Liebrary: Is affordable housing in London intended for people on modest incomes? Actually the eligibility limit for this subsidy is a household income of £80,000!

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" (Romeo & Juliet, Act2 Scene2).

Juliet's assertion applies both ways. A rip-off by any other name still stinks. You might think the 'affordable housing' policy is aimed at those who find it hard to afford their housing. There you would be right. You might think that the policy is aimed at people on low and modest incomes (e.g. nurses on £25k, firemen on £23k). There you would be wrong. After all, however much money you have there is always something that costs just a bit more than you can afford (think yacht, football club, income tax).

The sell-off of social housing in London starting in 1979 with the Tories' "Right to buy" scheme, rolled on virtually uninterrupted through the Labour government of 1997-2010, and continued into the Con-Dem coalition from 2010.

The original 'right' to buy at a considerable discount to market value (the discount was increased to up to £100,000 discount in London and £75,000 in the rest of the country in March 2013) was given specifically to public sector tenants. However this has been an open invitation to speculators entering into 'deferred purchase' agreements, where the council tenant has been the middleman - exercising his right to buy, and then selling on to private landlords both individuals and companies. A report by the Daily Mirror newspaper exposed the extent to which council housing has been taken over by private landlords:

"A Daily Mirror investigation found a third of ex-council homes sold in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher were now owned by private landlords. In one London borough almost half of ex-council properties are now sub-let to tenants."

This opportunity to turn a profit is particularly succulent in London, where rents are literally streets ahead of anywhere else in the UK.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_285163.pdf

London, which according to the Homes & Communities Agency has about the greatest concentration of people in temporary accommodation, has the greatest need for affordable housing. 

So with this huge problem of people in temporary accommodation in London, it would be churlish to criticise an attempt to help people onto the housing ladder by building 'affordable housing'. Until, that is, you notice who this housing is supposed to be affordable for. In 2011 the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, proposed his "First Steps" housing programme. At that time the eligibility criteria was:

"The upper household income for First Steps homes will be set at £74,000 for families buying a home with three or more bedrooms. For single people and all other sizes of home the upper income limit will remain at £60,000."

£74,000? Even MPs would qualify for that. Boris later increased the upper limit to an annual income of £80,000 per year!

Snap taken in June 2013

In his "Mayor's Housing Covenant", Boris states:

"Eligibility is now on the basis of income rather than employment, thus helping a far greater number of low and modest income Londoners."

To be fair, from Boris and also David Cameron and George Osborne's points of view £80,000 probably is a 'low and modest income'. However HMRC figures show only the richest in the UK population earn more than this. 

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/personal-incomes/tables3-1_3-10.pdf

In fact figures from the Office of National Statistics show that those with household incomes more than £80,000 per year (£1,538 per week) are so few they aren't worth measuring as a separate group:

"BHC" means Before Housing Costs

So it would seem "affordable housing" in London which can be bought by even the wealthiest people is simply nonsense. Or is it? We will let Boris Johnson himself explain (from BBC's Question Time of 20th June 2013. It's just 90 seconds of time well spent): 

So there you have it. Boris is perhaps the most amiable of the Tories. He uses his big nincompoopish teddy bear image as camouflage. Never forget, bears are not honey loving cuddly-wuddlies. When they see fresh meat they eat it.

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 27th June)

Payday loans market faces competition inquiry

Office of Fair Trading suspects payday lenders of preventing, restricting or distorting competition. Payday lenders charge annual interest rates of more than 4,000% in a £2bn market, making up to 50% of their money from customers who extended or rolled over loans or incurred late payment charges. Lenders are using practices which make it difficult for consumers to identify and compare costs, and create barriers to switching when loans are rolled over. The regulator said variable levels of compliance with credit laws and guidance meant firms that invest time and effort to comply were at a competitive disadvantage. GUARDIAN

(Said one payday lender  that fully complies with the laws, “If it wasn’t for Osborne throwing tens of thousands into poverty every week, we’d be out of business by now.”)

