E-Petition Cameron On UK Tax Justice

Our tax chief had secret lunches with Vodafone and Goldman Sachs and then handed them billions in tax breaks – while keeping Parliament in the dark!

MPs are outraged, claiming we are owed over 25 billion pounds in back taxes from these and similar dodgy deals. But the tax agency has blocked an inquiry into the scandal and refuses to release any documents to shed light on why these tax breaks were ordered in the first place.

By acting together now we can ensure full transparency on the Goldman Sachs and Vodafone deals, and get them to pay the tax they owe. Let’s turn up the heat -- sign the tax justice petition to David Cameron -- we’ll deliver it with a splash next week:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/goldman_sachs_pay_your_tax/?vl

The cosy relationship between the public tax authority and major private companies is shocking: the tax agency boss had more than a hundred lunches with big business tax lawyers and advisers, leading to the companies being let off millions in taxes. The agency tried to obstruct a recent Parliamentary inquiry using flimsy confidentiality arguments, and threatened the whistleblower who helped expose the scandal.

The coalition is weak and on the defensive over the economy and several Conservative and Lib Dem MPs are fuming over these tax revelations. But the government has yet to demand full payment. Only public pressure can change Cameron's position and ensure that big businesses pay what they owe rather than manoeuvre and lobby to minimise their tax bills.

We should be able to trust our public tax body to be free of corporate capture and able to recover taxes owed without fear or favour. Join the call for tax justice -- click below to sign the petition:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/goldman_sachs_pay_your_tax/?vl

From Occupy to the G20, citizens across the world are coming together to push back corporate interests, fight against dodgy deals corrupting our governments and bring back transparency -- and the pressure is working. Let's come together now and win tax justice for us all.

With hope,

Alex and the entire Avaaz team

Veto now, we tow the line later- Why u can't drive away from the EU in a VW

In all the analysis about Cameron's veto there seems to be a prevailing sense of nervousness. Despite all the bonhommie between Cameron and Clegg this is an idealogical cavity that not even these two mouth mechanics can bridge. Cameron much to the delight of his base finally let his stiff upper lip do the talking in Europe. The problem is the liberals, labour, Heseltine et al do have a point concerning our trade relations with the EU. We can 'want to be in Europe but not run by it' all we like but that works under the somewhat misconceived presumption that following a veto at a moment of crisis the EU will still want us. Cameron made this veto because he was backed into a political corner. He is playing a zero sum game that may be advantageous politically but catastrophic economically. We cannot be Switzerland because we are rarely if ever politically neutral. We cannot be dependant on a transatlantic alliance dream of the 80's because the world has changed and the Americans aren't that interested if we're not part of Europe. Cameron can bank on the unpopularity of the liberals for the coalition not to collapse. But if what is the best political outcome for Cameron comes to pass- namely that the EU fails spectacularly (a very real possibility) then the UK's export base will collapse too. The basic point here is that had Cameron carried out this action before as a point of principle, as part of an electoral promise, rather than default response to protect the bankers then our EU partners would have seen it coming and not be plotting 'a revenge'. Cameron's timing has been shambolic and we can only really afford to drive away from the European project in earnest if we are pulling away in Jaguars made in Britain!

How Cameron protects the 1% with 23% of the vote! (must see.)

A Government of the Elite by the Elite and for the Elite

What a bizarre time in history to abandon representative government? the failure of all the respective parties to allow a free vote on Europe once an e-petition of a 100,000 signatories had been presented to downing street shows a disdain for the democratic will of the people. David Cameron has shown himself to be an abject failure in representing any platform on which he stood and there is every reason to fear for the economic welfare of this nation. His failure to live up to his 'cast iron guarantee' on Europe shows that he is not to be trusted and is not a man of his word. Europe is now being held together not for any idealogical dogma but for the benefit of the bankers who were so merrily bailed out at the expense of the taxpayer. Even Marie Antoinette at the height of bourgeois decadence offered the suffering masses some cake but this government has not seen it fit to offer a crumb of comfort to those seeking hope of sustaining themselves and their families with a living wage. Instead this government has chosen to rub salt into the ever widening wound of inequality by letting off the rich bankers that caused alot of this mess and clamping hard on a few rioters. This two tiered system of justice has fragmented society at a time when national unity is of utmost importance. Fake promises of tighter immigration controls have also exacerbated racial divides just at a time when the immigrant population need to be encouraged to use their links with the commonwealth to attract capital from emerging economies such as China and India. It must never be forgotten that David Cameron labeled Gordon Brown 'the great regulator' just before the deregulation that brought on the banking crisis. Furthermore he continually refused to see the international nature of our current economic woes. Yes, Labour caused the hole in the damn, but at least they stuck their finger in decisively to stop the flood by an emergency recapitalisation of the banks. Cue the tories to cast off the corpse of the old government, get their finger out and rebuild the whole darn edifice. What we need now is not austerity but prosperity. How? through a Keynsian fiscal expansion of national purpose. example? why not set out a scheme to build a national motor vehicle which would rekindle the manufacturing base. Let us export a lean green electric mini to the rest of the world. Impossible in today's labour market? No- if the Germans can do it then so can we. The Pr man Cameron sold his new party with a green logo. Clearly we should use the cutting edge of our world class universities to rebuild the manufacturing base that Thatcherism decimated through innovative green technologies. Capital has always flowed into the UK in modern times because of our guarantee to uphold the rule of law. Corruption has been allowed to flourish and after the MP's expenses debacle we have a Prime minister who has revealed his personal character by fraternising with the Murdochs and employing the worst of their minions as chief advisor. When you become a country that cannot guarantee universal justice for all but a select justice for a select few then the whole edifice will come crashing down. It is no exaggeration to say that Cameron's tolerance of corruption whether it be in the form of a defense secretary who used mates to cut side deals or the mendacity of News International has led to a breach of national security. One of his greatest failures is to see how national security is intrisically bound up with economic strength. If protection of the people is the first responsibility of any goverment then as an electorate we too have failed if we do not rise up and boot out a PM who has the will only to secure this for the elite few and not the nation as a whole.

