Category Archives: BBC bias

Just some things of interest to chew on that show Labour’s hypocrisy and how complicated offshore banking and investment is…especially as the UK is one of the world’s biggest tax havens itself…no small thanks to Gordon Brown.

The BBC seems totally uninterested in raising awkward questions for Labour and looks to be targeting Cameron….they must think they have the EU referendum in the bag and can risk smearing and undermining the Tory PM for the joy of it.

Jeremy Corbyn almost always voted against measures to reduce tax avoidance

 

Sajid Javid The Economic Secretary to the Treasury

 ‘No’?

Jeremy Corbyn

Pimco, along with every other financial institution from insurance, banks and pension businesses, have offshore investment schemes.

Pimco, like Cameron’s dad’s old company now, has based its PIMCO Funds: Global Investors Series plc in Ireland for tax purposes…

Irish Taxation of the Company

The Directors have been advised that, under current Irish law and practice, the Company qualifies as an investment undertaking as defined in Section 739B of the Taxes Act, so long as the Company is resident in Ireland. Accordingly the Company is not chargeable to Irish tax on its income and gains.

Why, if these are so bad, does Labour’s ex PM join up with Pimco?…

Gordon Brown to join investment firm Pimco’s global advisory board

This maybe the answer…he said this in 1994…..

“The taxpayer is entitled to take advantage of the law to minimise his or her tax bill…

But….It is the complexity of the present system that has encouraged the growth of a flourishing avoidance industry.”  Gordon Brown

So a complex tax regulation system encourages tax avoidance (legal)….who is it that massively increased that complexity……and created the ‘most populous tax haven in the world’?

And yet at the end of his time in office Gordon Brown is the Chancellor of the most populous tax haven in the world according to an IMF study. The passing of the Income Tax Act 2007 has made the UK tax legislation the bulkiest in the world, the volume of legislation having doubled since Brown came to power in 1997. An estimate by the Tax Justice Network suggested that at least 40% of all tax legislation from 2004 to 2006 was directly related to tax avoidance, suggesting the issue has far from gone away. And there are frequent suggestions that Britain is now the tax haven of choice for the world’s mega-rich, only three of the top ten in the Sunday Times rich list for 2007 having actually been born in the UK whilst those featured in that list have seen their wealth increase by an average of 260% over the last ten years in contrast with an average 120% wealth increase for the population as a whole.

This is what an IMF study said….

In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the need to improve the understanding of the activities of offshore financial centers (OFCs) because these centers have captured a significant proportion of global financial flows.  Concerns regarding potential risks posed by OFCs to the international financial system have resulted in a number of global initiatives to improve oversight.  Because OFCs depend on their ability to attract global financial business, competition is strong, and incentives for compliance with international standards are significantly different in OFCs compared to primarily domestic markets. There is a greater risk that profitability is achieved at the expense of regulatory and supervisory standards.

In terms of specific findings, the study identified Latvia, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay as OFCs.

The UK itself is one big tax haven…

The UK, under Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown became a lead player in the regulatory race to the bottom through which nations tried to poach financial service industry activity from competing national centres or to stop their own financial enterprises from relocating abroad.

The UK government still looks to support that industry….and here.…and here…

As George Osborne, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: “The message is simple, the UK is not just open for investment management business, it is actively seeking it. We look forward to working with industry and investors to win it, keep it, and help it grow.” 

Here’s a list of approved offshore funds.

The Tories lured Nissan to the UK with tax breaks in the 1980’s and Labour continued that policy handing over large sums of money to keep Nissan happy…even when Nissan changed it’s company structure to avoid UK tax in 2008…

Nissan sells UK cars via Switzerland as tax ruse

Britain’s biggest car maker is avoiding paying millions of pounds in corporation tax every year – by selling its vehicles through a Swiss parent company.

Nissan Motor Manufacturing, which has received tens of millions of pounds in Government grants to build cars in the UK, is a contract manufacturer for another Nissan company based in Rolle, Switzerland.

Nissan has received almost £80 million in grants from British Governments over the past ten years, with politicians bending over backwards to persuade the Japanese car giant to invest in its Sunderland car production plant. As recently as March 2010 it was awarded £21 million to develop the all-electric Nissan Leaf.

In 2012 Ed Miliband was praising that effort.

In 2009…

Brown and Mandelson welcome Nissan factory and jobs

All that is rather a paradox really when you consider how Labour now attacks companies that bring jobs and investment but get a low tax rate or use other countries to base themselves in for tax purposes…

Labour’s John McDonnell vows aggressive tax drive against multinational firms

Even McDonnell seems confused…on the one hand pledging to invest in industry [ie tax breaks and handouts] but also attacking those who legally ‘minimise their tax liability’ [as Gordon Brown might approve of]

Mr McDonnell said Labour’s strategy would be based on growing the economy by strategically investing in key industries and sectors.