Starbucks pays UK corporation tax for first time since 2009

A company spokeswoman said it had listened to its customers, paid £5m now, and would pay another £5m later this year. The move follows pressure from politicians and campaigners, and an agreement by world leaders last week to clamp down on corporate tax avoidance. Starbucks has only reported taxable profit once in 15 years in the UK, despite sales of £400m last year. To deflect public criticism, big tax dodging corporates highlight the jobs they creats, and the tax and national insurance they pay on behalf of their staff. But that is not the tax paid by the corporate. BBC NEWS

(“...It is, kind of. ‘Cos they’re paying the tax we dodge. And so are you!” said one joyous finance director...)

Drug companies accused of colluding with chemists to overcharge the NHS for drugs

Following a whistleblower tip-off, undercover reporters approached specialist pharmaceutical companies that discussed ways chemists could bill the NHS for more than they actually spent. One company described a "rebate" scheme, whereby the chemist would inflate their invoice to charge the NHS more than they actually paid for the drug. Hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are feared to have been wasted in recent years due to the practice. TELEGRAPH

British Gas pays £10m to settle row after allegation it broke rules by failing to round down gas figures on bills

British Gas had been displaying the 'calorific value' figure to four decimal places on bills when Ofgem rules require it be rounded down to one decimal place. British Gas had been interpreting the rules this way for five years. British Gas argued that bills were no higher than they otherwise would have been because the sum lost from rounding down the figures would have anyway been recouped through higher retail prices. DAILY MAIL

Auditors failed to declare the risks accumulating on banks' balance sheets

The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (PCBS) said the incestuous relationships between banks and their auditors meant that "at best, auditors did not act as the last line of defence against banks' questionable reporting on their own businesses and, at worst, they were cheerleaders for it." The accounting method used meant banks were paying out on profits that had not yet been made. The PCBS recommends that tightening up the audit rules should be an essential part of bank reform, even if it makes banks look less profitable. The PCBS, set up by the government in the wake of a string of scandals involving the industry, found bankers, regulators, investors and auditors all failed to understand the risks building up in the banking system. ACCOUNTANCY AGE

(“Look. We were completely thrown by the huge numbers involved. I mean, just look at them,” said bankers, regulators and auditors as they stared at their pay cheques...)

Outgoing governor of the Bank of England says Government is blocking tough new rules for British banks

Sir Mervyn King said banks put ‘tremendous pressure’ on Downing Street, after which the bank regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, was contacted by politicians or senior officials close to David Cameron or George Osborne. Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘Pressure had been brought to bear on the PRA, as a result of calls by the banks to Number 10 and Number 11... Representations of the views of banks are desirable. Attempts to influence the independent regulator are unacceptable.” The cause of the current global crisis is irresponsible lending on a massive scale. DAILY MAIL

Deloitte gets one-year New York ban

The Financial Advisory Services division of Deloitte has agreed to a one-year suspension from doing new consulting work for financial firms in New York state. Last year, UK-based Standard Chartered agreed to fines totalling over $650m to settle charges it violated US sanctions on Iran, Burma, Libya and Sudan. Deloitte, the global accountancy firm, were advising Standard Chartered. Deloitte also violated New York banking law by disclosing confidential information of other clients to Standard Chartered. Deloitte will also pay the state of New York $10m (£6.4m) under the agreement. BBC NEWS

(We need some of that US law enforcement over here. And fast...)

Infant classes over 30 almost treble in five years

The number of four-to-seven-year-olds being taught in classes of more than 30 pupils almost trebled in five years, according to official data. In 2008, there were 730 infant classes with more than 30 pupils, representing 1.7% of the total. By 2013, this had risen to 2,299 "over-sized" classes, 4.1% of the total. BBC NEWS 

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Graphs at a glance - banker remuneration per head is now even higher than before the banker induced Credit Crisis

We are told again and again by our most respected people and organisations that their criminality, scandals, cock-ups and other miscellaneous failures were due to a previous group of people under a previous system and a previous bad old culture. We have been told this by:

• Grasping bankers ripping off everybody
• Venal newspapers bugging the innocent (as well as the guilty)
• Brutish policemen being racist
• Incompetent regulators failing to regulate hospitals and banks
• Ministers pressing regulators to not regulate (pardon the split infinitive, but it is clearer. Actually "to not regulate" should be classed as a verb in its own right, as it is the usual business of British 'regulators')
• Spies spying beyond the call of duty
• British industry bribing foreigners
• etc. etc.

