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Cont: General UK Politics V Suella Strikes Back

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Andy_Ross said:
According to the Mail Angela Rayner is proven to have lied and committed both electoral and tax fraud. She now faces criminal conviction. If Starmer doesn't fire her now the scandal will bring down his leadership and open him to prosecution too.
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Ah yes in the same way that Starmer himself was brought down by Beergate, oh wait no, that was another non-story that only the Mail cared about.

I'm sure they will be just as concerned about this clearly dodgy action by a politician:

Government delays decision on incinerator opposed by Steve Barclay
 
Mojo said:
...being made a Tory peer?
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Nah, even if we assumed the Mail was right (sorry, simultaneously laughed & threw up in my mouth a little), she would only of dodged £1500 in tax. Tories do that before they're out of nappies (Friday nights in 'exclusive' clubs excepted, for some, allegedly).
 
P.J. Denyer said:
Nah, even if we assumed the Mail was right (sorry, simultaneously laughed & threw up in my mouth a little), she would only of dodged £1500 in tax. Tories do that before they're out of nappies (Friday nights in 'exclusive' clubs excepted, for some, allegedly).
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HMRC has been conditioned to go after the working class for minor tax dodges and leave the middle and upper class largely alone.

Occasionally they come up against a working class person who can fight back.
 
Nessie said:
HMRC has been conditioned to go after the working class for minor tax dodges
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A case in point:

https://www.theguardian.com/society...tion-of-carers-over-uk-benefits-rule-breaches

Ministers are facing calls to abandon the “cruel and nonsensical” fines levied on tens of thousands of unpaid carers for unwittingly breaching earnings rules by just a few pounds a week.

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a centre-right thinktank, said the government should end the “persecution” of carers and accept that it was to blame for allowing overpayments to run up to huge sums, in some cases more than £20,000.

The Guardian has revealed that carers are being plunged into hardship after being forced to pay huge penalties over a benefits snag that the government promised to fix five years ago.

It can now also reveal that ministers are refusing to publish the findings of an official study into the emotional and financial impact of the fines, which have been called “appalling” and draconian.
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Nessie said:
HMRC has been conditioned to go after the working class for minor tax dodges and leave the middle and upper class largely alone.

Occasionally they come up against a working class person who can fight back.
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IMO w.r.t. those with a large outstanding tax liability it's like owing the bank millions - it's their problem.

People with large tax liabilities tend to have very complex tax affairs and lawyers and accountants who make the collection process difficult, complex and expensive. The working classes (and most of the middle classes) have comparatively simple tax affairs which makes identifying the liabilities straightforward and the collection process simple.

As with most organisations, HMRC are judged on results. Do you undertake a lengthy and expensive investigation where success is uncertain or go after the small fry ?
 
Nessie said:
HMRC has been conditioned to go after the working class for minor tax dodges and leave the middle and upper class largely alone.

Occasionally they come up against a working class person who can fight back.
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Conditioned, and funded, to only go after people who can't afford to mount a defense. The number of accountants at HMRC going after tax avoiders has been massively reduced under the Tories despite the fact that they bring in more than they cost. Add to that the revolving door between 'Big 4' accountants on secondment to the treasury or senior civil servants going the other way into business (see John Conners leaving HMRC for an executive role at Vodaphone then shaking hands on a sweetheart deal on owed taxes with his ex boss).

Now if any of the bosses at HMRC had a burning desire to become apprentice plumbers...
 
70% of the housing in Rwanda that Sue Ellen Braverman claimed was for asylum seekers from Britain has been sold off according to The Times. They are claiming it's due to the scheme being delayed but I distinctly remember claims at the time that it was a private development and already being offered for sale, the only part of the media I heard pick it up it was James O 'Brien on LBC.

The questions I'd like answered are 1) Did British tax payers fund the build? And 2) Did Braverman know this was going happen when she was gurning for the cameras?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rwandan-homes-earmarked-for-deported-migrants-sold-to-locals-82nvgpptq
 
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HMRC say there's nothing wrong, it's the Tories desperate to divert from flashergate.
 
Andy_Ross said:
HMRC say there's nothing wrong, it's the Tories desperate to divert from flashergate.
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Given how long it's taken to hit the headlines it's more like "we'll be desperate to distract from some scandal when this gets picked up. We don't know what it'll be but we sure as hell know someone won't be able to keep their dick in their pants or their hand out the till for more than a day or two."
 
The Don said:
IMO w.r.t. those with a large outstanding tax liability it's like owing the bank millions - it's their problem.

