially be reduced to the level of the poor devils who work (or who don’t work!) for G4S. This is what Tom Winsor wants. The job we do is simply too important to be turned over to the greed and avarice of corporate shareholders. If people outside the police couldn’t see that before, they can now. Gadget Note: No one minds being messed about in a genuine national emergency. We joined up to do this and we are fine about it. But bailing out a company which is about to take our jobs and those of our colleagues is a bit much! From what I hear, many soldiers feel the same. -------------------------------------------------------- ...And a bit of comic relief which could've come straight off the script of the spoof series "Twenty Twelve" by the BBC.... http://m.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jul/16/...mp;type=article Athletes settle in to 'Olympic Village heaven' after bus woes Craig Kinsley, a rookie Team USA javelin thrower, was smiling from ear to ear as he joined the first athletes dumping their bags in the Olympic Village. "I've just updated my Facebook status," he said. "England, London, Olympic Village, heaven." He might have been forgiven for being less upbeat: Kinsley, below, was one of dozens of athletes from the American and Australian teams granted unplanned tours of Westminster Abbey and Tower Bridge when their buses from Heathrow got badly lost on their way to the village. But neither that nor the wind and rain sweeping the Olympic Park in east London was going to dim Kinsley's enthusiasm. "This is my first international competition," he said. "I might as well start big." The village welcomed its first athletes on Monday and Swiss and Belgian competitors had already draped flags over their balconies. French and Guatemalan medal hopefuls milled around the shopping plaza as athletes from an estimated 40 countries checked in. But getting here had been tough. Volunteer drivers from Scotland, Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK – along with satnav systems that did not include the address of the Olympic Village – turned what was supposed to be a seamless journey along clear "games lanes" into an exhausting schlep through London congestion. ("Loads of us have never been to London before. It's great. We're like tourists," one Liverpudlian coach driver confessed.) Tom Pukstys, a coach with the USA, described how he and 25 other members of the team who flew overnight to Heathrow from Chicago faced a four hour drive across London when their Scottish driver got lost. "I was watching the satnav and it was telling us to go one way, then another. It was the first time he [the driver] had made the trip. If you are going to competition and get lost that would be devastating. But that's not going to happen." Two-time world 400 metres hurdles champion Kerron Clement tweeted: "Um, so we've been lost on the road for 4 hrs. Not a good first impression London. Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please." The team's spokesman, Patrick Sandusky, said there had been "some limited challenges for some of our athletes travelling from Heathrow to the Olympic Village" but he commended Locog's organisation saying "one bus trip doesn't detract from that a bit". After a 23 hour flight, Australia's sailing team had a minor scare when they briefly lost track of their sails at Heathrow then had to wait two hours for a bus. It took a further two hours to get to the Olympic Village, taking in Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey as the driver got lost. "The driver didn't know where he was going and hadn't been told how to use the satnav," said Australian official Damian Kelly. "He was on his walkie talkie, we were on the phone to the Olympic Village getting directions and some of us were trying to guide us in using Google. " Look, these things happen. We're just glad it happened now and not in the middle of competition." It was an embarrassing case of life imitating art. The BBC TV satire on the games organisers, Twenty Twelve, had included a story where an official bus driven by a Nottingham man who did not understand his satnav got lost. A spokeswoman for the real London organising committee was keen to play down the problem. "It is day one and we have only had one or two issues where journeys have taken longer than planned," she said. "The vast majority of journeys have been fine." Scudding grey rain clouds and strong winds rattling the temporary buildings meant the Olympic Village, which will house more than 11,000 athletes from 204 countries, struggled to feel as festive as it surely will, but spirits remained high. The US 400m champion, Tony McQuay tweeted: "I don't think I want to leave the UK sorry US lol but I'm loving how they build this village for us to stay in … Wow!" "I train in Providence, Rhode Island where the weather is no better than this, so I don't mind," said Kinsley. Across the plaza in the merchandise and souvenir shop, Guatamala's shooting team of Sergio Sanchez and Jean Brol Cardenas were buying posters, bangles and face cloths decorated with Wenlock the Olympic mascot. "Everyone is very nice, but I have to say the weather could be better," said Cardenas, a trap shooter who is used to conditions of 25C and sunny in Guatamala City. Team GB athletes in the village were rallied with a speech by Dame Kelly Holmes and Team GB footballer Jack Butland, 19, tweeted: "loving this experience already". Even Kerron Clement appeared to have cheered up. The athlete, who describes himself in his online profile as "simply the best at what I do" tweeted later: "Eating at the Olympic Village. Love the variety of food choices, African, Caribbean, Halal cuisine, India and Asian and of course McDonalds".