We are told that all this naughtiness happened under previous systems and people, and that it has already changed, and the bad old culture has been cleaned up. We are told there is no need to keep a close eye on them, no need to investigate them further. Just leave them alone and trust them, we are told.

One of these 'bad things' that we are supposed not to worry about anymore has been excessive pay in the banking sector. The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards released its report in June 2013, including a couple of graphs on banker pay. One of these exposes that far from 'excessive pay' being brought under control, it is now even higher than it was in the fat days before the 2008 crash.

Average pay per head in 2012 was actually much higher, (about 30% higher in Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds) than it was at the height of excessive pay in 2007 just before the crash:

Banks (other than Barclays, that avoided taking a British government bailout by taking an Arab government bailout) have been able to claim their total wage bills have remained relatively stable since 2007. 

But they have pulled this trick by having fewer staff. As the Banking Commission's reports states:

"While aggregate remuneration across the sector has remained relatively stable, staff numbers have fallen, meaning that per-capita remuneration has actually increased over recent years."

The Banking Commission's report also refers to the myth of bringing bonuses under control:

"The discrepancy between the much-vaunted falls in bonuses and the reality of static or rising total and per-capita remuneration is in part due to a shift from variable to fixed pay. 

For example, at Barclays, the Salz Review found that: fixed pay as a proportion of total compensation has changed significantly, increasing on average from 65 per cent in 2010 to 76 per cent in 2012 across the Group. This shift has been even more pronounced in the investment bank where average fixed pay has risen from 25 per cent in 2007 to 59 per cent in 2012, and from 6 per cent in 2007 to 32 per cent in 2012 for managing directors only, reflecting both absolute increases in fixed pay and significant reductions in average bonus."

Remember, banks boast that they should be allowed a free rein to play fast and loose with clients, investors, and taxpayers because they employ lots of people in the UK. And yet their solution to control excessive pay is to sack lots of people and pay the elite even more excessively!

And remember, bankers don't do all the reckless stuff and the mis-selling because they are recklessly wicked or stupid, but because they are recklessly greedy. 

The root of the problem is excessive pay inflaming their greedy recklessness! When will those in a place to do something about this actually do something about this?

Read More

Doctors pile on the pressure against NHS reforms

Cameron and Osborne can see the bright side...

SOURCE GUARDIAN: Doctors pass motion of no confidence in health secretary Jeremy Hunt
British Medical Association delegates retaliate after minister's series of attacks on NHS staff and standards of care.


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History shows left/right policies grow the economic cake equally. The difference is only in how the cake is divided

What happened to all the Compassion?

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How the rich and their servants in government blamed every body else for the excesses of the rich

It is not just a recent event, but events over the centuries. Politicians are bought by people with money.

This brilliant animated fairy tale is narrated by Ed Asner, with animation by Mike Konopacki. Written and directed by Fred Glass for the California Federation of Teachers. An 8 minute video about how we arrived at this moment of poorly funded public services and widening economic inequality. 

Things go downhill in a happy and prosperous land after the rich decide they don't want to pay taxes anymore. They tell the people that there is no alternative, but the people aren't so sure. This land bears a startling resemblance to our land.

For more info, www.cft.org. © 2012 California Federation of Teachers: 

Read More

Graphs at a glance: Are swingeing cuts to legal aid needed because the cost is ballooning out of control? Actually the Legal Aid bill has been falling for years.

The wealthy live more opulently than the poor. But generally speaking the expensively dressed wealthy don't themselves benefit from the tatty outfits of their less well heeled fellow citizens. Indeed, when they are able the wealthy take the trouble to dress their servants very well. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amesservants.jpg

Old bangers breaking down on the road don't really make the man in his £50k motor car feel better. Broken down crocks just cause traffic jams to infuriate rich and poor alike. 

Few people take active pleasure in the poverty of others. They enjoy the inequality in the form of their own comfort, and just ignore the discomfort of the rest.

This is true with clothes and jewelry and houses and cars. It is true with private education and health. The wealthy buy their privileges. The principal benefit to the wealthy few of the poor services meted out to the majority is low taxes.

