HSBC Tax Dodgers

Cameron could have a future writing satire.He doesn't have one as a politician!

Sometimes you wonder what satirists do for a living in these days of politicians, and the rest of the Establishment, satirising themselves.

I mean in the past you'd have expected a George Parr interview on the Rory Bremner Show, or some smart comment from a panellist on 'Have I Got News for You?', or 'The News Quiz'.

But how can you improve on the jokes these people make of themselves?

Labour's loan

Of course just as the Labour Party were chortling at the unfortunate revelation that the Swiss subsidiary of HSBC had been helping its customers to fiddle, and that the man who had been in charge of all this fiddling had been ennobled by Cameron and made a government minister... (you couldn't make this up), news broke suggesting that the Labour Party took out a loan of £2 million with a certain billionaire (we shall call him Richard Caring because that's his name), who banked with the company. (He was known to have withdrawn just over that sum in cash from the Geneva branch of HSBC only a matter of months before in 2006.) 

The Scottish Office leader and some random ned.

Incidentally the loan was to be free of interest until July 2010, after which it would accrue interest at a rate of 6.5%. So, as it apparently is not yet paid back, it looks like Labour may have a large interest bill to settle by September of this year when the whole sum is to be be returned. And I expect he'll want him money because Mr Caring has somewhat disingenuously transferred his affections to the Tory Party. I wonder where that will leave Blair who has been travelling the world, making millions, thanks to Mr Caring generosity, in his private plane.

You can add to that the titbit that a FoI request submitted by Alasdair Allan* has revealed that Jim Murphy claimed for 2 tins of Irn Bru on his parliamentary expenses. Clearly he could not be expected to be able to do his parliamentary duties without a quick gurgle of the drink that's made from Girders (or Gorders as I originally typed... Freudian error?).

And finally... for a belly aching laugh, the above mentioned Gadfly, Blair, has said that he will do whatever it takes to help Ed Miliband into 10 Downing Street. No really, he has.

Good place for  warmongering
 ex prime ministers who need to lie low.

Seriously Tony, if you want to help Ed, I'd suggest a few months' holiday in Antarctica...or maybe you could ask Richard Branson if he has any flights to the moon going any time soon...

* Thanks to Anon, below, for correcting my error that it was Guido that initiated the FoI request.

SO, WHO, OR WHAT, IS LEFT TO TRUST?

I was reflecting the other day, in conversation with my mother, that there is virtually no one left to trust.


We all know how MPs systematically cheated us out of billions over the last 30 years since Thatcher put a brake on the public perception of their greed, but let the wheels slide over the surreptitious increase in alternative income. And by now we know too that the ridiculous anachronism along the corridor did exactly the same thing. (Wouldn't this have been an ideal opportunity to rid ourselves of this bloated chamber forever)? 


We are aware that despite all the theft, only a few dismal examples at the bottom of the food chain in both houses have been charged, found guilty and spent a matter of weeks, rather than months behind bars, released early, doubtless to write books about their misfortune.


It's become plain too, that members of the royal family, most notably Andrew, have been enjoying the jet set life at our expense, and sometimes at the expense of rich dictators' families, while his daughters fall out of night clubs at 4 in the morning followed by body guards paid for by us.


The tabloid press has made a habit of providing the scandal hungry public with  salacious titbits about their favourite "celebrities" by hacking their phones... or at least the phones of the ones who didn't rush to disclose every detail of dirty doings (read Jordan and Pete). And the Met, England's finest, are complicit in this, having accepted hospitality, and employment from the press, then giving scant attentions to charges against them. (It's only fair to say that the Met aren't the only corrupt police force in the news.)


Banks, the finance industry and the City (the markets) privatised their profits and socialised their losses. Despite the billions we pumped into them, the government is having to guarantee loans to small business, and top up what they loan to first time buyers leaving us to wonder why we continue to have banks, or why we didn't let them fail. They'll all go to Mumbai .... awwww.


The story of HSBC'S selling insurance to vulnerable OAPs make my flesh creep, and despite the names of the executives responsible and their methods being known, no one has been arrested. (I heard this on the morning news programme, but it seems to have disappeared from the BBC site, so there is no link.)

Now today, despite denying it yesterday, the UK government has conceded that the lobbiests have direct access at the highest level to them and can get them to intercede and change policy, overnight in some cases (obviously only when it is in the bests interests of the country!!!). (Excuse me, must run, my hat just blew off.)


So far who is left to trust is the Scottish government.  Don't let us down Alex. If you do you will never be forgiven.

CONGRATULATIONS MR PRESIDENT

I’m at a loss to understand why the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland telephoned the President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to congratulate him on his appointment.

From my reading of it Hamid Karzai has the position of president because his regime is so corrupt that his opponent in the presidential runoff, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the process. The first ballot had been “characterized by lack of security, low voter turnout and widespread ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other electoral fraud” (Wikipedia). There had also been a considerable number of deaths in the violence caused by the election, including the deaths of British soldiers.

Apparently Dr Abdullah realized that the second ballot had little hope of producing a different result and withdrew in order to save lives that would be lost were he to pursue further his hopes of becoming president.

Within hours of this corrupt man taking his place as president of a country for which our troops are providing security, Brown was on the phone to him. Contrast that with the fact that the phone at Bute House has still never rung with a congratulatory word for the First Minister of this country two and a bit years after he took office. Fortunately for Alex Salmond any kind of backing from Mr Brown is about the last thing he (or indeed anyone else ....ask Tony Blair...) needs.