Well, that's an outright lie right there... No way he didn't know... TBH, there is no way you can trust politicians to come up with the answers to this, they're too in awe of the banking industry, and not just the Tories, New Labour were every bit as bad and let the likes of Fred Goodwin get away with murder... I think it's high time we started taking the Max Keiser approach to these Fraudsters and Speculators..... In fact, Keiser should be in charge of an investigation of the banking industry....

Dude, here or there, it would be a novelty to see ANY banker serving ANY jail time for this fiasco......

Well, well, well... Looks like "Barclays Bob" has actually quit... Although, I do wonder whether or not he should have been allowed to, I rather think he should have been sacked by the shareholders... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18685040 Barclays boss Bob Diamond resigns amid Libor scandal Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has resigned a week after the bank was fined a record amount for trying to manipulate inter-bank lending rates. BBC business editor Robert Peston said he was encouraged to go by the heads of the Bank of England and the FSA. Mr Diamond said he was stepping down because the external pressure on the bank risked "damaging the franchise". Chief operating officer Jerry del Missier has also resigned, the third top executive in two days to do so. Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, who had announced his own resignation on Monday, will now take over the running of Barclays until a new chief executive is appointed. BBC business editor Robert Peston said the heads of the City's two main regulators had been unable to force Mr Diamond out "because the recent FSA investigation into how Barclays attempted to rig the important Libor interest rates did not find him personally culpable". "However, as a regulated institution, it was impossible for Barclays' board to ignore the revealed wishes of the two most powerful regulators in the City." Earlier, Lord Turner, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, described the outrage that has built up over the bank's actions. •27 June: Barclays fined £290m by US and UK regulators for attempting to manipulate Libor rates •28 June: Barclays shares plunge 15% •29 June: Bank of England governor calls for change in banking culture •1 July: It emerges that RBS has sacked four traders over Libor and there are calls for changes in the law to cover Libor-rigging •2 July: Barclays chairman Marcus Agius resigns and the government launches two inquiries into Libor and banking standards •3 July: Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond resigns Mr Diamond will still appear before MPs on the Treasury Committee on Wednesday to answer questions about the Libor affair. "I look forward to fulfilling my obligation to contribute to the Treasury Committee's enquiries related to the settlements that Barclays announced last week without my leadership in question," Mr Diamond said in a statement. He is expected to be questioned about a conversation he had with the deputy governor of the Bank of England, Paul Tucker, about Barclays' Libor submissions at the height of the credit crunch in 2008. Barclays' managers came to believe, after the conversation between Mr Diamond and Mr Tucker, that the Bank of England had sanctioned them to lie about what they were paying to borrow when providing data to the committees that set the Libor rate. Inquiry row "It is the right decision for the country," Mr Osborne said, saying the UK needed a strong Barclays concentrating on lending and contributing to economic recovery. Labour leader Ed Miliband said it was "necessary and right" that Bob Diamond stepped down. "But this is about much more than one individual, it's about the culture and practices of the banking industry," he said. "That's why we need a full, judge-led, independent inquiry, to get to the bottom of those practices and make recommendations for change in the future. We've had missed opportunities before, we've got to seize this moment." Labour is critical of the government's decision to call a parliamentary inquiry, chaired by the head of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie MP, rather than a full Leveson-style inquiry, independent of politicians. Big pay-off? Last week, regulators in the US and UK fined Barclays £290m ($450m) for attempting to rig Libor and Euribor, the interest rates at which banks lend to each other, which underpin trillions of pounds worth of financial transactions. Staff did this over a number of years, trying to raise them for profit and then, during the financial crisis, lowering them to hide the level to which Barclays was under financial stress. Mr Diamond is one of the UK's highest paid chief executives, earning £20m last year, and was described as "the unacceptable face" of banking by the then business secretary Lord Mandelson in 2010. The details of any severance package are not yet known, but former City minister Lord Myners suggests it could add up to £20m-£30m. "I think his resignation letter is drafted with an eye to that [pay-off], because he admits no guilt on his part at all," the Labour peer told BBC News. "The shareholders of Barclays will be expecting the board to ensure that not a penny more is paid to Bob Diamond than that to which he is legally entitled," he said. US-born Mr Diamond was head of Barclays Capital, its investment bank division, when its staff were trying to manipulate the key inter-bank rates. "He maintains that he didn't know what was going on," says Robert Peston. Investigations are continuing in the UK and the US into other banks over Libor fixing, including criminal investigations by the Department of Justice. The Serious Fraud Office in the UK is looking into possible criminal prosecutions. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Actually, one of the things that amused me was that as soon as "Blood" Diamond announced his resignation Barclays shares recovered 3% of their value..... Just goes to show really that all this rubbish that apologists talk about how these "geniuses" (read "parasites") such as Diamond and other over-paid Banksters are so "vital" to the markets, the banking industry and to the economy is just complete nonsense. The Markets would probably do better and recover more quickly if we got rid of the whole sodding lot of them.... Of course, now that Mr Diamond is no longer gainfully employed, can we perhaps look into initiating deportation procedures back to the US...?