But this is not true of justice. Justice denied to one is justice escaped by another. The withdrawal of legal aid will mean those who can't afford to pay for their justice will not be able to afford to pursue those who can. According to a BBC report:

"The government is removing funding from entire areas of civil law. They include:

• Private family law, such as divorce and custody battles
• Personal injury and some clinical negligence cases
• Some employment and education law
• Immigration where the person is not detained
• Some debt, housing and benefit issues"

The BBC's list does not include the cuts for criminal cases, which are in addition to the above.

To justify pulling legal aid, we are told a host of fibs about how it is 'ballooning' out of control. So we looked around, and found some data in a report by the parliamentary select committee responsible for Justice:

1) Has the Legal Aid cost been ballooning? No: it has been falling since 2004:

2) Is this because the number of cases has been falling? No, they have been rising. In spite of rising number of cases since 2004, the costs have NOT been rising:

3) Is the legal aid money pouring into the pin-striped pockets of legal fat-cats? No: according to the Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff the average earnings of a legal aid lawyer are £25,000 per year.



4) Are the cuts in legal aid cutting waste and inefficiency? No: the Ministry of Justice itself admits they are simply saving money by cutting our rights to justice:

"In seeking to learn how best to reduce costs from other jurisdictions, Ms Albon [Director for Civil, Family and Legal Aid Policy at the Ministry of Justice] admitted that the Ministry of Justice had found it "difficult to find some other area, look at it and think they are providing a much better and cheaper service than us. Mostly, when they are spending a lot less, it is because they are buying a lot less."[41]"

The withdrawal of Legal Aid will provide more than just lower taxes for the wealthy. It will benefit big people and organisations who would rather not face little people as equals in the eyes of the Law. 

Read More

Junior Barristers ‘on £14 a day’ after proposed legal aid cuts

Fee and KJ are losing faith in British justice. Are you?...

SOURCE LAW GAZETTE: Junior Barristers ‘on £14 a day’ after proposed legal aid cuts
£14 a day is well below the minimum wage. Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff branded the government’s current plans ‘bonkers’. The House of Commons justice committee, taking evidence from bodies representing the legal community, were told that the reforms should be put on hold to enable a full review of the criminal justice system. The reforms include the introduction of “lowest bidder wins” price-competitive tendering, the removal of client choice and fee cuts of 17.5%-30%.

OUR RELATED POSTS:

Austerity shifts wealth, rights and opportunity up the wealth ladder. The only winners are those at the top

NHS forced to tender services to all comers, including dodgy providers. See how it works

Read More

Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 20th June)

Banking commission: Bankers should be jailed for 'reckless misconduct'

The Parliamentary Commission recommends jailing reckless bankers and enforcing a wait of up to 10 years for bonuses. The chancellor must restore confidence in the financial system by making top bankers more accountable following the 2008 bank bailouts, as well as a list of other offences including the Libor rigging scandal, and the shoddy treatment of customers mis-sold payment protection insurance. The commission also described UK Financial Investments, the body set up to look up after the taxpayers' stakes in the bailed-out banks, as a "fig leaf" to hide political interference by the chancellor. GUARDIAN
(Creating new laws is tough. How about we just photocopy Singapore’s...)

£1.5bn+ censure by Singapore of 20 banks for attempting to rig benchmark interest rates

UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland and ING have been told to set aside funds of over S$1bn (£500m; $800m) each. Another 16 banks have also been ordered to set aside lesser amounts, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and HSBC. Some of the cases have been referred to the police. BBC NEWS

(So much for the idea that foreign financial centres would stop at nothing to woo our “talented” bankers over there...)

Junior Barristers ‘on £14 a day’ after proposed legal aid cuts

£14 a day is well below the minimum wage. Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff branded the government’s current plans ‘bonkers’. The House of Commons justice committee, taking evidence from bodies representing the legal community, were told that the reforms should be put on hold to enable a full review of the criminal justice system. The reforms include the introduction of “lowest bidder wins” price-competitive tendering, the removal of client choice and fee cuts of 17.5%-30%. LAW GAZETTE

(“OK, but will we be able to represent ourselves?” said a roving gang of junior barristers caught shoplifting ‘cos they couldn’t afford to eat on £14 a day...)

