GREAT BRITISH VALUES...AN OCCASIONAL SERIES
There a seemingly endless list of things we can't find the money for in the UK, many of them relating to the welfare of the poor, the sick and the old. But one thing we can always allow is that the super-rich can get away with whatever kind of crap they want to.
"His Grace" wouldn't miss £3.6 billion, but I guess there are people suffering for horribly illnesses who could, with that kind of money, be given treatment.
I suspect then, that one of the Great British Values, about which they never cease to go on, must be GREED.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/14/david-mitchell-who-duke-westminster-cares-about-9bn-estate
ReplyDeleteI was reflecting on the new Duke of Westminster. The problem is that there still EXISTS a Duke of Westminster as an hereditary thing. The deeper problem is that the British do not know how to govern themselves. Never have. Never will.
Respectfully......the Americans showed them (and the whole world) the way in 1776. You simply sweep away the royalty and aristocracy with revolution. The French learned the American lesson. The British did not.
Oh but the Brits had a "Glorious" revolution. Yea RIGHT! They're good at pretending. In this case, they dressed up a Dutch invasion as an internal British matter. But it created a Constitutional Monarchy.....almost a "de facto" republic didn't it? Yea RIGHT! So where IS that famous British "constitution"? Well it's "unwritten" don't you see. Oh yes, they are SO good at pretending.
The Glorious Revolution was "glorious" because no blood was spilled. But nothing fundamental really changed either.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants".....Thomas Jefferson.
The British missed their chance in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. It's not a terrible thing not to have had a bloody revolution. But it's not all that great either when you look around at all the royal and aristocratic parasites.
Not preaching violent revolution here.....but just sayin'.
Yep. They don't seem to see that there is something wrong with that.
DeleteThey must surely see themselves as inferior, by nature, that they are prepared to have someone for no good reason be called "your grace" and be kowtowed to, not just by the masses, but by the establishment too.
If I were trying to dodge £3 billion in taxes I'm pretty sure that long streak of misery that is the English Finance Secretary would be on it like like a fly on...erm...jam.
I see too that one of the ugly sisters is to be married and that once the deed has been done they are to be given an apartment at Kensington Palace, at our expense. WHAT?
How many more of these blood sucking parasites are we supposed to support?
I note too that Willie and Kate have taken the children on holiday to France, and that we are obliged to pay for a vast number of protection detectives to accompany them, their nanny and a pile of other people.
Now I don't doubt that they need to be protected in France. I've felt the need of that myself!!...Only joking, ma belle France!) But why are we paying for it?
We provide them with massive palaces and vast estates to live in. If they all went to Balmoral we could get away with a small group of police protecting them, but they bugger off all over the damned world for their holidays.
If they feel the need to go to France or anywhere else, they should pay for their own protection. Or not have any. I for one don't give a toss which.
PS: On the other hand, you could have a republic and be in the throes of a political campaign that could elect Donald Trump as your head of state. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteYour big problem in promoting a republic is that Trump could actually be the president.
DeleteThat said, prince Philip isn't a mile away from a fathead like him.
Thatcher latched onto the voodoo economics espoused by the Chicago School and adapter it for England's shopkeeper mentality.
ReplyDeleteHowever,she did not take into account the underlying feudal system that has subsequently hijacked all that nonsense for it's own purposes.
The feudal state could not accept the idea that sovereignty can be shared between nations (Scotland included) and that is why the UK is now about to leave the EU.
Brexit is about much much more than simply immigration which the feudal state would like us all to focus on and will determine the continuing nature of power in these islands for a very long time.
Will Scotland's sheep be frightened again into being penned in by England's feudal system?
I blooming well hope not.
DeleteTris, even if he payed his dues he would still have 6 BILLION pounds to play with! God, I hate this Union.............Ronnie
ReplyDeleteThat's what I was thinking Ronnie. if he paid up it's not like he'd be down at the foodbank or tying to getting himself sanctioned by whoever is the DWP minister these days (I think old Crabbie had to resign over some inappropriate (for a committed Christian) texting to some girl or another. Still, given his pronouncements on gays, it could have been much worse. He could have been sexting a bloke!
DeleteAnyways.... Yes, £6 billion would see him OK for another few years. I mean even SIR Green hasn't got that, and yet he can afford 3 yachts and a home in Monte Carlo (well at least for the moment).
I hate it with a passion too.
