Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 10th January)

Poorest households will be hit hardest by benefit changes, Whitehall admits

The government plans to limit rises in working-age benefits to 1% in a bid to save £3.1bn by 2016. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) report found that 30% of households would be hit by the change, with the average working household losing £3/week and single parents £5/week. The DWP admitted that households "further down the income distribution" would suffer the greatest loss of income. GUARDIAN

(“...which is what you expect from a government further down the evolutionary chain,” grunted the DWP spokesperson.)

Probation service 'revolution' means wholesale privatisation

The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, wants the wholesale outsourcing of the probation service. Private companies and voluntary sector organisations will take over the rehabilitation of the majority of offenders by 2015. He denied that it was a quick-fix to save money. The public probation service will be scaled back to deal with only with the most dangerous offenders. The majority of services will be contracted out on a payment-by-result basis. “It creates a world where innovation will flourish,” said Grayling. GUARDIAN

(“...and we’re all looking forward to seeing the bids from Atos and G4S,” say us.)

Health screening: top doctors attack 'scare tactics' by private companies

The British Medical Association says direct marketing letters should be 'put straight into the bin.' The BMA said if you get a clear result on an EGC, for example, it does not mean you are not going to have a heart attack, yet companies do a hard sell on the "reassurance" factor. One company, Prescan, advertises breast awareness consultations from £250 and brain scans for £1,280. The site includes a quote from Dragon's Den star and entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne: "My trip to Prescan gave me peace of mind." GUARDIAN

(“...The brain scan removed my doubts that I had any principles,” said Mr Bannatyne.)

Passengers treated like 'cash cows' as rail firms hike car parking charges five times the rate of inflation

Fares are regulated, but not car parking charges. Rail firms simply charge whatever parking fees they think they can get away with. At some stations the increase has pushed the annual parking fee over £1,000. Meanwhile rail minister Simon Burns is under fire after it emerged he shuns commuting by train in favour of a chauffeur-driven car. The MP is ferried the 35 miles between his Essex home and his Whitehall office in the comfort of a Government car which costs the taxpayer £80,000 a year. DAILY MAIL

(“I don't know how this has happened. I’m very sorry and I won’t do it again,” the minister said.)

Disgraced high street banks 'to be welcomed into the classroom to teach children lessons in financial education'
Banks included Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Lloyds may be given permission to use branded material and make presentations in English schools from September 2014. Lessons would include calculating the cost of a loan. Teaching unions and campaigners have warned that schools would need to ensure banks did not treat lessons as potential marketing exercises. DAILY MAIL
(“Your children’s future is safe in our hands,” said a shadowy figure who followed this with a spooky, deep-throated gurgling laugh that went on for ages...)

PPI payouts to boost the economy in 2013 by £6bn

Banks are being forced to refund much of the 40 million (£50bn) Payment Protection Insurance policies mis-sold to consumers who did not need it and could never benefit from having it. This compensation windfall is equivalent to more than 1.5p off the basic rate of income tax. PPI refunds last year were also £6bn. The government hopes that the economy will be bolstered when those receiving compensation opt to spend it on consumer goods and services. DAILY MAIL

("This is the only way to make you lot save. We steal from you, then pay it back years later. Frightening, yet strangely beautiful," said our banking insider.)

Banks get new year's boost as liquidity rules relaxed
Banks have been given a further four years to build up capital buffers to avoid them having to be bailed out by the taxpayer. Commentators say they have once again outwitted their regulators. GUARDIAN

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Universal credit plan 'is a disaster in the making', says minister just months ahead of launch

But how will Cameron get out of this one?...

SOURCE: DAILY MAIL Universal credit plan 'is a disaster in the making', says minister just months ahead of launch
New system will replace list of unemployment handouts. But senior figures, including Chancellor George Osborne, are concerned about whether the computer software needed for the £2bn project is on schedule. Also, although Osborne supports the scheme in principle he is worried about such a high profile scheme affecting so many people in the run-up to the next election. It doesn't make sense to pay people not to work, in the government's opinion.

OUR RELATED STORIES:

Cutting benefits will push the work-shy into employment? Actually benefits subsidise the low wages of millions of working Britons

Read why the IMF is calling for an immediate end to austerity programmes

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MPs' Expenses Watchdogs ejected and replaced

In January 2012 we wrote a post about "The House of Commons Committee on Members' Expenses" calling for £20,000 pay rises. This would be achieved by converting certain 'expenses' that must be costs proved to be incurred for the sole purpose of MPs doing their jobs into 'regional supplements' that are just paid to MPs regardless. That Commons committee last met in December 2011, and has patiently waited, with no  minuted meetings, for the whole of 2012.

No meetings in the whole of 2012? In spite of the committee's recommendation, made in December 2011, that:

"In not more than six months' time, the House should have the opportunity to consider the merits of that cost-benefit analysis and evaluation and to make a decision on whether there should or should not be a system of regional supplements instead of the existing travel and accommodation provisions."

What ever were they waiting for? 