Street lights may be turned off to help fund elderly care

Leaders from 370 councils have warned they might have to switch off street lights or close parks and libraries and use the money saved to provide elderly care, which is their legal obligation. To avoid this, they want specially protected NHS health budgets to be shared with them. TELEGRAPH

We're destined to be Generation Rent, say younger people

Renting will be seen as the norm for a generation of would-be buyers priced out of housing market, according to a report by Halifax canvassing opinion of younger people. Official figures recently showed that homeownership has dropped off in recent years across England and Wales for the first time in almost a century. Almost 65% of people owned their own homes in 2011, down from a peak of 69% in 2001. The report also pointed to figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showing that first-time buyers typically needed to find a deposit of nearly £27,000 in the first quarter of 2013. GUARDIAN

4,480 soldiers are axed in Army cuts... and more job losses loom

The vast majority, 3,765 or 84 per cent, are voluntary redundancies, but 715 more soldiers were today being told they were being sacked. Total Army cuts will reduce its size from 102,000 to 82,000. While the size of the Army is being reduced, more focus is being placed on special forces, cyber warfare and cutting edge technology such as drone planes. As the regular Army gets smaller, the number of reservists is to double from 15,000 to 30,000 by 2018. EVENING STANDARD

EDF backs single energy price plan
Proposal to help consumers find cheapest deal gets EDF backing – on condition other suppliers commit to change too. Consumer champion Which? says many people don't switch to save money because the market is too complicated, adding "We recently found eight in 10 consumers could identify the cheapest deal when using the petrol forecourt-style single unit price, and 10,000 people have already joined our campaign in support of this change." But new rules soon to be published by the energy regulator Ofgem may not back the change. Ofgem said "It does not take into account, for example, discounts for payment method, dual fuel and paperless billing." GUARDIAN

("...Nor does it take into account the cosy relationship between our regulators and the big corporates," whispered the Ofgem spokesperson...)

Junk food still marketed to children as companies bypass rules

Food companies have simply increased child-targeted adverts during evening family shows such as Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor, to get around the tough rules that limit advertising during children's TV programmes. Also, increasingly, food companies are targeting children through computer games, mobile phones and social networks such as Facebook. Most major food companies have developed “advergames” which are game-playing and fantasy video sites for young children. A Chewits site, for example, has an animated dinosaur seeking out sweets. Leaf International, which owns Chewit's, has said other parts of the website contain information on how the sweets should be consumed responsibly. Food companies are allowed to sponsor events such as the children's Amateur Swimming Association awards by Kellogg's. GUARDIAN

Italy convicts and jails Dolce and Gabbana for tax evasion

Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana found guilty in Milan court of failing to declare €1bn in income. A court in Milan sentenced them both to one year and eight months in jail. GUARDIAN

Read More

Will the G8 crackdown on global tax evasion ever happen?

Cameron and Obama hope nobody notices if it all just fades away...

SOURCE GUARDIAN: Vodafone paid no corporation tax in Britain last year
Generous tax breaks mean the UK’s second largest mobile phone company reduced its tax bill to zero for the second consecutive year. The blue chip company has distributed £4.8bn in cash dividends to shareholders in the last 12 months – more than any other British business. CEO, Vittorio Colao, collected £11m in pay last financial year, down from the £15.7m he earned the year before. The drop in his pay is due to revenue targets missed in recession hit Europe. 

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In numbers (+ a cool animation): the global trillions dodged in taxes

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Tax Dodging in Britain is a government regulated sport

Read More

Graphs at a glance: Are MPs underpaid? Actually their basic pay puts them above 95% of Britons

It is suggested that paying MPs more would get a better calibre of people into the Houses of Parliament. 

The reality is an MP’s basic pay puts him or her above the wages of more than 95% of Britons. 

The graph below uses HMRC figures for 2010-11 and an MP's basic salary that year of £65,738.