Hugo Rifkind can just f**k right off.. one doesn't have to be an expert in nuclear fusion to know that a nuclear war is a bad idea, similar principle here, one just kind of instinctively knows that manipulating interest figures is similarly a bad idea and that Financial Terrorism is as damaging as a bomb going off and that it has far reaching implications.. I'm sick of arrogant, smug apologists who say that we can't possibly understand what it is that people like Jamie Dimon and Bob Diamond do, because they're such f**king geniuses, so we should let them get on with commiting fraud and f**king up the economies of sovereign nations and allow them to collect massive bonuses for doing so at the tax-payers' expense... Max Keiser is right as far as I'm concerned - "indignation then decapitation...."

Bank of England governor refuses to back Bob Diamond http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/ju...g?newsfeed=true Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, has refused to say Bob Diamond is a "fit and proper" person to run Barclays in a hard-hitting attack on the City culture that allowed banks to deceive customers and give excessive rewards to traders. "There's something very wrong with the UK banking industry and we need to put it right," King said at a press conference on Friday to mark the publication of Threadneedle Street's Financial Stability Report. Asked twice whether Diamond was "fit and proper" to run Barclays in the wake of revelations that the bank manipulated interest rates used as the benchmark for borrowing costs for UK households and businesses, both King and Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority, declined to answer. King made his unhappiness with the City clear but said there was no need for a Leveson-style inquiry into banks. "It is time to do something about the banking system", the governor said. "Many people in the banking industry are hard-working and feel badly let down by some of their colleagues and leaders. "It goes to the culture and the structure of banks – the excessive compensation, the shoddy treatment of customers, the deceitful manipulation of a key interest rate, and today news of yet another mis-selling scandal." Barclays was on Wednesday fined a record £290m for attempting to manipulate crucial interest rates known as the London interbank offered rate (Libor) and the Euro interbank offered rate (Euribor) between 2005 and 2009. On Friday the bank was among four banks implicated in interest swap misselling to small businesses. King added that the question of who ran the UK banks was a question for another day, insisting that the immediate priority was for the government to implement in full the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking headed by Sir John Vickers, which called for firewalls to be set up between the investment and retail arms of banks. The governor said the cultures of investment and retail banking were completely different and needed to be separated. Turner said that there was a "culture of cynicism and greed that is quite shocking." Although the FSA chairman refused to call for heads to roll at Barclays, he said of the City: "There are some very wide cultural issues that need to be addressed....“banks have learned throughout this process " Andrew Bailey, the top banking regulator at the FSA, said the onus was on bank boards to take action. "If, as we now see, there is a fundamental breakdown in trust, the bank boards have to recognise that trust has to be got back and they have to think very hard about how they do that." The latest scandals to engulf the banking industry came at a time when the Bank said the outlook for financial stability had deteriorated as a result of the deepening crisis in the eurozone. King said this had "generated a great deal of uncertainty around the economic outlook and exposed severe vulnerabilities in the European banking system". The governor said UK banks were being urged to hold more capital than required under new international standards just in case the situation in Europe worsened, and should build up the cushion by limiting dividends to shareholders and compensation to staff. "It is crucial the banks' efforts to improve resilience should not come at a high cost to the real economy", King said. "Alongside capital-raising, banks