People with large tax liabilities tend to have very complex tax affairs and lawyers and accountants who make the collection process difficult, complex and expensive. The working classes (and most of the middle classes) have comparatively simple tax affairs which makes identifying the liabilities straightforward and the collection process simple.

As with most organisations, HMRC are judged on results. Do you undertake a lengthy and expensive investigation where success is uncertain or go after the small fry ?
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Unfortunately they are not. Because if results were the judge the HMRC could make a watertight case that if tyey were sufficiently well funded and allowed to go after the biggest targets, the returns would be many multiples of the costs.

As it is, by starving the HMRC of funding and effectively forcing them to go after the poor, the returns are a piddling fraction of the costs. If I were to guess I would say that the returns from caught tax fraud are less than the losses made in clerkcal errors, just like what happens in cases of the social welfare.
 
In a move likely to turn irony detectors across the country into an incendiary display to put the Millennium Fireworks to shame, The Sun's Harry Cole has urged restraint on the William Wragg story. He also used the phrase 'rogue whackjob' surprisingly to describe the catphisher rather than what Wragg was hoping to get for his photo.

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1777439993700467124
 
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P.J. Denyer said:
In a move likely to turn irony detectors across the country into an incendiary display to put the Millennium Fireworks to shame, The Sun's Harry Cole has urged restraint on the William Wragg story. He also used the phrase 'rogue whackjob' surprisingly to describe the catphisher rather than what Wragg was hoping to get for his photo.

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1777439993700467124
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Hmmm..... I am sure it's got nothing to do with journalists also being targeted
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68761113

I wonder if he and Charlie had a chat?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68761113
 
P.J. Denyer said:
In a move likely to turn irony detectors across the country into an incendiary display to put the Millennium Fireworks to shame, The Sun's Harry Cole has urged restraint on the William Wragg story. He also used the phrase 'rogue whackjob' surprisingly to describe the catphisher rather than what Wragg was hoping to get for his photo.

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1777439993700467124
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Over the last couple of days I have, possibly cynically, found myself wondering what the reaction would have been if it had been a Labour MP caught waving his dick and giving out phone details of other dick-waving MPs. Would all these folk who are being oh so supportive have done the same thing? Answers on the back of the world's smallest violin...
 
P.J. Denyer said:
70% of the housing in Rwanda that Sue Ellen Braverman claimed was for asylum seekers from Britain has been sold off according to The Times. They are claiming it's due to the scheme being delayed but I distinctly remember claims at the time that it was a private development and already being offered for sale, the only part of the media I heard pick it up it was James O 'Brien on LBC.

The questions I'd like answered are 1) Did British tax payers fund the build? And 2) Did Braverman know this was going happen when she was gurning for the cameras?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rwandan-homes-earmarked-for-deported-migrants-sold-to-locals-82nvgpptq
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She must have known as it was reported at the time.

Braverman's stance was that only a proportion was to be allocated to the local population. It was very obviously all gimmick, as only favoured reporters were invited along and all that grinning and smiling of happy Rwandan builders was as fake as the fakest tv commercial <sfx your hands that do dishes grow as soft as your face...enjoy that Condor moment... Tuuuunes...a Mars a day helps you work rest and play...come to Rwanda with fantastic landscapes and a fabulous new build estate where even Suella dreams of living herself! ...Bisto browns, bisto thickens, bisto seasons all in one go! ... {that's quite enough, ~ Ed} > Braverman knew she was taking the p!ss; we all knew she was taking the p!ss; and she knew that we knew and she knew that we knew that she knew, etc. etc. ad infinitum.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Unfortunately they are not. Because if results were the judge the HMRC could make a watertight case that if tyey were sufficiently well funded and allowed to go after the biggest targets, the returns would be many multiples of the costs.

As it is, by starving the HMRC of funding and effectively forcing them to go after the poor, the returns are a piddling fraction of the costs. If I were to guess I would say that the returns from caught tax fraud are less than the losses made in clerkcal errors, just like what happens in cases of the social welfare.
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Not actually true. I worked in insolvency practice and HMRC never hesitated to go after people for tax. They were by far the biggest creditors by a country mile. They don't discriminate. You have to remember, they are only interested in recouping owed tax. The difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich (cf whatisname, the cabinet minister ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, who came to an arrangement over £5m owed) can cough up what is owed. Being confidential, you never hear about those cases. The ones that go to prison such as the late Lester Piggott were examples of people who evaded paying. The poor are simply threatened with bankruptcy and their houses seized to help pay off their creditors, usually HMRC at the front of the queue!
 
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