This does not include the other income MPs can derive directly from Parliament:

• Ministerial salaries (from an extra £26k for a whip, to £79k for a cabinet minister)
• Salaries for chairing select committees (Nearly £15k extra)
• Salaries paid to their spouses and children employed as their constituency staff. (See Part2 of their declarations, e.g. for May 2013 click here)

And it does not include money they earn within Parliamentary rules doing other jobs while still employed as an MP, including Gordon Brown MP and Stephen Philips QC MP whose other earnings dwarf their parliamentary salaries.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) did a survey of MPs, and found they too felt they deserved a pay rise. Though the amount of the increase over their then £66k basic salary varied by party:

It is suggested by some that MPs and Peers would be less corrupt if they were paid more. History has shown that no matter how much is paid some people will always take more. A report by the High Pay Commission showed:

“In 1980, for instance, the boss of Barclays was earning 14.5 times average pay at the bank; the current boss, however, is on 75 times the average, representing a 4,899% rise over that 30 years."

Giving MPs an extra few thousand may sate the less insatiable MPs. But the more dodgy would quickly fill the vacuum and take over the consultancies and directorships that the less dodgy decline.

It is also suggested that if a Parliamentarian in the normal course of his life has access to movers and shakers, what is wrong with him taking money for getting things moved and shaken. The equivalent of saying because a supermarket cashier in the normal course of his life has access to his till there is nothing wrong with him pocketing a handful of tenners every now and then. 

Parliamentarians are already paid more than 95% of Britons to move and shake things. But their parliamentary salaries and their access to movers and shakers is specifically for the interests of their constituents. Not for their own interests in funding their personal pleasures and hobbies.

Read More

The nation's wage bill falls £52bn in five years while top exec pay keeps rising

Fee, Chris and KJ - if not the mainstream political parties - see the problem...

SOURCE MIRROR: Nation's wage bill falls £52bn to £638bn in five years with North West suffering sharpest cuts
Falling real wages, reduced hours and changes in the kind jobs people are doing has reduced the nation’s total pay, said a TUC report. This means a 7.5% drop on average since the eve of the recession in 2007. The North West suffered the sharpest cut of 10.6%. The South West, West Midlands and Scottish economies have also seen pay packets shrink by around 10%. Despite a small rise in the number of people in work since 2007, it has failed to offset the sharp cuts to workers’ wages. The TUC says if people have less money and are spending less, businesses will struggle: “It’s no wonder businesses are struggling when so much demand has been sucked out of the economy.”

SOURCE DAILY MAIL: Top companies' bosses pay and perks rise 10% to £4.3m on average
This year the leaders of FTSE 100 firms continued to enjoy salary hikes, while the average worker received a pay rise of just 1%, well below the current 2.4% inflation rate which equates to a pay cut in real terms. According to the Office for National Statistics that 1% figure is the lowest since its records began in 2001. 

OUR RELATED STORIES:

Since 1979, under Labour or Tory governments, the rich have got richer whilst economic performance remained the same

The share of national income being paid to employees has been dropping since the 1970s

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Read More

Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 13th June)

Nation's wage bill falls £52bn to £638bn in five years with North West suffering sharpest cuts

Falling real wages, reduced hours and changes in the kind jobs people are doing has reduced the nation’s total pay, said a TUC report. This means a 7.5% drop on average since the eve of the recession in 2007. The North West suffered the sharpest cut of 10.6%. The South West, West Midlands and Scottish economies have also seen pay packets shrink by around 10%. Despite a small rise in the number of people in work since 2007, it has failed to offset the sharp cuts to workers’ wages. The TUC says if people have less money and are spending less, businesses will struggle: “It’s no wonder businesses are struggling when so much demand has been sucked out of the economy.” MIRROR
(“It’s tragic. There’s only one union left that can stand up to the merciless self-defeating slash and burn rhetoric of wage cuts these days, and that’s us,” said the National Union of Fat Cats. "See below...")

Top companies' bosses pay and perks rise 10% to £4.3m on average

This year the leaders of FTSE 100 firms continued to enjoy salary hikes, while the average worker received a pay rise of just 1%, well below the current 2.4% inflation rate which equates to a pay cut in real terms. According to the Office for National Statistics that 1% figure is the lowest since its records began in 2001. DAILY MAIL

Nestle and Mars charged with price-fixing of chocolates
Authorities in Canada have charged the food giants Nestle and Mars, together with a network of independent wholesale distributors, in an alleged conspiracy to fix prices of chocolates. Three individuals have also been charged: former Nestle Canada president Robert Leonidas; Sandra Martinez, former president of confectionery for Nestle Canada; and David Glenn Stevens, president and CEO of distributor ITWAL. Mars, Nestle and ITWAL vowed to fight the charges. But Hershey Canada, an alleged co-conspirator, is expected to plead guilty in exchange for leniency, blaming previous management. BBC NEWS