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Have Your Say

Public Opinion as New SuperPower from WeAreMany.tv

WE ARE MANY - Teaser 1 from Amir Amirani on Vimeo.

Tory HQ Ransacked as Coalition Cuts bite

why the LibDems should never be trusted

Samantha Cameron gives birth to baby girl

one of many letters from wellwishers:
Dear Mr and Mrs Cameron
First of all, congratulations on the birth of your daughter - I hope mother and daughter are doing well. You have so much joy to look forward to in the coming years.
May I suggest Loveday as part of your daughter's name if you are looking for a cornish connection?
Best wishes again to all the family.
Julia Riding

Budget- Liberals should hang their head in shame at 20% Vat. The most regressive tax for a so called 'progressive' alliance

The Death Of Ideology

Ashcroft and Clegg help Cameron hobble to power. The electorate get a LibCon Coalition which is jeered into Downing Street on a sad day for democracy. You cannot fix the economy when you are unable to finish the sentence ' I came into politics because...'
 The Premiership now officially has a price tag on it and the post has been demeaned as a consequence. The coalition with the LibDems can only be described as the political equivalent of blacking up and the moral backlash will cost the Tory party in the medium and long run. Please send your open letters of congratulation or contempt to info@davidcameron.com. Post your videos of support or disgust to our Youtube Channel
YouTube.com/user/ukpolitics.

Put it on Dave's Tab and give us a little dance....

The unseemly sight of William Hague being sent out by David Cameron to literally beg Nick Clegg for power has left the Tories exposed both politically and metaphorically. Short of asking Samantha to call their newborn  Paddy Ashdown  Cameron (a compromise that would keep the Irish DUP, Michael Ashcroft and the LibDems happy)

It is difficult to see what else Cameron won't give in to. Clegg's ability to have completely run rings around David Cameron and squeeze every last concession  that for the most part run contrary to all Tory values must leave serious doubts in the mind of the electorate of Cameron's ability to negotiate deals on behalf of the country as a PM.

How to lose friends and alienate your grass roots.... Clegg-Cameron alliance would sprinkle yellow stardust on Tory Blues

Despite all the spin the results are nothing short of disastrous for the Tory leader David Cameron. Having been bamboozled by a hipper clone in the first leader's debate, we now see the sorry spectacle of a man trying to be PM at any cost. While Nick Clegg may resemble Cameron on the outside there could not be a more stark difference when it comes to policy. Coupled with the fact that the next year is likely to be a strikefest there could not be a worse time to cobble together an alliance with which the majority of Tories would be so ideologically opposed. Thanks to the third debate we know how widely apart the two sides are on the key issues: the economy, immigration, PR and most testing for the Tory faithful Europe.

If this is what the Tories had wanted they would have just elected Ken Clarke who would have walked this election. The conservatives have themselves to blame for having opted for PR over substantive issues they may now be lumbered with PR (that's proportional representation) for good. The Tories will learn a lesson, the Labour grass roots could have told them long ago. If you dilute your values in search for the hallowed centre ground in the naive assumption that it will lead you to power you risk losing your party's soul for good. What is also worth noting is that in this merry dance to form a government the younger leaders seem to be more concerned about how their own brands will be tarnished by any association rather then the real national interest.

David Cameron Billboards

Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, is being bankrolled by the head of one of the biggest private health providers,CARE UK, to the tune of £21,000. This emerged just as David Cameron launched his disastrous poster campaign which has been spoofed over a quarter of a million times on the internet and defaced
uniformly across the country.