“We will force people like Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon and Google and all the others to pay their fair share of taxes.”

Would that include Nissan?  Presumably McDonnell would give them 10’s of millions as an investment and then tax them until the pips squeak.

In 2007 under Labour and 10 years of GB as Chancellor…

Super-rich paying no income tax

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott said: ‘These devastating figures prove that the richer you are, the less tax you pay in Brown’s Britain. Gordon Brown won’t get a grip on rich men’s tax-dodging when close adviser Geoffrey Robinson used offshore trusts and Sir Ronald Cohen [who bankrolled Mr Brown’s leadership campaign] conceals whether he is domiciled in Britain for tax purposes.’

Avoid tax…get a Knighthood…

The Guardian, April 2006

Hans Rausing, the Swedish billionaire whose tax arrangements were revealed by the Guardian, is among scores of foreign citizens awarded official honours in the last year. Rausing, former head of Tetra Pak, who has lived in England since 1982, was awarded an honorary knighthood in January.

Four years ago, the Guardian revealed that, although he and his immediate family had an income of about £4m a week, he was using so many tax loopholes that in at least one year, he and his UK businesses received more from the Treasury than they handed over.

How the Inland Revenue helps corporations avoid tax

The Guardian

Published July 2002

The taxman gives big corporations a break

The Guardian

Published July 2002

The two thousand largest corporations in Britain are being allowed to cut corners in tax law and to escape Inland Revenue penalties as part of the government’s efforts to produce a business-friendly environment.

 

Labour’s offshore trust hypocrisy (not the Dodgeson this time)…..

The Government clearly oppose offshore trusts, yet the Minister in charge of the policy has such a trust himself. Even worse, his plans for individual savings accounts will cut tax relief for many thousands of savers with more than £50,000 in personal equity plans and tax-exempt special savings accounts, yet he has the benefit from at least £12 million that is stuffed into a secretive tax haven, avoiding tax all together. No wonder he has been accused of hypocrisy and by no less a person than the Deputy Prime Minister, who said on “Breakfast with Frost”:

“You may argue that the politician”– the Paymaster General– “has said one thing and perhaps done another. That seems to be the greatest charge against him.”

That last line of course may bring to mind recent Labour comments about Cameron and how terribly hypocritical it was of him to have had an investment in his father’s business and then, after he’d sold his shares, say he will tackle the abuse of tax avoidance.

The Tories introduced a higher capital gains tax to tackle offshore windfalls…..

In his 1991 Budget speech, the then Chancellor, Norman Lamont, argued:

“I do not think that it is right for a relatively small number of wealthy people to shift very large assets into offshore trusts simply in order to avoid United Kingdom tax.”–[Official Report, 19 March 1991; Vol. 188, c. 174.]

As a consequence of the Conservative legislation in 1991, United Kingdom residents transferring assets to an offshore trust for the benefit of themselves or their family are now liable for capital gains tax. It is notable that in a recent article in Accountancy Age on the possibility of a Labour Government cracking down on offshore tax avoidance via trusts, the chairman of the Jersey Fund Managers Association was quoted as saying:

“The Conservative Government already levelled up the playing field. I don’t think a Labour Government holds any particular worries for us.”

On offshore trusts and CGT, Gordon Brown agreed as he wrote in 1994:

“As the law stands, offshore owners of UK assets, including companies, shares and land, pay no CGT when they trade in these assets. A UK resident can transfer assets to an offshore trust and the trustees can then make payments to beneficiaries in the UK, avoiding much tax liability.”

So why did he and Labour massively reduce capital gains tax?…….

In the late 1990s, the Labour government removed the tax on dividends. In 2000 it cut capital gains tax from 40 per cent to 10. It exempted from tax those profits returned to the UK from overseas subsidiaries. Tax reduction is central to most private equity buyouts, like Boots.

Gordon Brown told the 1996 Labour Party Conference, “A Labour Chancellor will not permit tax reliefs to millionaires in tax havens.” There is now an estimated $2.7 trillion hiding in tax havens. In 2002 Brown extended the 10 per cent top rate capital gains tax to gains made after just two years not ten.

Don’t ask me questions…now push off!!

Will the BBC report this little spat?  You can be sure it would be headline grabbing news if it had been Cameron.

The Huffington Post has given the story a look.  Others will no doubt follow.

A story about Elton John kissing and making up with his partner?  No, just a BBC typo.

Well, the BBC have joined in the “Call me Dave should resign because he…owned perfectly legal share and …gasp.. sold them… and….gasp…paid his due taxes”  Here’s a weekend thread for you. Detail the bias here.