can improve their resilience by reducing the riskiness of their balance sheets, and by bolstering investor confidence, for example by seeking to reduce the degree of uncertainty around the possible impact of the euro-area crisis on their balance sheets." --------------------------------------------------------------- Folks, let's remember here that Bob Diamond said, and I quote, “There was a period for remorse of banks but I think this period is over.....The question for us is how do we put some of the blame game behind us...banks have learned throughout this process ." Uh-huh.....Riiiiiiiiiight..... Diamond said this to a parliamentary inquiry in early 2011. He kind of neglected to mention the fact that Barclays had been engaging in the manipulation of LIBOR rates and frankly those words can now quite easily be interpreted as an attempt to try and misdirect and divert attention away from the covering up of gross misconduct and negligence.. So, is Diamond "fool or knave"...? That is the question, he either deliberately misled parliament or he had no idea what was going on under his watch... More "willful blindness" on the part of a CEO...? Either way, Diamond's position is surely untenable and he has to go... King's comments are also curious, he doesn't feel that a Leveson-style inquiry is necessary... Is he joking..? That is precisely what is required, the excuse he uses that "many people in the banking industry are hard working..." is pathetic frankly, because many people in the banking industry are also dishonest, unethical bast*rds who should be arrested and put in prison, and I'm sure many people at the News of the World were also honest and hard-working as well.. In the 1980s during the Savings and Loan crisis, there was no escape for crooked bankers, the Reagan Admin and the SECC arrested and jailed hundreds of bankers, this LIBOR scandal is far, FAR bigger than S&L or even BCCI or Barings, it goes right to the heart of how much ordinary people pay in interest on their mortgages... This is A VERY BIG DEAL as it can affect potentially millions of people, ordinary families, not just here, but in the US, Europe, even Asia... We need an inquiry, we need to see some transparency and we definitely need to see a separation of Investment and Retail banking sectors.....

These people saying "good on them" are just ignorant f**king morons, simple as... The fact of the matter is, is that if these avoiders paid their bit instead of avoiding, then there would be tax cuts for everyone, not just the priveleged few who can afford clever accountants. Taxes for all could be decreased by 2p at least, and the loweste paid could thotically be taken out of tax altogether.. The whole principle of taxation, according to the likes of Adam Smith and other Enlightenment thinkers was that taxes should be fair and that the lowest earners should never have paid tax in the first place, the richest people should shoulder the greatest tax burden.

I have to agree with Kath here, ISAs are nothing like the sort of aggressive and borderline illegal tax avoidance vehicles such as K2, as far as I'm concerned it's not even the same game never mind the same ballpark, it's apples and oranges... BUT, like you Kath, I would be willing to sacrifice ISAs if it meant nailing big corporations balls to the wall.... The fact is, corruption begins at the top, if the big corporations and the political elites get away with murder, then it can come as no surprise when people like Carr or Barlow think to themselves "hey, why should I be a mug and play by the rules..?" It's particularly irksome when the bloody HMRC are chasing up people who pay tax through PAYE and then get a demand when their employer screws up their tax code, but then lets off the likes of Goldman Sachs and Vodafone.... Not acceptable..... At all....

I seem to remember when Ca-Moron was asked about Philip Green's tax avoidance, he replied - "I'm not getting into an individual's tax affairs on air".. Well, obviously it's more like "I'm not getting into an individual who gives the Tory party lots of money's tax affairs on air... Oh, and the fact that he works for us as an advisor as well has no bearing on my lack of an opinion either..." This Government are a set of irredeemable c**ts an I thought New Labour and Thatcher were bad....

