Critic of Panamist David Cameron ejected from British parliament

This video from London, England says about itself:

UK: ‘David Cameron out, out, out!” protesters chant outside Downing St.

9 April 2016

Around 3,000 people protested outside Downing Street in London, Saturday, calling on the UK Prime Minister David Cameron to resign following the Panama Papers leak in which he is implicated.

How the corruption revealed in the Panama Papers opened the door to Isis and al Qaeda. Local elites which hide their stolen wealth in offshore financial centres destroy their own credibility and power: here.

By Lamiat Sabin in Britain:

Skinner Pays for Holding ‘Dodgy Dave’ to Account

Tuesday 12th April 2016

Corbyn: PM’s tax evasion plan just a masterclass in distraction

DENNIS SKINNER was ejected from the House of Commons yesterday for calling David Cameron “dodgy Dave” as debate raged over the Panama Papers tax scandal.

The Labour MP for Bolsover stood to grill the Prime Minister on whether he would answer a long-standing question about profit the latter may have received from a house sale.

Mr Skinner said that, before Mr Cameron became PM, he asked him whether a property sold in Oxfordshire was a home that Mr Skinner had suspected was paid for by public funds.

Mr Cameron did not answer the question then, but Mr Skinner asked whether “dodgy Dave” would answer it in the light of his own announcement on new tax haven rules.

Tory speaker John Bercow insisted that if Mr Skinner did not “withdraw the adjective” then he would have to expel him from the Commons.

Mr Skinner — affectionately known as the Beast of Bolsover — pointed at the Prime Minister and replied: “This man has done more to divide this nation than anybody else. He’s looked after his own pocket.

“I still refer to him as dodgy Dave. Do what you like.”

Twitter erupted with supporters saying Mr Skinner is “principled” and just declaring what “everyone else is thinking” since it was discovered that Mr Cameron received a £200,000 untaxed “gift” from his mum.

The PM, who announced “new measures” today to make it harder for wealthy people to hide assets overseas, also faced scrutiny from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Corbyn said that the PM and his ministers were failing to grasp the public anger at non-payment of tax by firms registered in overseas territories.

The furore has forced Mr Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne to publish their tax returns.

Mr Cameron said that he had published all information for the past six years — including the offshore shares in a Bahamas-based investment fund registered in Panama by his late father.

Ian Cameron was exposed in the Panama Papers leaked from legal firm Mossack Fonseca as having avoided paying British tax for 30 years through his company Blairmore Holdings Inc.

The PM said that a new law could tackle tax evasion by making it a criminal offence for corporations to facilitate tax evasion by failing to stop their staff doing it.

But Mr Corbyn accused him of holding “a masterclass in the art of distraction” from the public’s interest in his tax affairs, by announcing new laws that did not address the core legality of tax avoidance.

“What they have driven home is what many people have increasingly felt — there is one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest,” Mr Corbyn said.

“I’m honestly not sure that the prime minister fully appreciates the anger that is out there over this injustice.”

The Tory proposals “will not be enough to curb corporate tax avoidance” in British Overseas Territories such as the British Virgin Islands, said ActionAid tax advocacy adviser Charlie Matthews.

“The Panama Papers exposé has shown that British tax havens are being systematically used to hide wealth and avoid taxes in the world’s poorest countries.

“Asking the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to confidentially share company ownership details is a small step forward but it will simply not be enough to tackle this global problem. The government must take even tougher action.”

This 8 April 2016 video is called How David Cameron dodged the Panama Papers questions | The Panama Papers.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

‘In it together’ never the case

Tuesday 12th April 2016

DAVID CAMERON’S assertion that he behaved like a slippery eel over his account in an offshore tax haven was because of anger that his late father’s name was traduced cannot be taken seriously.

His five separate carefully scripted explanations were confected to avoid confirming that his family, including him personally, had benefited in this way.

He knew that voters would smell a rat over the discrepancy between his loud pledges of strong government action against offshore financial antics and his own family’s conduct.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was entirely correct to slate Cameron’s statement as a “masterclass in the art of distraction” and to voice the widely held conviction that, on taxation, “there is now one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest.”

Public awareness is feeding demands that politicians must be open about their tax arrangements and that taxation on the rich must be tightened up.

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg bemoans the erosion of privacy but accepts that this is an inevitable result of many MPs’ sickening behaviour over parliamentary expenses.

The spectacle of MPs claiming expenses to clean a moat at their manor house, replace a leaking pipe under a tennis court or buy a floating duck house as a pond feature had two negative effects for MPs.

The excesses showed that some treated the public purse as a limitless personal account and that the capitalist austerity imposed on working people and benefits claimants did not affect our political representatives.

They exposed the vast gap between lavish lifestyles enjoyed by people we put into Parliament and the stagnating living standards of the majority of the people.

So much for the “all in it together” claptrap disproven on a daily basis.

The longer and more sustained the revelations that there is one law — and luxurious way of life — for the wealthy elite, the greater the insistence on effective legislation to close the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor.

That’s why elements of the plutocracy — not least Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre — have launched a counter-attack, accusing Cameron of “grovelling before the politics-of-envy mob” and demanding repeal of inheritance tax.

The Mail applauds Cameron’s mother for avoiding £70,000 in taxation by giving her son a lifetime gift of £200,000.

It argues that “the Camerons were merely doing what millions of others would do in their position,” which ignores the reality that only a tiny minority of the population could act so.

Inheritance tax affects just 2 per cent of Britain’s population because Parliament, which is overburdened with mouthpieces of the super-rich, ensures that the threshold is so high.

The Mail accuses Labour MPs placing their wealth in family trusts of hypocrisy, which is a subject close to Dacre’s heart since he claims tens of thousands of pounds a year from the EU common agricultural policy (CAP) for his Scottish Highlands shooting and hunting estate while denouncing CAP as “crippingly expensive.”

Cameron attempted to join in the Mail-led tax fightback in Parliament by representing investment trusts in offshore havens as examples of aspiration and wealth creation.

This shows how out of touch he is. Shuffling second-hand shares does not create wealth.

It can certainly make money — just like parcelling up packages of toxic unpayable mortgages made money for bankers before sparking financial collapse.

Britain’s tax laws and the finance sector that has lobbied successfully over decades to shape them to the needs of the super-rich elite have to be reformed.

This is an essential prerequisite for a more just society that rewards working people rather than share-owning parasites.

DAZED and blooded by a flurry of blows, but the bell refuses to ring; the Tories are taking a battering. Self-inflicted wounds and natural flaws in the Tory ideology have sprung to the surface. The party that once brimmed with arrogance is shaking. As cracks appear, momentum and hope slowly gather on the other side. Whether David Cameron resigns or not should not be the priority. A change in the system rather than the figurehead is necessary. Jeremy Corbyn has rallied the Labour Party as Ed Miliband did, issuing a firm warning that tax avoidance is immoral and can no longer be ignored. What those on the left have yearned for years has come: we are finally talking about tax avoidance. Maybe much will come of it, or maybe nothing will. But the Tories are reeling from the crises such as the junior doctors’ dispute, the slashing of disability benefits to fund corporate tax breaks and inaction over the steel crisis: here.

NIGEL FARAGE has given a “big no” to publishing his personal tax return amid public calls for transparency from all politicians in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal. The Ukip leader weighed into the row on Sunday evening, branding Prime Minister David Cameron an “outright hypocrite” for criticising comedian Jimmy Carr for tax avoidance. But the self-styled man of the people ruled out publishing his tax return, insisting: “It’s a private thing. No. Big no!”: here.

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