Not sure why when you Google ‘celebrity injunction’ up pops a totally unrelated story from Guido.

Looking at the comments though you see that some are totally unimpressed with the BBC’s interview on Today with a man who gave drugs to his boyfriend…

Cassandrina

The BBC reached new depths of hypocrisy and bias this morning when its “flagship” radio Today Programme interviewed a homosexual 35 year old UK barrister who gave his live in-young immigrant lover drugs, that killed him overnight.
The BBC interviewer took a highly moral stance and chastised an already compliant barrister in tones similar to giving to a naughty 10 year old.
What the programme totally failed to inform us was that the drugs given to the barrister were supplied by a BBC Editor.
I will be following this court case on the barrister and his BBC drug supplier with interest.

Why so shy by the BBC…not as if it was a secret…

Celebrity barrister, 35, admits buying party drugs that killed his teenage boyfriend from a BBC producer during an all-night ‘chemsex’ orgy inside legal chambers

If they are so concerned about the supply of these drugs why are they not interviewing their own man…or perhaps just drag in anyone walking down the BBC corridor and ask them….sure to have something knowledgeable to say of value.

Busy start to the day for the Comrades in the Today programme on Radio 4. They had TWO items on the Dutch referendum on whether to support EU expansionism into Ukraine. As you know, the result was emphatically NO to further EU expansionism with 61% of those who voted ticking that box. At NO point during either Today discussion was the SCALE or indeed the % mentioned. The BBC line was to playdown the significance, low turnout, nothing to see etc. Pathetic stuff.

They also ran a classic Nanny State item with the unbearable Shirley Cramer, chief executive at the Royal Society of Public Health droning on that  food should be labelled with the exercise required to burn off its calories, to help people change their behaviour. There is never an alternative view put against this inherent Nannyism.

Finally, with all the furore about the Panama papers (wealthy people seeking to retain their wealth, what a shocker) the BBC sends a reporter to …Norway. Here, everyone’s tax details are available for you to view on-line. The BBC line was one of implicit approval. Curiously, if one wants to know how much the BBC pays its “talent’ then there is a total REFUSAL to transparency! Do as I say, etc.

It really is an odious propaganda channel for the Left, cultural marxism at OUR expense.

Time for  a new one of these! If you spot bias detail it here!

 

Apparently we can trace the path Hannibal took over the Alps by tracking the piles of ancient elephant shit left in his wake.  No doubt in future we can trace the path that links the mountainous pile of ruinous green legislation that’s attacking our industry to the BBC office of Roger Harrabin by the mounds of bullshit left on route.

This from the BBC doesn’t make any sense at all….via Bishop Hill…

Ed Davey was interviewed on the Today programme this morning. He was introduced as a former SoS for Energy and Climate Change, and was asked to defend the economics of the planned EDF nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point, which he was responsible for arranging while in office. The deal between the government and EDF is extraordinary on any analysis, and the project has consequently been called ‘the most expensive power station in the world’. Your interviewer rightly brought up the fact of this expense being a burden that the bill payer and tax payer would have to shoulder for decades to come.

However, since being removed from office by the voting public, Davey has taken a position at MHP Communications — EDF’s PR firm — as was revealed by The Times. Davey was given the opportunity to speak to your listeners to defend the deal he was responsible for, and his function as an interested party in EDF’s business was not brought up in the discussion.

The BBC’s response…

We raised your concerns about the Ed Davey interview with the Today programme. They explained that the programme was aware that Sir Ed Davey is an employee of MHP but it took note of the agreement he reached with the Government’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments which agreed that “…he would not have any involvement with EDF whatsoever in relation to their generating business prior to the announcement of a final investment decision in relation to Hinkley Point C.”

This deals with any issues of a potential conflict of interest in relation to MHP’s contract with EDF.

So Davey would not have any role whatsoever in EDF until a final decision was made on EDF and yet there he is on the BBC defending the the economics of the EDF plant.

The BBC covering up for their old dodgy Libdem green friend who wants to bankrupt industry to save the planet.

On that note there’s this from the GWPF with a very current bit of news…

EU Climate Policy Threatens Future Of European Steel Industry

The planned reform of CO2 emissions trading in Europe threatens hundreds of thousands of jobs in Germany. This is the conclusion of a study by the research institute Prognos and commissioned by the German Steel Association. “The industrial business model of the German economy is at stake,” warned association president Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff.

According to the Prognos study, production and employment in the German steel industry would collapse by two thirds by 2030.

252,000 jobs are lost in the service sector alone, according to the study, around 71,000 in industry, 37,000 in the steel sector and 17,000 in the construction industry. And that are rather conservative assumptions, Limbers says.