Cameron reneges on 'Cast Iron guarantee' on Europe

As I'm writing this Cameron is nattering in the background on what is categorically one of the biggest U-turns in British political history. He has essentially gone back on his cast iron guarantee to give the British Public a referendum on the future of Europe. He has cobbled together some sort of excuse which won't even wash with his own party. Little wonder that the 2nd question just thrown his way by the ITN journalist was 'How can anyone trust what you say ever again?'. Tony Blair and David Miliband understand that being British Prime Minister is no longer the top job in the UK. That's why they are going for true power- the leadership of Europe.

Why the NHS should be protected from Tory instincts

LibLabCon

I don’t know where or when the term ‘Liblabcon’ came into being. The American equivalent ‘Republicrat’ has been used for years in American politics.
Searching in Wikipedia; It is “…a pejorative term used by those who allege the policies of the two parties are in practice indistinguishable.” The entry continues, “An equivalent term used in the United Kingdom is LibLabCon, a pejorative portmanteau referring to the three main political parties.”
The word articulates the growing perception that Britain’s three establishment political parties are fundamentally indistinguishable. It’s an idea that strikes at the heart of the status quo. The ‘difference’ is their justification; if they’re all the same what exactly is the point of Libs, Labs, and Cons?
The mass media and the mainstream political parties have a symbiotic relationship that runs on the energy produced by what they call ‘the political debate’. The politicians provide the entertainment, the media talks about it, and the liberal establishment lives happily ever after. It’s part of the process of maintaining the status of those currently running the show; the effort always is to restrict political thinking to the establishment-approved choice. The media makes a big fuss about the trivia that differentiates Lib, Lab, and Con and presents it as confirmation of choice. At the same time it avoids the fundamentals they share and thus removes them from the political process; the idea is to have us not seeing the wood for the trees.
Liblabcon says that the Lib, Lab, Con thing has lost its momentum, that the establishment-approved choice is no choice, and that the establishment parties have become a political class which now acts primarily in its own best interest. …….it’s only recently that the parties have been seen as fundamentally indistinguishable. The melding of Lib, Lab, and Con began with the post WWII liberal consensus and continued to the point where now they share an almost identical world view and differ only on the minutiae. The term Liblabcon is recognition of this and a means of communicating it.
Britain is as it is today because of the sameness of the establishment parties not because of their difference.
The survival of the ‘big three’ is a function of their ability to maintain an impression of separateness. This is what they spend much of their time doing, telling us how different they are, and the mainstream media supports them in this by presenting them as feasible political choices. They don’t like to talk about what they have in common both because it threatens their viability as alternatives and because it brings to the fore their shared ambition for Britain, which they prefer to keep to themselves.
Yet it seems now that their cover is blown and everything they do to convince us of their difference convinces us of their similarity, exquisitely illustrated by David Cameron’s appeal for ‘new people to stand for the Conservatives - even if they’re not Conservatives’ M.Harriot

A reader has best captured the mood of public outrage at Mp's expenses by invoking Cromwell's Oratory

"It is high time for Me to put an End to your Sitting in this Place, which you have dishonoured by your Contempt of all Virtue, and defiled by your Practice of every Vice;
Ye are a factious Crew and Enemies of all good Government; Ye are a Pack of mercenary Wretches and would, like Esau, Sell your Country for a Mess of Pottage; and like Judas, betray your God for a few Pieces of Money; Is there a single Virtue now remaining amongst you?
Is there one Vice that you do not possess? Ye have no more Religion than my horse! Gold is your God: Which of you have not bartered your Conscience for Bribes?
Is there a Man amongst you that has the least care for the Good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes! Have you not defiled this Sacred Place, and turned the Lord's Temple into a Den of Thieves by your immoral Principles and wicked Practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole Nation.
Your Country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable, by putting a final Period to your Iniquitous Proceedings in this House, and which by God's Help, and the strength He has given Me, I now come to do.
I command ye, therefore, upon the Peril of your Lives, to depart immediately out of this Place;
Go! Get out! Make haste, ye Venal Slaves, begone!"
Oliver Cromwell 1653

This Little Piggy Went to Parliament

Fraud is Fraud. This is not the tuck shop at Eton where people are given a slap on the wrist for stealing. The Tories are as bad as Labour on this issue and the leader who has the courage and conviction to sack those that have defrauded the British Public should be the next PM. Claiming for Manure...this is beyond satire. Please visit the open letters section to see the level of public outrage.