In the summer of 2012 an advert appeared on the parliamentary website:

Applicants invited for IPSA board membership....Individuals put forward for appointment by the House of Commons must have been selected by the Speaker on merit on the basis of fair and open competition, with the agreement of the Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. 

In case you were wondering, IPSA (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) was, in its own words:

"created in 2009 by the Parliamentary Standards Act. We are tasked with independently monitoring and controlling MPs’ expenses, pay and pensions. We set up new rules to make a clean break with the past."

"The past" being broken with is the parliamentary expenses scandal. The scandal that shocked and entertained the nation with stories of duck houses, moats, mortgage flipping, and more mundane dodgy expense claims by MPs and peers giving their incomes a dubious top-up. 

January 2013 saw the end of the terms of members of the original IPSA board created in 2009. There had been an expectation that those board members who wanted to stay would be automatically extended for one further term. However, the anger of MPs continuing to get their fingers caught in the public purse demanded revenge. Which the Speaker, John Bercow, provided by ruling that the entire board of IPSA must reapply for their jobs, and by putting a member of his own committee on the selection panel. Unsurprisingly apart from the chairman (whose appointment goes to 2014) all the members of the original board decided to leave, making the following statement on the 13th November 2012:

"The four ordinary members of IPSA’s Board have today announced they did not reapply for their positions. Of course, these are individual choices but one contributing factor was their concern about the process used to appoint and reappoint members to the Board. 

These concerns were first set out in an exchange of letters between IPSA chair, Sir Ian Kennedy, and the Speaker over the summer. The letters are available here: http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/commons/speakers-office/speakers-publications/general-correspondence/

Sir Ian Kennedy will continue as IPSA chair."

Their concerns were illustrated by the sentiments of a member of the Speaker's Committee on IPSA (SCIPSA), Sir Bob Russell:

“The donkeys are the board of Ipsa who have created a regime which means 38 per cent of all claims cost more to process than the claim is for."
TELEGRAPH 15/11/12 

The original board members were well aware that it would be the Speaker and SCIPSA's (including Sir Bob) responsibility to recommend the new board.

MPs smokescreen their "gratuitous hostility" to IPSA with claims that it wastes their time and taxpayers' money. MPs observe that it costs £6m a year to fund IPSA. Have MPs overlooked the fact that the cost of IPSA is about the same as the taxpayer’s subsidy for the House of Commons bars and restaurants (£5.8 million a year)? 

In their cost consciousness, would MPs wield a knife at both of these? In the case of food subsidies it was less a case of wielding a knife than waving the cutlery at the food-laden crockery.


Perhaps our well-fed parliamentarians don't make the connection between the two because subsidised food and drink are a perk they (as well as former MPs for their lifetimes) enjoy above and beyond their pay and expenses. 

Freedom of Information requests in 2012 unearthed a medley of menus from a roster of restaurants which reveal MPs can enjoy a smorgasbord of dishes including a 3 course meal for £15 (menu on the right). But lets not dwell here on the soups, sauces and syllabub on offer at knock-down prices**. Enough to say that when it comes to waste, IPSA seems a far better use of taxpayers' money.

In terms of the MPs’ time filling out expenses, according to a survey of 128 MPs 79%  spent less than 2 hours a week, with 24% saying they spent no time at all making claims (presumably leaving that to their staff).

MPs bleating that this time is time spent away from working for their constituents should ask themselves how so many of their number find time for their lucrative second jobs (or is it being an MP that is the secondary job?) as directors and partners of firms and consultancies earning them in many cases far more than their MP’s salaries. 

MPs defend their other paid employments claiming they keep them in touch with the ‘real world’ making them better MPs. If that is so, why don't these MPs feel it worthwhile keeping in touch with the ‘real world’ by working on minimum wage as a supermarket shelf stacker or as a teaching assistant in the inner city?

But all this fuss about MPs' dodgy expenses misses the point of what IPSA is really for. IPSA are watchdogs put in place by public anger at MPs proved misbehaviour.

It would be ignorant to judge our police force only by the crimes they solve and the value of stolen goods they recover. They should also be given credit for the value of goods that are not stolen, the cost of court appearances that are not needed, the expense of prison that are not required, and the damage of trauma not inflicted on victims of crimes that never were because of their deterrence value. Give the cops credit for all the crimes that did not happen because crooks feared the consequences.

As it is for the police, so it should be for the Parliamentary expenses watchdog IPSA. Judge IPSA not by how much money they doled out, nor how much they withheld. Judge IPSA by the fact that they have discouraged MPs sniffing around looking for opportunities to make a few extra quid through a bit of fraud. MPs who do not hold themselves to the highest standards - either through their innate honour or through fear of disgraceful exposure by IPSA - will not hold others to the highest standards.

Britain is awash with dodgy dealing. Traders rig everything from energy markets to bank interest rates. Blue chip companies mis-sell anything from phone contracts to pensions to mortgages to payment protection insurance and more. Banks hide billions for tax dodgers and launder money for drug cartels. Britain is awash with dodgy dealing that has resulted in economic mayhem and misery. How is it that none of the leading perpetrators has gone to a British jail? Massive fines are paid by company shareholders (including our pension funds), but the actual perpetrators carry on business as usual.