Vodafone paid no corporation tax in Britain last year

Generous tax breaks mean the UK’s second largest mobile phone company reduced its tax bill to zero for the second consecutive year. The blue chip company has distributed £4.8bn in cash dividends to shareholders in the last 12 months – more than any other British business. CEO, Vittorio Colao, collected £11m in pay last financial year, down from the £15.7m he earned the year before. The drop in his pay is due to revenue targets missed in recession hit Europe. GUARDIAN
(News? This isn’t news. News would be “Vodafone pays some corporation tax in Britain!!!” surely?...)

Ex-HBOS chief James Crosby stripped of knighthood

Following a highly critical report by the Banking Standards Commission in April, Sir James asked for his knighthood to be removed. The report described him as the "architect" of the strategy that led to HBOS' downfall. Mr Crosby also gave up 30% of his £580,000-a-year HBOS pension, meaning he will waive around £174,000 this year. Mr Crosby's knighthood is the second casualty of the banking crisis. Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of RBS, was stripped of his knighthood in 2012 after leading the bank to near-collapse in 2008, and an eventual multi-billion pound government bailout. BBC NEWS

Privatised rail has meant 'higher fares, older trains and bigger taxpayers' bill'

A TUC-commissioned report says the rail selloff 20 years ago has brought little private investment in new technology but the dearest fares in Europe. Over 90% of profits go straight to the shareholders. Investment is overwhelming being paid for using taxpayer subsidies or government-underwritten borrowing. Between 2007 and 2011 rail firms got £3bn in subsidies. The report noted that the only firm that re-invests its profits is East Coast, which is publicly owned. GUARDIAN

Water giants' profits and tax 'morally questionable'
Jonson Cox, the chairman of the water industry regulator Ofwat, criticised companies for making “exceptional returns” and paying little or no tax while “hard-pressed customers have seen annual bills rise by 13.5% since 2010/11”. Ofwat has already asked companies to look at ways of sharing these windfall gains with consumers. While four have so far responded “positively”, Ofwat may intervene to “set the rules to make sure that customers benefit.”  TELEGRAPH

Sold down the river: How Thames Water diverts its tax liability via the Caribbean despite £549m profit and 6.7% price hike
Thames Water's profits were £549m i.e. 30% of their turnover of £1.8bn. They awarded their chief executive a £274,000 bonus. Yet they put up customer bills by 6.7%, customer satisfaction has dipped and hundreds of people’s homes were flooded with sewage. Critics said it was a “disgrace” that one of Britain’s biggest and most profitable companies was not making a greater contribution to the Exchequer. INDEPENDENT

Disability Living Allowance changes begin
Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) are replacing Disability Living Allowance (DLA). As part of the government's welfare reforms, the new PIPs require claimants to be assessed by private providers. But the charity Scope warns of a repeat of the problems with the fitness-to-work test, known as the Work Capability Assessment, where thousands appealed successfully against their test results. Capita, one of the firms carrying out the assessments, says the test is more of an interview than a medical assessment. The head of Capita's PIP programme said: "Applicants could be asked to bend over and touch their toes, but it will not be more complicated than that." BBC NEWS
(...and the taxpayer who's paying Capita et al for this service, whether they cock it up or not? "They'll just be asked to bend over," said our Capita insider.)

Lloyds admits “shortcomings” in the handling PPI mis-selling complaints

An undercover reporter at the Times said staff at one of the bank's complaints handling centres had been taught to "play the system". The reporter said he was told to ignore possible fraud by Lloyds salesmen and that most complainants would give up if rejected the first time." The reporter was also told that some salespeople secretly ticked the “payment protection insurance” box before the customer signed. The centre was operated for Lloyds by the leading accounting firm, Deloitte. BBC NEWS

Survey: Four in 10 would join consumer boycott over tax avoidance

Tax dodging by some big companies has persisted in the headlines since the start of the economic crisis. The survey shows older people (54%) the most likely to take action, with much less support from the young (28%). David Cameron has promised to put tax avoidance centre-stage when he chairs the G8 summit. Analysts point to pessimism and defeatism among the young. The economy-wide unemployment rate of 7.8% rises to 20.7% among those aged 16-24. Whereas 79% of the prewar generation believe that their own generation has had a better life than their parents, among the youngest this figure drops to 42%. GUARDIAN

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Top business leaders' pay packets up by 10% to £4.3m on average, while rest of UK gets 1%

Can Ed Milliband and Cameron agree on something?...

