All Equal in the Eyes of the Law (except Barclays)

It is a long standing principle that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. However, this principle has been forgotten in recent years, as successive governments have sought to be friendly to business, without making the distinction between freedom of enterprise, and the commission of criminal acts.

How Cameron can beat Miliband in 2015

According to YouGov, David Cameron’s approval rating has shifted from -25 to -18 over the period of the recent tax avoidance story. This improvement flies in the face of the media view that Cameron would suffer the charge of hypocrisy for condemning Jimmy Carr, when so many Tory donors are guilty of the same.

It now seems that Cameron was in touch with the public mood. The media taunts on Cameron’s hypocrisy have served little other than to highlight the Prime Minister’s intervention, while swatting Ed Miliband into the shadows and out of public glare. The crackdown on tax avoidance is now a Tory issue to be grabbed, while Miliband has so far been uninspired on a territory that the public would expect to be owned by Labour.

Making Immigration Policy Tangible

A couple of years ago, following a spate of gang violence, I chaired a youth crime task force, where we strove to create workable ideas for providing employment and occupation to young white and black lads who were hanging about on the street corner, getting bored and getting into trouble. We found ourselves discussing the fact that east-end families used to go fruit picking in the summer, but the tradition seems to have been lost.

Arrest Jimmy Carr!

Arrest Jimmy Carr!

It’s time to stop messing around on this one. Jimmy Carr wasn’t doing tax avoidance, that’s when you put money in an ISA. What he was doing was tax evasion, that’s when you dishonestly avoid paying the tax that you owe.

He put his money in an account of a company in the tax haven of Jersey and then had that company pay him his money back in a loan. He said he didn’t need to pay tax on that because it was a loan. I say that’s a big lie.

The reason he tried his luck in this way is because the Inland Revenue have traditionally been frightened of scaring off wealthy people by being too aggressive. So the wealthy use these dodgy schemes, and then when the IR come to speak to investigate, the wealthy negotiate how much they’re going to pay in tax.

The Reason why the Tories Enjoy Sacking People

The Tories propose to abolish the age old rule that the civil service appoint the head of each government department. They want to side-line the civil service and pick their own department heads. Soon enough whole swathes of Whitehall will be run by their old chums from school.

Just when you thought this government had been humbled by Leveson, they have hit back with a proposal to abolish checks and balances. It will be virtually impossible to detect a bribe taking-minister, once he’s picked his own bribe-taking civil servant to be his partner in crime. If anyone thinks this government is interested in being whiter than white, think again. Patronage has come back, and it’s about to be made law.

The End of Austerity – and what it means to the Tories

Reports that Spanish banks will be bailed out without a consequent austerity package have prompted Newsnight’s Paul Mason to describe this as a game-changer. However, he’s only thinking about the Euro crisis. If Germany really has turned, then the only government left to pursue aggressive austerity is the British.

It is fitting, in a way, since George Osborne Caused the Euro Crisis. He is the inventor and chief proponent of aggressive austerity. It is his baby. If he’d had no influence, then Europe would likely be in a very different situation today. It is worth looking back at how this came to be.

Did Cameron arrange the Cable Sting?

This is the dynamite question, the one that has the potential to bring down this government. Whose idea was it for The Telegraph to conduct a covert recording on Vince Cable in December 2012? Could it have been the Tory leadership? If this was demonstrated to be the case, then the Tories have deliberately destroyed the reputation of a Liberal Democrat colleague, and the coalition would immediately come to an end.

Make Gas not War!

As the British question whether they could mount another Falklands war, the sabre-rattling in Buenos Aires intensifies, and spreads to the other Latin American countries.

It’s not the economy, stupid!

Over the last year, each of the movements in the polls had nothing to do with the economy. The first was Libya, the second was the phantom Veto, and the third was Ken Livingstone’s surge from the Fare’s Fair policy. None was related to economic matters.