Precisely, the HMRC signed off on this, so, surely they should be answering far more probing questions about all this than Jimmy Carr, such as "why did you allow this to happen, you bunch of tw@ts?"... Mind you, Dippy Hartnett of the HMRC also let off Goldman Sachs with £10m in unpaid tax as well.. Which is now currently under Judicial Review after a case being brought by UK Uncut.... Of course, not that THAT gets anything like as much press coverage as Jimmy Carr's "misdemeanours".....

No, I'm not in support of the K2 avoidance scheme, but it's not "Jimmy Carr's scheme" at all, he didn't set it up all up.. I doubt he's that clever....

Take That are close to my worldview.....?? :lol: :lol: Yeah, okay, whatever.... Too bad you cant see this for the blatant mis-direction it is... Perhaps David Sca-Moron should look a bit closer to home when it comes to amassing fortunes built on exploiting tax-havens before presuming to lecture others on the subject, I mean, it's not as if none of us can do a Google search and find the facts..... :rolleyes: Besides you, like many others, seem to be in somewhat of a confusion as to the difference between Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion.. Carr and TT were never accused of evasion, so the point you make is a completely moot one, and why on earth would someone be sent to Broadmoor (a high security psychiatric prison) for tax evasion...? I mean, yes, they might be wrong, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily psychopathic....

Yep, as big a case of "pot calling kettle black" as you could hope to find... Classic mis-direction this is, get people grumbling about "those bloody celebs" which takes the heat off their chums in the City and in the Corporate Boardrooms who are avoiding taxes to the levels that would make Take That and Jimmy Carr's avoidance seem positively paltry.. In the past couple of days we've had this, and we've had the statement from Danny Alexander saying that tax avoidance is the "moral equivalent" of benefit fraud... Good that finally someone says it, but are they actually going to make Tax Avoidance a criminal offence..? Are they going to close down offshore tax havens..? Are they going to prosecute crooked bankers and hedge fund managers who have been responsible for the biggest financial crimes in history..? I'm sorry, but Jimmy Carr is complete small-fry, and is clearly being offered up as a distraction to take our attention away from far bigger problems...