SOURCE MIRROR: Nation's pay falls £52bn to £638bn in five years with North West suffering sharpest cuts
Falling real wages, reduced hours and changes in the kind jobs people are doing has reduced the nation’s total pay, said a TUC report. This means a 7.5% drop on average since the eve of the recession in 2007. The North West suffered the sharpest cut of 10.6%. The South West, West Midlands and Scottish economies have also seen pay packets shrink by around 10%. Despite a small rise in the number of people in work since 2007, it has failed to offset the sharp cuts to workers’ wages. The TUC says if people have less money and are spending less, businesses will struggle: “It’s no wonder businesses are struggling when so much demand has been sucked out of the economy.”
SOURCE DAILY MAIL: Top business leaders' pay packets rise by 10%: Bosses of top companies now enjoy £4.3m in pay and perks
The leaders of FTSE 100 firms continued to enjoy salary hikes, while ordinary workers endure pay freezes or meagre increases. Meanwhile the average worker received a pay rise of just 1 per cent, according to the Office for National Statistics – the lowest since its records began in 2001. That is well below inflation, currently at 2.4%.


OUR RELATED STORIES:

Since 1979, under Labour or Tory governments, the rich have got richer whilst economic performance remained the same

The share of national income being paid to employees has been dropping since the 1970s

Austerity shifts wealth, rights and opportunity up the wealth ladder. The only winners are those at the top

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Graphs at a glance: With yet more reports of MPs misbehaving and enriching themselves, we look to see who actually selects these people.

The fact is a man or woman does not get into parliament by winning their seat in a General Election nor in a Bye Election. They don’t have to persuade the majority of all voters in their constituency that they are fit and proper to be their ward’s representative. 

Prospective MPs merely have to persuade their local constituency party activists – comprising about one in a hundred of the electorate. It is by persuading these local activists, allegedly regarded by some top politicians as ‘swivel-eyed loons’, that our MPs actually get themselves into Parliament.

A report by the UK Parliament in December 2012 stated that:

“In 2010, only 1.0% of the electorate was a member of one of the three main political parties. Labour had approximately 193,000 members, the Conservatives 130,000 to 150,000 and the Liberal Democrats 49,000.”

According to the Electoral Reform Society ordinary voters in most constituencies tend to stick with the same party. Which means the loony party activists in those constituencies have the parliamentary seat in their gift. :

"The average constituency last changed hands between parties in the 1960s, with some super safe seats having remained firmly in one-party control since the time of Queen Victoria. "
Electoral Reform Society

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/safe-seats/#1830-2010

The Electoral Reform Society's map of 'safe seats' below shows that most of the UK is in the gift of the eye-swiveling loons:

Put the same map against a map showing unemployment rates and you can see with the loons raving about one thing in blue areas (cutting help to the poor and unemployed) and another thing in the red areas (increasing help for the poor and unemployed) we end up with a large proportion of cynical lunatics as our MPs in Westminster.

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Graphs at a glance: MPs just do as they are told by their party bosses

MPs bleat that they are very clever, work very hard, and therefore should be paid more.

The reality is that the vast majority of them just follow party orders. This data from The Public Whip, taken by us in June 2013, shows the number of times an MP voted against the majority in his own party.

A senior MP was reported saying "‘Voters may not like it but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys." The graphs below show that inspite of their basic £65k salaries, not including all the perks and privileges and being allowed to have multiple other paid jobs, we don't even get monkeys - we get obedient sheep.

[For those less mathematically minded, if an MP voted against his party 2% (2 out of 100) of the time, that means he marches in line with his own flock 98 times in 100].

(It is usual that MPs in the party in power tend to rebel more than those in opposition - because they know their rebellion won't make any difference).

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