Monday 11 April 2016

Dear Prime Minister

Last Tuesday, I missed an opportunity to be one step ahead of the National Press when I lazily posted my MHS bits instead of pointing out that while 'A Downing Street spokesman' was saying you and your family weren’t benefiting from any off-shore accounting (present tense), it was almost inevitable that you had, through the death of your father;  as beneficiaries of the will, which would have included funds generated by his dealings with the delightful Mossack Fonseca.

Well, it seems I would have been right...actually I think I hinted at it in  a reply to a comment on another post so I can feel smug enough...but not as smug as you probably feel having - so far - got away with what was a dogs breakfast of a week's press briefings!

The thing is, it's not that you did anything wrong, it's that A) you felt you had to lie, deceive and obfuscate (through anonymous spokesmen to begin with) about something which apparently wasn't wrong, B) that the rules which allow something like this to be 'right' are themselves a stinking pile of protectionist crap for the already rich and privileged and C) that your financial bedfellows for centuries have been crooks, criminals, Mafioso, despots, dictators, arms dealers, drug-runners, money-grubbing ex's hiding their assets from their spouses, the not-so-great-and-good of FIFA and the IOC, the UN, the senior civil service, the banking sector, royalty, celebs...yada, yada, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, &etc...The bent bastards of the Establishment - for wont of a single, all-encompassing title.

To recap: After the present tense statement on Tuesday, we had the [future tense] statement on Thursday morning also from your 'No.10 spokesman', stating that you weren't going to benefit from off-shore accounting going forward either, only for you to admit later the same day that, err...actually you had, of course, benefitted from them in the past...and not simply through the will as I suspected, no, it was all a bit more complicated than that, you'd had actual shares and converted them to actual cash!
But as the weekend has slid by, it's got steadily worse, with larger amounts, you mother and 7-year inheritance-avoidance shenanigans thrown out there with the constant refrains of "I [he/we/they] have done nothing wrong [against the rules]".

The rules - clearly - need to be changed. People 'in the street', people 'down the pub', people like me, think it stinks and we've thought so for decades, even centuries, look at how the Church has ended-up with the prime chunks of every village, every hamlet in the land for their buildings of worship and/or - more tellingly - the lovely [usually famous] architect-designed Tudor'esque and Arts & Craft Rectories and Vicarages!

This is not about some petty envy, Prime Minister, it's about fair-play, a level playing field, accountability, transparency, yeah; even 'Democracy'...and whether you understand it or not, a revolution is already in the air; the Mossack Fonseca leak, is not the first, while you (the Western 'democratic' establishment) have driven Mr. Snowden into exile in Moscow, driven Mr. Asange into exile in an embassies spare room and jailed little what's-her-face, apparently forever, they were the vanguard of a movement that included your own expense scandal.

A scandal for which your reply has been to change 'the rules' so that you can all claim more now than you were six years ago, just...not for moats or duck-houses.

But even that scandal could have been avoided, you may remember that the House of Commons (some time ago) appointed an expenses 'Tzar' Liz Philkin (?) to oversee a cleaning-up, she was so good at her job, you sacked her (disgracefully) and disbanded her office...a few years later and you were all swimming in your own shit live on the telly! The same thing happened in the European Parliament, with not one but TWO whistle-blowers.

So, now it's all done anonymously and very effectively, using modern technology.

How long before someone blows the whistle on Vodafone and their relationships with money, tax, loans-to-self, an office above a chip-shop in Luxembourg, HMRC, the useless OfCom, Newbury Borough Council...and their customers?

How long before someone blows the whistle on the water companies and their meter schemes? Or a council bins contract? PPI's? A4E/PeoplPlus and DWP? Immigration centers, prison-service outsourcing, airline ticketing costs....there will be no secrets while you're all so crooked.

Select Folders - Copy - Paste - Eject Disc - "Media safe to remove", clock-out, go home...it's so easy!

The International media (104 outlets world-wide) and the Consortium of Investigative Journalists have been secretly looking at the Mossack Fonseca stuff for over a year - while the whistle-blower regularly updated the stash! What are they already looking at 'next', Prime Minister? What's the next big scandal waiting in the wings or already in the bag?

When the ICIJ put the 'Panama Papers' online with a search tool, I'll be checking it for the name of a certain Knight of the Realm I believe is paid in the Bahamas', in $US, for work he does on the 'phone in his kitchen in the UK. As a bent Judge - in forcing an out of court settlement ['compromise agreement'] on me, without representation - has stated I can never mention the Knight again, except to a law maker, I'll have to find something I can take to a lawmaker, huh? HMRC know all about it!

Watch your back Prime Minister, and understand, no one in this revolution is saying you can't be a millionaire, no one in this revolution wants anyone to die, but they want everyone to earn what they do honestly and openly. They want African kids to stop dying of hunger; they want an end to war and war-mongering. They want steel-workers to face unemployment with dignity, secure in the knowledge there's enough to go round, a safety-net for all and that it (the hidden trillions) is not all mouldering in the British Virgin Islands.

They want to be ruled administered by honest democrats, not rotten, buggins-turn, one-in-five of the electorate voted-for, arrogant but inadequate, cockwombles.

And - of course - the really annoying thing about the last eight days, is you have almost certainly damaged the 'Stay in Europe' campaign, not a lot, but nevertheless: needlessly so.

2 comments:

  1. Todays scandal is tomorrows chip paper...they really don´t give a toss what anyone says.
    Questions;
    Who "leaked" the papers?
    The Consortium of Investigative Journalists..who funds them and where are they based?
    Are the papers complete or were they edited before the Sud Deutsche got them?
    Why is Putin named straight away ? Where are some other prominant names from countries that have got a bit of a bad Reputation but have a lot of income that they would be insane not to deal with the same way?
    and finally, The Panama papers, what´s new? Didn´t the Consortium of Investigative Journalists do something on offshore tax avoidance a couple of years back? Anything Change? Nope.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's changing slowly Paul...keep the faith!

    H

    ReplyDelete