Tris
ReplyDeleteWe live in a disgusting country where too many of the people are bowed down and broken. The state of Labour where members are denied the vote shows how much we are broken that when people get interested in change the established will fight tooth and nail to deny them. I don't know what it will take for us to wake up. As far as the young guy is concerned, I am sorry he lost his father, it's not nice when people pass no matter how wealthy they are, but the privilege in this country is beyond disgusting and shameful. He won't volunteer to pay tax, it's not what they do and have been raised to expect not too, life in the good old UK. I hope that enough people wake up soon and we get our independence.
bruce
Well said, Bruce. Kudos for keeping it clean. You're a better man than me.
DeleteYes, it's hard sometimes to keep it civil.
DeleteThe thing is that he is due the tax, or rather he would be it he had his money/property in the UK, but he has tied it up in trust funds abroad so that it isn't an inheritance as such.
Mrs Thatcher did it with her house.
Bruce the dreamer of impossible things
DeleteYep be no tax fiddles in Scotland or Scots fiddling tax
offshore in an Independent Scotland . why everybody will
voluntarily pay more tax and be very very happy to do so.
niko shakes head rolls eyes upwards .....really though !
were do they come from ?
I'd imagine you've shook your head and rolled your eyes quite a lot, recently.
DeleteHe's always done that, Jim. Specially when he forgets his meds!
DeleteYet the britnat media in Scotland still tells us to touch our forelocks and bow down before our betters [together] as the shit continues to be dumped upon us. britnat scum.
ReplyDeleteWell, they can tell us all they like, Dan, but it doesn't do any good in Munguin Towers. I'm afraid that no matter how high born they are, we don't bow, or scrape or use titles (except to mock).
DeleteWell what do you know ... we all live in a country of equals right enough! (face becomes red raw with constant slapping of wet face across it!)
ReplyDeletePHEW!
That's better. For a moment there I thought we were all in it together and this wee article was proof. I mean if we WERE all in it together then no one anywhere in Britain would be paying any death duties. Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case so I can only assume we are all NOT in it together. Better Together eh? Who'd have thunk it? Don't you just love it when a plan comes together ... sorry ... falls apart at the seams!
Munguin says to stop slapping yourself.
DeleteThey don't pay any attention. Indeed they are probably quite happy that you do it to yourself, otherwise they might have to pay someone to do it for them.
Better Together, hummmm, yes. Right. Hmmmm again!
If my memory serves me well, inheritance tax was originally brought in, as a way of making sure no one became wealthier, than the monarch; so why isn't he paying it?
ReplyDeleteSounds about right.
DeleteThe monarch doesn't pay it, so Chick will get the mother load when they Queen dies. He doesn't have to bother salting it away overseas.
Doctors, nurses and loved ones we can do without.....but Westminster will always need a duke. That's how the UK rolls folks.
ReplyDeleteGreat British Values PS!
DeleteThat particular estate is wealthy because of the way land is leased in the South, rather than transferred freehold. So he owns a bit of London.
ReplyDeleteRather than an issue of inheritance tax, is it not more an issue of land reform? I can see why it would perhaps ( ! ) be good for an economy to protect commercial enterprises from tax on the death of a proprietor, but land is a difficult issue. An actual farmer does produce something of value. An inheritor of vast tracts of land is surely just a rent seeker ( in the economics sense).
Good on him for taking advantage of the tax code. Shame on democracy that we have not resolved this feudal vestige.
S.A.
I can see your points, and to a certain extent I can agree that taking away vast amounts of tax from land which is producing food might risk the livelihoods of employees and the vital domestic food production.
DeleteBut , whist we need these land reforms, under the present system it seems that el duce has been active in trying to avoid the tax laws of the land. I suspect that most of the nobs are, and that the only people who pay anything are relatively little people.
It's high time Britain moved out of the 18th century.
This tax situation generated by the two main parties is quite obscene and offensive to anyone with a shred of decency and compassion.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, Tris, whilst on your hols beware of Hungarian DANCE Number 5 especially if you get a little Brahms and Liszt!
I'll pass on your advice to Munguin, John. Us below stairs people aren't allowed alcohol, and the notion that we'd dance is preposterous, so I'll be safe. But we certainly would't want the little furry one to fall in The Blue Danube!
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you are allowed to talk about drinking and worse still DANCING up there in the islands.
We all know where that leads, don't we?