To strike is a right – stop trying to deter the low-paid from exercising it http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...P=FBCNETTXT9038 Here we go again. The government is talking tough and this time it wants to punish low-paid workers for exercising the basic right to take strike action. Voting to go on strike is not a decision working people take lightly and is always accompanied by a strong sense of injustice at work. The impact of losing a day's pay is significant, not least for those in the lowest paid jobs who are already on the tightest budgets. To suggest that benefits encourage people to go on strike is ridiculous. The amount that any worker on strike will lose in pay will be far more than the top-up they get from the tax credit system. And it is also offensive to hard-pressed workers to imply that taking strike action is intrinsically a bad choice – this fundamental right, which can only be exercised after a democratic ballot, is a rarely used yet important way to rebalance power between the employer and employed. The government's intention to limit benefits for strikers, however, is more about rhetoric than real impact. Under the present system, workers on strike are not entitled to jobseeker's allowance anyway, and while they can continue to receive working tax credit (WTC) their award is not increased to take account of the reduced income they experience while on strike. In addition, after 10 days of consecutive action they can lose their entire WTC award. Under universal credit, a real-time system will automatically take account of reductions in claimants' incomes and factor in small increases in monthly payments accordingly. The government's proposal therefore appears to be that claimants will continue to receive universal credit but will not have their payments adjusted for any reduction in income that arises if they are on strike. This is therefore exactly the same as the current situation, other than for those workers who are on strike for more than 10 days, who will be somewhat better off. So it transpires that this announcement is not the red meat for the right that the government's spin doctors would have them believe. But the decision to pass up the opportunity to address this universal credit anomaly, and help low-paid workers who suffer income fluctuations as a result of taking strike action, is mean-spirited. The way it has been presented takes sides by clearly aiming to discourage some of the most vulnerable workers from exercising their right to strike. The system also seems likely to increase administrative burdens on employers – not only will they be faced with reporting every income fluctuation to the new universal credit computer system, but now they will also have to provide separate information to HMRC on whether any income reductions are the result of industrial action. It may not be intended, but this adds up to a state record of anyone striking. This has serious civil liberties implications. And it will create more bureaucracy. A proper process will need to be set up for employees to appeal their employers' assessments, as without proper enforcement, use of this code could simply provide a convenient way for unscrupulous employers to deny their workers the benefits to which they are entitled. So what's the upshot? The main impact of this policy is that low-paid workers on strike will continue to lose out under benefit rules, making difficult times that bit harder for themselves and their families. And although the government has oversold the initiative in a desperate attempt to please its right flank, its decision to do so speaks volumes about its high-handed disregard for the real lives, fears and grievances of hard-pressed low-income families. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The right to be a member of a Trade Union is a fundamental Human Right, Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states this... (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his (or her) interests. Related Articles also point out.... Article 4 - No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms Article 20(1) - Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (this right to assembly obviously includes strike action) Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights states... Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. So, it's pretty clear, isn't it... People have a fundamental right to join unions, they have a fundamental right to free and peaceful assembly, which would include legal strike actions... So, why is the Government effectively blackmailing the poorest workers in this land that if they take up the fundamental human right to strike, then they will be penalised by having their working tax credits taken away from them... Not only is this immoral, it makes no logical sense.. Workers are taking strike action in order to improve their pay and work conditions in the main, so, logically, surely if they are being paid more by their employers, surely it follows that there would be less of a need on their part to rely on the state to "top up" their income.... But the Tories and the Neo-Libera$ts are not interested in such clear, simple logic it seems.. They think that people should just be grateful to have a job and put up with whatever bullshit their employers heaps onto them... Add Mandatory Workfare into the mix (which is clearly a violation of Article 4 of the Universal Declaration and Article 4 of the EU Convention too) and the overall impression I get is that the Tories and the Neo-Libs will only be happy when workers are basically Serfs and modern-day versions of Peasants.... This clearly has to be resisted. The facts are that as the power of unions has diminished, so has the value of workers' earnings and their spending power, oh, but of course, the Neo-Libs need people to keep consuming, so instead they brought the advent of "easy credit" and encouraged people to live beyond their means. Conversely, the earnings of the "Top Managers", Executives, etc, has sky-rocketed in the past 30 years. This is fact, you can look this up, there's plenty of research out there to back this up....

Are Coca Cola and McDonalds British companies...?? All depends on where their Corporate HQs are... How else do you suppose Amazon avoids paying UK taxes...? Their Headquarters is in Luxembourg.... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbys...x-concerns.html http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-stag...justice-network

