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Clegg and more broken promises on tax avoidance. The BBC won't cover it.
Aside from what is happening on broken promises in elsewhere, today (Saturday) is a coalition against tax avoidance.
Please look at this website post : WHY WE AND THE STUDENTS ARE FIGHTING THE SAME BATTLE
Tackling rich tax avoiders was one of the Lib Dems’ four key election pledges, right alongside opposing tuition fee hikes. Both have been broken. This coalition has let Vodafone off a £6bn tax bill and appointed serial tax avoider Sir Philip Green to advise the government on cuts. Sir Philip’s £285m tax dodge could pay the fees of 32,000 students. The money Vodafone were let off would cover every single cut to higher education many times over.
But this is not just an issue of fees, it’s an issue of solidarity. The students have done a damn good job of articulating their link to the wider anti-cuts movement. The issue of tax avoidance is a way that we can forge those links on the street. Pensioners, unemployed, those on incapacity benefit, public service workers, unionists and others have all joined UK Uncut actions around the country. Sitting together in shop doorways, blockading the high street stores of the tax avoiding rich, we can build the sort of networks necessary to build this movement beyond a single issue and bring down this government.
Whilst inflicting savage public spending cuts on the poor and indulging the rich, this government likes to claim that ‘we are all in this together.’ All we need to remember, is that if the government reclaimed the £25bn tax avoided by rich individuals and corporations every year, it could pay for all of the services the government is planning to cut.
This Saturday the students will be joining a growing coalition to take on tax avoiders. Let’s join together, let’s go on the offensive, let’s take this to the high streets.
NEWSFLASH – it’s going really well so far. Here’s Polly Toynbee and @pennyred
It looks as if some people have in super-glued themselves to Top Shop!
No doubt there’ll be another media whitewash by the BBC.
Letter from Alan Johnson before the CSR
As I post this message from Alan Johnson MP, I am watching a really dreadful performance by David Cameron on the BBC in Prime Minister Questions.
Shibley,??
I wanted to say something to you today, before I deliver our response to the Coalition’s Comprehensive Spending Review. George Osborne will insist that there is no alternative to his huge and unnecessary cuts – that is simply not true. There is a better way and that’s where you can help.??
This is about saying, “No. There is an alternative”. ??I’m going to be honest with you, being in opposition does not mean that we can oppose every cut, or pretend to be in government. But it does mean setting out a clear alternative to what we regard as a reckless gamble with growth and jobs – a balanced approach that gets the deficit down without endangering the recovery.??You’re the expert on your local area, or how your family will be affected, so click here to tell us your better way ??Today’s reckless gamble with growth and jobs runs the risk of stifling the fragile recovery. Our alternative will be fair and will recognise these are central to our economic strategy – not a side issue. It will treat the public as intelligent enough to understand that bringing the world economy back from the brink of catastrophe is not the same as paying off a credit card bill.??
We all know that we must tackle the deficit, but we must protect growth, public services, and all of us caught in the middle enduring the most unfair of these cuts, too.??
Alan??
Dr Shibley Rahman is a research physician and research lawyer by training.
Queen’s Scholar, BA (1st.), MA, MB, BChir, PhD, MRCP(UK), LLB(Hons.), FRSA
Director of Law and Medicine Limited
Member of the Fabian Society and Associate of the Institute of Directors