If you missed it, Dispatches has an interesting feature on the payment of tax and the Duchy of Cornwall.
Interestingly the programme must have been made before the revelation that Margaret Hodge's family company is perhaps not all it should be, when it comes to tax matters.
Hodge, however, does make a good point that although the Duke of Rothsay pays income tax, it is done so on a voluntary basis. The state has no powers to demand tax from him. No one, she indicates, should pay tax on 'a voluntary basis'. Quite right. There should be rules and they should apply to me and Charles Mountbatten equally... oh, and to Margaret Hodge.
The thrust of the programme is that the duchy pays neither corporation tax nor capital gains tax, and in not doing so has advantage over other commercial entities doing exactly the same thing; that because of this the estate makes a great deal more money than an equivalent that wasn't owned by a royal and that it is all rather 1913 rather than 2013 in its running. A side line in teh programme is that for all the Baron Renfew talks about green this and green that, some of his business affairs don't appear to reflect his stated concerns.
Time the thing was ended and the heir to the throne relied only on the £16 million he gets from the state to run his office.
Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, has been invited to attend a Buckingham Palace garden party hosted by the Queen. Each year British MEPs are entitled to two tickets to one of the Queen’s three garden parties at Buckingham Palace. A spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace confirmed that an invitation had been issued this year. She said that Mr Griffin was eligible to nominate himself and the Palace would not discriminate against democratically elected representatives.
His possible attendance plunges the palace into fresh controversy over its attitude to Griffin, who has been convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial hatred.
Mr Griffin is invited is in his capacity as a North West of England MEP and has provoked concern that other MEPs would boycott the eve
nt. Other MEPs and opponents of the far-right party warned that Mr Griffin’s invitation “utterly compromised” the Queen and risked politicising the annual event.
Claude Moraes, a Labour MEP for London, said that the move “deeply politicises and embarrasses the Queen”. “She has been forced into an extremely difficult situation. I would expect some people to boycott the party. If people knew about this it would clearly spoil the occasion for a lot of them. “It has utterly compromised the Queen and she is made to feel that she has to make a political decision.”
Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who trounced Mr Griffin in his bid for the seat of Barking and Dagenham, said: “It sickens me that Nick Griffin uses his elected position to gain access to the Royal garden party.”
How terrible that her Majesty should be forced meet a person elected by some her subjects. I am not a supporter of the BNP but let’s review some of the people the Queen h
as met in the past: Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, The Shah of Persia and Nicolae Ceausescu. None of them was elected and they had all committed far worse crimes than incitement to racial hatred. So why did she meet them? It must have been politically motivated and she was told to by the PM/Government at the time because it was politically expedient.
Nick Griffin may be a revolting character but he was elected by the people. If in these times of Dunkirk spirit and us all tightening our belts, we can still afford to have garden parties then it is HMs job to invite MEPs and what is more it is their job to go. But the best solution of all would be to save the money and not have garden parties state dinners banquets etc etc etc. Maybe if as David Cameron says its going to change the country for ever we can’t afford the Queen!