Good old Charlie Brooker....... :lol: :lol: Not excited by the Olympics? Then thank God for the sponsors http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...P=FBCNETTXT9038 The Olympic games trundle ever closer, and already you can smell the excitement in the air, because it's being wafted in by gigantic corporate excitement blowers. Try as they might to engage us, we're not on tenterhooks yet. On paper it's virtually illegal to be anything other than thrilled to self-pissing point at the prospect of hours of running, jumping, swimming etc filling our minds and airwaves for several weeks, but in reality, the majority of Britons appear to be acknowledging the forthcoming games with little more than an offhand shrug. We're just not that arsed – not right now, anyway. That'll change the moment any of our athletes gets within sniffing distance of any kind of medal – then it'll be all cheering and jubilant BBC montages – but until then we're being very British about the whole thing by largely ignoring it, aside from the odd quiet moan about the negative effect it'll have on the traffic. It'd be worrisome if this low-level grumpiness extended into the Games themselves: if the crowd audibly tutted whenever anyone other than Britain won, and the medals were handed over by an official displaying the same vaguely begrudging air as a checkout assistant passing you a replacement carrier bag when the first one splits. That's definitely how we would behave if we didn't have guests. Hopefully instead we'll plaster on a fake smile for our overseas visitors, and after 10 minutes forget we were faking and actively start to enjoy the whole thing. But what if that doesn't happen? How else can we get into the spirit of the Games? Well, for starters we could make that fake smile frosty-white by brushing our teeth with an Oral-B electric toothbrush. "Oral-B is getting behind the London 2012 Olympics," cheers the Boots website. "Share the excitement with their Professional Care 500 floss action electric toothbrush." Yes: the exhilaration, the agony, the sheer elation experienced by athletes operating at the peak of their physical aptitude – all this can be yours in the form of a vibrating twig you stick in your mouth. In case you think the mere notion of an official Olympic electric toothbrush is absurd, remember: athletes need clean teeth to attain peak performance. Steve Ovett was the favourite to win the 1500m at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but was hopelessly weighed down by a heavy buildup of plaque that had accumulated in his mouth in the months leading up to the contest, allowing Sebastian Coe to snatch the gold. Oral-B's official Olympic toothbrush exists because its parent company, Procter & Gamble, has a sponsorship deal enabling it to associate all its products with the Games. That's why if you look up Viakal limescale remover on a supermarket website, the famous five interlocking rings pop up alongside it. This in no way cheapens the Olympic emblem, which traditionally symbolises global unity, peaceful competition and gleaming stainless steel shower baskets. When you're done sprucing up your teeth and your bathroom, you could further embrace the Olympic spirit by slurping a Coca-Cola (official Olympic drink) followed by a Twirl from Cadbury's (official Olympic snack provider). Or really go the whole hog and polish off a couple of Sausage-and-Egg McMuffins at your local McDonald's (official Olympic restaurant), after which you should be ready to represent Britain in the 400-litre diarrhoea. I've never understood why firms are prepared to shell out a fortune simply to refer to the Olympics in their advertising, but then I've always been mildly baffled by the popularity of sport full-stop. I also never understood why Gillette paid Tiger Woods, a man famous for hitting balls with a stick, a huge amount of money to promote scraping a bit of sharp metal across your face – only to sideline him when it became apparent that as well as hitting balls with a stick, he had been inserting his penis into as many different women as possible, an aspiration he presumably shared with the vast majority of Gillette's customers. My natural inclination is to find the wave of "official" branding vaguely sinister, but on reflection it's actually rather touching the way these companies seem to earnestly believe their consumers give a toss. Will anyone in the country choose a Dairy Milk over a Yorkie just because the former has the Olympic rings printed on the wrapper? After all, now that it appears alongside everything from toothbrushes to Viakal, the official Olympic iconography has become just another bit of background visual noise – like the Keep Britain Tidy icon, or a barcode. Your brain filters it out before your mind even notices it was there in the first place. If I was Adidas (official Team GB Olympic outfitters), I'd be furious. At least sportswear has some connection to the traditional Olympic ideal of people from far-flung corners of the Earth engaging in hard physical graft for little financial reward, especially if it turns out it was made in an Indonesian sweatshop. Instead, the Olympic rings have been whored around so much they've become valueless: a status symbol for a few corporations to tote like a badge for several weeks, impressing almost no one except themselves. It's bizarre, and it's increasingly far removed from the event itself, which, last time I checked, chiefly involves running around and jumping over things. And, if you're British, moaning about the traffic.

If you think that, then you clearly fail to understand my argument... There is no contradiction at all in this, the games ARE over-commercialised, and they wont make a return for London or Londoners.... This is yet again another example of the current Neo-Liberast thinking of "Public risk and private profits"... The tax-payer bears all the financial risk of the games, these Corporate Sponsors will be allowed to walk off with the profits from the increased revenue streams that millions of extra visitors bring in... Put it this way - millions more people consuming Coca Cola and McDonalds burgers will mean the UK profits for these companies will increase, the tax-payer will see none of that, that will go directly to Corporate HQ, or to off-shore tax havens, increased dividends to shareholder and bonuses for top executives... I repeat - Public Risk/Private Profit.... So, it's not in any way a contradiction to be against the over commercialisation and to criticise the games for representing very poor value for the tax-payer.....

"Blatant Dishonesty" is Jeremy Hunt's Middle names though mate.....

What the hell are you talking about, the ORIGINAL figure was £2bn ffs, that was the one that Ken Livingstone and New Labour put about at the time.... This is complete nonsense, it's OVER the original quoted figure by over £7bn you idiot..... -_-