Tory 'do nothing' approach to racism within the party may sour trans-atlantic alliance

If the New Statesman is to be believed Barack Obama called David Cameron 'a lightweight' after their first meeting. One wonders how much further the relationship
can sour if the Tory leader refuses to show the moral character to clean out the rancid grime of racism that is so ingrained in the fabric of the conservative party.
If change can come to America then such is the economic importance of the UK-US
relationship that change must come to the United Kingdom. This is particularly the case for a party that has wanted to keep its distance from Europe for fear of loss of sovereignty. Somewhere along the line however, the Tories have subconsciously confused sovereignty with significance. The conservatives should tackle racism
with the same fervour that New Labour attacked homophobia. Those openly gay Tories have been quick to forget the journey from the closet to the heart of the establishment. For what it's worth I think Britain's Obama will probably be a gay white Tory as opposed to a person from an ethnic minority simply because of the current cultural demographics within the UK.
Politeness goes a long way with the British electorate. This is certainly reflected in the popularity of politicians. If you needed proof of this you need look no further than Michael Portillo's career. He has transformed from the the arrogant poster child of the Tory party into an affable sofacosy political commentator. I suspect that even though he is less popular with the Party he is more liked by the electorate as a whole.
What is alarming is that those weaned at the very bosom of Thatcherism continue to use words like 'Golliwog' in reference to blacks and are completely oblivious to the offence that they cause. What globalisation means is that if the Tory Party wants to continue to pander to the xenophobic elements of its constituency it will regrettably be doing so at a cost to the national interest. To put it more succinctly the Tory Party should not let its sphincter prowess be used in the retentive art of anal ventriloquism for the BNP because the times, well they are indeed 'a changing'.

What Cameron Can Learn from Obama At Time Of National Economic Crisis

While there are many lessons to be drawn from both the McCain and the Obama Campaigns for team Cameron in order to win a general election one message sticks out.
There can be little doubt that if Barack's winning formula had to be crystallized into one single factor it was his cool,calm and collected approach to world wide economic crisis as opposed to McCains panic. It is here where Cameron has more resembled McCain (a much miscalculated guest speaker at Tory Party Conference) in deciding to break ranks with the government in the midst of
the Banking Crisis. It was almost as if it was too much to bear as Brown led the world
in structuring a rescue model in saving the banking system. By the Bank of England's own admission had the bailout not been handled as competently as it was the UK banking system could have entirely collapsed-a truly frightening thought even in retrospect. Cameron's panic in losing the the limelight to Brown,showed him to put party politics above the national interest.Cameron's superiority at the dispatch box
gains him few votes and Brown's superiority on all things economic has failed to win him many votes if the polls are to be believed. What the UK electorate desperately yearn for is 'change'. In the context of the UK that is a change from the politics of self interest to one of deep concern for the national interest. Both parties are guilty of very unpopular party politics but the party perceived to be delivering on
this much hungered for change in difficult times is the one the British electorate
are most likely to vote in as the next government.

The Tory's Most Ridiculous Expense Abuses

Cocaine Conservatism vs Champagne Socialism

There's something fundamentally dishonest in Cameron's assertion that he refuses to
answer questions on cocaine use as this would constitute an invasion of his privacy.
for starters,he has answered questions on the fact that he did not use it as an MP so why not be honest about the times before he became an MP.His silence on this issue may be due to the fact that 28% of voters have stated in a poll that they would be less likely to vote for him if they knew he had used the drug.His fellow Bullingdon club member(see below),Boris Johnson, has admitted that he did use the drug.the buzzword 'cocaine conservatism' ,an amoral come-what-may drive towards the fix of power may define the current opposition in the same way that the term 'champagne socialism' defined New Labour's philosophy.

david cameron's suppressed photo

This is an artist's impression of the secret bullingdon society at oxford.david cameron is second from the left on the top row.it's no wonder that the Tories were glad to see the original removed from the telegraph on the grounds that it infringed
personal copyright.The real reason is more likely to be that the it is an embarrassingly elitist club for the very rich who get their kicks from trashing a property and then trying to pay off the owner with their parents' money and connections.Another one of those facts 'call me Dave' Cameron would want to have conveniently concealed.Boris Johnson can also be seen pictured above and it has emerged that George Osborne also belonged to the Bullingdon club. What's happening to our democracy?

Tax Lunacy

3,000 of the richest estates in the country will get a benefit totalling £1 billion
under the tax proposals by a future conservative government.this kind of pandering to
the ultra elite will disenfranchise many working class people and bolster the belief
that the conservative party is a party of the rich working in the interests of the rich.The fact that The Cameron's family estate is worth in excess of £30 million pounds means that he personally will do very well out of this policy.Not since Mary
Antoinette uttered 'Let Them eat cake' has a european member of the aristocracy(yes,he's related to the queen!!)shown such outrageous avarice and contemptible ambivalence to fate of the nation's poor.