In these troubled times when our savings
are being stolen by zero interest policies
that help the sick banks keep going, we
need sharp journalists to advise us and
warn us of the next trick.
Instead, we have a media that is of two
different kinds-
BBC- state media that, on big issues,
is purely a government tool e.g.
UK economy, UK politics, UK wars
[e.g. Hillary Benn's speech for bombing Syria]
Private media- oligarchs who mostly
pay no tax (registered as non-doms)
You'll get some truths out of this media,
but nothing which threatens the status quo.
The non-doms make money off their media,
and yet pay no tax, and the media presents
these non-doms' interests as truth, to their benefit
because they're the boss, and their employees
know what they must do.
And the non-doms use their media power to manipulate
the government.
So, the interests of the media are in
direct competition with our need to
know the truth. Thanks to various
online media, we have a chance to
get some truth.
The story below from Private Eye
shows how bent the situation is.
Hold your vom: Private
eye
Non-doms
and the Street of Sham
Press
barons, Issue 1390
SILENT
WITNESSES: Evgeny Lebedev, Sir David Barclay, Sir Frederick Barclay and the 4th
Viscount Rothermere, whose papers all failed to mention their personal interest
in the non-dom question [ALL OF THESE GUYS ARE NON-DOMS WHO OWN UK MEDIA- COS67]
SO
consuming was the Tory press’s rage at Ed Miliband’s plan to make Russian
oligarchs and gulf petro-billionaires in London liable for the same taxes as British citizens, its hacks forgot to declare their interest.
“London
backlash over Ed’s non-dom attack,” boomed the front-page of the London Evening
Standard, as if a mob had descended
on Labour HQ to defend London’s much-loved oligarchs
and hedge fund managers. “Attacking non-doms could backfire on us,” continued an editorial inside. Sarah Sands, the
Standard’s Uriah Heepish editor, did not risk her career by saying who the “us”
included – namely her boss, Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian who last year dodged the Eye’s repeated
questions over his own domicile (Eye 1370).
Monaco
and the Channel islands
Silence
infected the Telegraph too, where not one of the reporters who warned that
Labour’s “cataclysmic” decision would drive away “tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and business leaders”
mentioned that their owners, the weirdo Barclay twins, reside in Monaco and the
Channel Islands to avoid British
tax.
Instead
they quoted James Hender, head of
private wealth at Saffery Champness accountants, who warned that the rich may leave. The Telegraph didn’t
tell its readers that Hender boasts of his long experience ensuring that “the
most tax efficient strategies are
adopted for non-UK situs assets” for his non-dom clients.
It was
the same at the Mail, which failed to declare that its owner, the 4th Viscount Rothermere, is treated by the tax
authorities as a non-dom. And at Sky, political editor Faisal Islam reported that “Baltic Exchange boss Jeremy Penn slams
Labour non-dom plans” without declaring that his owner, Rupert Murdoch, does not pay UK tax and that
Penn acts for super-rich shipping
owners.
Overseas
buyers
Jolyon
Maugham QC, who has advised Labour
and the Tories on tax reform, tells the Eye that any reader silly enough to believe the Tory press
and tax avoidance industry should look at what they said in 2008, when Labour
introduced the first levies on non-doms.
Back
then the Mail said the central London property market would crash as non-doms sold up and moved to Switzerland. In fact, between Labour
introducing the levy and 2014, prime central London property prices rose 41 percent. At the end of 2014,
Knightsbridge estate agent W.A. Ellis said 54 percent of sales were to overseas
buyers.
The Mail was equally certain the City would
suffer. On 8 February 2008 it cried that the levy “risks the City’s future”.
The British Banking Association warned of “a devastating blow”. The Telegraph
of 12 February 2008 said that “the country’s wealthiest individuals are being
bombarded with leaflets and letters explaining how easy it would be to relocate to Switzerland, Monaco and a
host of other countries”. Not to be outdone, Mike Warburton, senior tax partner at accountants Grant
Thornton, said the levy was the “final
straw”.
‘A
very nice place to live’
If a
word of this had been true, there
would be no non-doms left for Miliband to tax. As it is, there are 115,000 because, as Maugham says,
London remains a “very nice place to live, if you’re wealthy. And that won’t change.” Or as the Financial Times put it:
"The many advantages of London as a financial centre do not dissolve
simply because of a change in a hitherto generous
tax treatment of resident non domiciles.”
The
pink ’un has only recently realised the iniquity
of the non-dom rule, with an editorial last month calling for its abolition. Editor Lionel Barber
modestly claims some credit for Miliband’s stance. But as editor for almost a
decade, why was he so late to the party? Surely not because, until 2013, FT
owner Pearson was run by US-born
Dame Marjorie Scardino, who would
certainly have qualified for non-dom
status and whose London flat, the Eye revealed, was owned via an offshore company?
