DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

Paris, that I could see, but their tax rates are higher.

It was also agreed at this party that said politician was the kind of person who'd call women 'fillies' un-ironically, and lacked any discernible personal charisma when encountered at neighbourhood dinner parties in the recent past.

i went to the groucho club last week. it was rubbish.

i had that Lembert Opalfruit in the back of me cab once

was it david camerons

struggling to imagine a cokehead politician with zero personal charm tbh

Stafford Cripps?

didn't he change his name to Mister Tayto?

yeah french tax rates have been high for years but now they're especially punitive

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-16/french-billionaire-arnault-s-lvmh-amasses-eu4-billion-in-belgium.html

current uk discourse around income tax owes a lot to blair and his largely specious 'the rich will just hire accountants', which doesn't really apply to the actual rich with capital income anyway, so much as people in mid-tier positions in banks law firms etc who can't so easily avoid it

wrt corporation taxes etc, which are lower relative to the highest marginal tax rate than in most places, there's clearly an attempt to copy the american culture of awed silence around the numinous and mysterious caste of ~wealth creators~ from whom all human happiness ultimately derives

best thing about trickle down is you can pretend there's no gush up

How can France survive without billionaires?

I don't think it's true that companies will always and forever only do the bare minimum required by law. They will generally do some murky mix of the bare minimum required to keep their customers and what is required to stop laws getting written about them. Hence the whole CSR movement etc.

Where the morals come in to it is they are the grounds for people condemning companies. The same mechanisms (outcry, opprobrium) that force shit comedians to stump up more than they're technically required to pay can also force shit corporations to stump up too.

But, yes, fix the laws too.

that mechanism usually depends on some assiduous journalists who know what they're doing too

The Starbucks thing feels like a watershed in that it's the one instance I can think of where tax avoidance became so toxic for a company's brand that it had to act. I mean tax avoidance hasn't even been in the public discourse (relative to eg benefit fraud) until recently so it's a big positive development. Anger at tax avoidance will only worsen as austerity continues.

But Starbucks has public faces, literally, right across the country, which isn't the same for a lot of other companies, especially those that aren't consumer-focused, and they won't get the same level of opprobrium whatever they do. And people aren't exactly going to stop using Google any time soon.

Osborne himself is so pro-tax haven that I don't imagine anything will really be done, other what he's forced to do by political pressure plus a lot of lip-service to making everyone pay their own fair share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlRvE9dKWQc

i had that Sharpay in the back of me cab once no wait that was a Penthouse letter

starbucks are also the only soulless corporate monolith to be damned by an early 2000s british mall punk band, which i like to think precipitated this whole thing in some way

what about "KKKitchens What Were You Thinking?"

'Buck Rogers' by Feeder has actually been unwittingly encouraging millions of pounds worth of unpaid Magners tax.

But Starbucks has public faces, literally, right across the country, which isn't the same for a lot of other companies, especially those that aren't consumer-focused, and they won't get the same level of opprobrium whatever they do.

And, of course, when you get up to go to work in the morning you don't pass Google and Amazon with their blinds down, still in their beds

starbucks clearly in a special subgroup of innocent smoothie branding, but even then i can't imagine that their not breaking any laws would bother anyone significantly that it would hurt the business beyond the critical point where it would be worth paying extra x hundred millions in tax.

Legislate first, then preach imo.

Anger at tax avoidance will only worsen as austerity continues.

interesting unforeseen consequence for Osborne here in that the more he screws the nut on feckless disabled people the more pressure and scrutiny is going to be put on the noble wealth creators he wants to protect.

xp they just paid £20m for nothing more than preaching, and preaching is what gets legislation written. do both, imo.

Costa sales up 25%, Whitbread says.

oh look the mail has discovered 80s american favourite WELFARE QUEENS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246104/Unemployed-single-mother-benefits-spends-2-000-Christmas-20-presents-children.html

Well, are you surprised that the welfare queen meme is here? Those idiot US neocons ALEC are underwriting a lot of internships in Parliament.

Some of us knew Starbucks were evil when their aggressive expansion/anti-competition impulses (and willingness to pay high rents in gentrifying areas) forced established independent coffee places out of business, as detailed in No Logo (which reached these shores before Starbucks' big push). The CTA is just the icing on the cake.

Most friends of mine (the ones who aren't doing styling or design for Topshop) are boycotting Arcadia (and Boots, plus a lot of the places using Workfare doleys to reduce their staffing costs). It should tell you everything you need to know that companies are much more worried about the consumer boycotts originating on the left than those which come from the right. BTW, if you're asked to do an 'emerging designer' collection for Topshop, they try to pay about £3k for the work, spend the duration of the contract trying to get extra garments without paying anything more - and probably spend more on the refreshments at the press launch for the same designer capsule collection.

duly noted

evil, tho

http://www.theonion.com/articles/starbucks-to-begin-sinister-phase-two-of-operation,416/

i was disappointed when someone bought me a starbucks coffee at how notably shit it was, like i would prefer to just be ehhh about them and assume their customers just go for convenience and predictability but honestly

workfare is a piece of shit and i'd be surprised at its continued existence if the great british public weren't fucking swine

http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?page_id=16

almost parodic inversion of 'the dignity of labour'

sin e an rud nua over here as well. Sucks.

somewhere between Keynesianism and the gulags

nb

http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/news/pubs-show-how-they-can-help-to-get-britain-working

i support Tim Martin's "everybody gets pissed" approach to wealth creation

Boycott Workfare do an excellent job of highlighting both the participating employers (when they picketed a bunch of Superdrug branches, Superdrug tried to say they were 'scaring the staff', pathetic 'is it suitable for my servant to read?' bullshit) and the way fitness for work tests will have the sick and disabled working in exchange for their benefits for a potentially unlimited amount of time. Definitely worth a like or a bookmark or a follow.

My own personal favourite irony (and one I've never seen pointed out) is that the MPs who decry the Sky dishes of the undeserving poor the most are the most likely (and accomodating) political slaves of Rupert Murdoch.

6,242 people put their religion down as Heavy Metal in the census
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2012/dec/11/census-data-released-live-coverage?intcmp=122

Hey everyone! The Conservative Party would like to know what you think about benefit reforms:

http://www.conservatives.com/Get_involved/Benefits_HaveYourSay

"Do you think it’s fair that people can claim more in benefits that the average family earns through going to work?"

... nice one

Fucking hell - 'Queen Elizabeth Land'?!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20757382

... cold, frosty and unwelcoming

... distant and dangerous

...full of smelly, formally-dressed waddling things?

... disputed by several nations and at risk from rapid changes in climate

...currently being explored by Ranulph Fiennes

'Queen Elizabeth Land'

Build a few roller-coasters and the tourists will be queueing up round the block (of ice).

The 90-day consultation period before large-scale redundancies can take place is to be cut to 45 days, under government plans.

Employment Relations Minister Jo Swinson said the move was aimed at helping workers and businesses.

workers primarily tho

http://i.imgur.com/tEvwV.jpg

Employment Relations Minister Jo Swinson said the move was aimed at helping workers and businesses.

Well done Jo, vote Lib Dem eh?

My knee jerk response is there must be something bad about it cos tories, but as someone who's been made redundant twice I'm not sure why this is bad? I hated the long consultation periods, fuck 90 days of uncertainty looming over you, just get it fucking over with, give me my redundancy pay and I'll be off to something else.

I'd go with your knees on this one

With your knees or on your knees, it's a' one to yer Tories