Not seen anything on the BBC about this yet….considering British steel production is already on its knees due in no small part to Miliband’s green taxes this could only utterly destroy the industry here.  No interest from Harrabin and Co?

Clearly in the current climate of racial realpolitik and understanding I can now post jokes such as the above whereas previously they would have been malignant racist insults based upon racial stereotypes that perpetuate the image of African Americans as primitive melon munching, kool-aid drinking blacks just off the plantation.  Now we can apparently recognise such ‘jokes’ as genuine social commentary reflective of the authentic black experience and lifestyle….the joke is now culturally appropriate.  Previously associating such cultural delights with black people was racist stereotyping, now it’s an essential part of their culture that must not be appropriated by the white people, so  understand this….White people cannot eat fried chicken or water melons or drink Kool-aid from now on…not without licence from an approved black person….how black is authentic black?  Don’t start.  Sounds all very Hitlerian.

Whatismore, the blatant cultural theft and pillaging by the Rolling Stones can now be seen for what it was…the oppression of the black race as the interplay of power dynamics meant that the white, socially more powerful and racially privileged Stones, could steal black music for their own profit.  You may listen to the below to enhance your understanding of the racial issues…but do not enjoy it….

The BBC has of course been at the forefront of the movement to disbar white people from cultural sharing and assimilation….the West Indies can play cricket but if you white you can’t wear plaits in your hair man.

Biased BBC naturally has been chasing the BBC on this for a long time now as the BBC helps to stir up the pot of racist apartheid that some black race hustlers seem intent on creating.

Here and here you can take a long leisurely look at a couple of posts that explore the BBC’s dangerous approach to such a controversial and inflammatory subject.

The BBC’s latest promotion of the issue was on Newsnight (23 mins) [H/T Destroy-Deny-Degrade-Disrupt] where we had a Muslim in America and Emma Dabiri on the anti-white side [along with the sycophantic Wark] and one man, Ian Dunt, to defend the cultural thieving toerags.

The Muslim lady told us that it was inappropriate to take someone else’s culture and to profit from it without their permission…as she sat there with an Islamic crescent on a necklace representing a religion that stole and plagiarised from Christianity, Judaism and other cultures to cobble together the Islamic religion….and in doing so insults and denigrates those religions it usurps….never mind killing their believers.

Dabiri is the most amusing though, and the most confused having a white Irish mother and an African father [It’s OK to ‘appropriate’ white women but not black hairstyles?]…. she claims she isn’t white.…but identifies as Black…how so?

Though my mum’s Irish, my father is Nigerian. I am not white!

As for cultural sharing she seems to be all for that as long as you aren’t white….which she isn’t!….

Identities should not be forged out of experiences of racism alone, but also through a sense of shared cultural references.

Despite not admittting to being white she does claim to be Irish and to claim her heritage in the 1916 rising….

The child of an immigrant Irish mother living in the US, I grew up immersed in tales of heroic Irishmen. I particularly remember the story of Connolly who, bleeding profusely from his wounds and unable to walk, was carried to the firing range by the British soldiers.

And to Ireland I did indeed fly. When I was five years old we returned, me with a head full of myths, songs, legends and expectations about that homecoming.

Many of the problems arose out of my claims of Irishness itself. That was what really seemed to offend people’s sensibilities. Irishness is synonymous with whiteness, it seemed. Whiteness is “pure” and doesn’t extend to brown girls, even those who can trace their Irish ancestry back to the 10th century. How frequently I heard that I “wasn’t really Irish”. But I am Irish. In addition to being born there, my mother, her parents before her, and theirs before them, for generations and generations, are all Irish.

Did those revolutionary men and women who fought so bravely to liberate the land of my birth, who captured my imagination from such a young age, fight for my liberation too?

Interesting that she wants to claim to be Irish and the Irish weren’t so impressed with that… a matter that Dabiri thought was racist and offensive.  But she still thinks white people can’t wear their hair in plaits…though she herself can have straightened hair…even though she isn’t white…..

She does make a living out of being ‘professionally black’ so we can’t expect the real world to impose itself upon her academic ivory, or is that ebony, tower…..perhaps we should name her after a famous Irish stout…black, Irish with a hint of white…..

Let’s see Emma (Good African heritage name) Dabiri live the cowboy…and dress the part she so much claims to own…..when not being Irish…

Here’s the BBC’s culturally authentic ‘blackman’, Alvin Hall…

Oh…sorry…this is him…

It is a curious thing that the BBC should be so happy promoting what is in fact a ‘white supremacist’ theme of non-integration and racial purity….

The BBC in alliance with the Nazis? Who’d have thought.