Ultimately the fault is not with the regulators nor with the courts. The fault is with the lawmakers - our MPs. The reason why expenses is important is not so much the expenses themselves. It is the mindset of our lawmakers that doing dodgy stuff to make a quick quid is acceptable. An MP who has justified to himself fiddling his expenses will find it harder to legislate to penalise the fiddling of a banker. An MP who is held to account will write laws that hold others to account.

Anyway, the new IPSA board members have to be judged by their work:

• The Hon. Sir (Alexander) Neil Butterfield, former judge
• Elizabeth Padmore, chairman and board member of various worthy organisations.
• Anne Whitaker MA ACA, the auditor member
• Professor Tony Wright, former MP from 1992-2010

Laws are like spiders webs: designed to trap the weak but allow the strong to push over. Let us hope that the new spiders weaving the web at IPSA are subject to the same gratuitous hostility from MPs as the original board members. That will show that they are doing a good job, and their web has proved not to be a push over.

**For the record, the £15 cost of a 3 course meal in Parliament would buy the likes of you and me a medium pizza from Dominos without any extra toppings.

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Some GP practices are profiting from prescribing expensive drugs when cheaper alternatives are available, wasting £1bn a year

Fee, KJ and Chris try to work out why...

SOURCE: Crackdown on doctors who prescribe expensive branded drugs when cheaper alternatives are available, wasting £1bn a year INDEPENDENT
The NHS must reduce its annual £8bn family medicine bill. The cost of an individual prescription item can vary from as little as 81p for a generic drug, to over £20 for branded drugs. Part of the problem lay with GP practices with on-site pharmacies, which make money for the doctors working in the practice. Because the profit margins on branded drugs are substantially higher, they have an incentive to prescribe more expensive drugs.

OUR RELATED STORIES:

What happened to all the Compassion?

Corporate culture - are we culturally a nation of looters?

Read More

Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 3rd January)

MPs are paid thousands of pounds from lobby groups 
Arms manufacturers, pharmaceutical firms and foreign governments have reportedly been paying MPs and peers in parliamentary special interest groups. In one case the Associate Parliamentary Health Group was allegedly paid over £190k from GSK, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and others. In exchange, the firms were permitted to send representatives to meetings held by the group. Also, the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group was said to have received £60k last year from brewers and other industry figures and organisations. TELEGRAPH
(Spot the difference: Party + beer = drunk and incapable. All-Party + beer lobby = sober and incapable.)

Universal credit plan 'is a disaster in the making', says minister just months ahead of launch
New system will replace list of unemployment handouts. But senior figures, including Chancellor George Osborne, are concerned about whether the computer software needed for the £2bn project is on schedule. Also, although Osborne supports the scheme in principle he is worried about such a high profile scheme affecting so many people in the run-up to the next election. It doesn't make sense to pay people not to work, in the government's opinion. DAILY MAIL
(...unless that person is Iain Duncan Smith, in our opinion.)

Hector Sants, City watchdog boss accused of being 'asleep at the wheel' during the financial crash, gets knighthood
Hector Sants spent five years as head of the Financial Services Authority. He receives the honour despite widespread criticism that the regulator had failed during the banking crisis. After he left the FSA he secured a £3m job at Barclays, one of the worst offenders. DAILY MAIL
(Very British, our honours system. It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. And Sants has played his better than anyone.)

Crackdown on doctors who prescribe expensive branded drugs when cheaper alternatives are available, wasting £1bn a year
The NHS must reduce its annual £8bn family medicine bill. The cost of an individual prescription item can vary from as little as 81p for a generic drug, to over £20 for branded drugs. Part of the problem lay with GP practices with on-site pharmacies, which make money for the doctors working in the practice. Because the profit margins on branded drugs are substantially higher, they have an incentive to prescribe more expensive drugs. INDEPENDENT
(On-site pharmacies that profit the doctors? Is there a Ministry of Conflicts of Interest they're not telling us about?)

England has the priciest train tickets in Europe 
Rail passengers face New Year fare hikes of up to 10%, as an analysis shows England has the dearest train tickets in Europe. Despite the rise, commuters continue to complain about cancelled trains, poor service and packed carriages. INDEPENDENT

(“This is all a disaster. The day will surely come when having a seat will be an extravagant luxury,” said the Transport minister, commenting on his re-election prospects.)

The elderly may have to double the amount they pay out of their savings for their care before the state steps in
Under coalition plans, the PM’s promised £35k elderly care bill cap may rise to £75k per person. The £35k cap was suggested by last year’s independent Dilnot review into England’s care funding system. The Dilnot review was commissioned by the government, which it now intends to ignore. DAILY MAIL

(They won't be able to ignore the "independent review" by 44 million voters in 2015. Or sooner...)

Three years on, FSA fails to enforce its new remuneration code on bankers' pay
The Financial Services Authority has not launched a single enforcement action for failing to comply with its remuneration code since the rules were introduced three years ago. There is disbelief in the City that the FSA was not enforcing the code as there was widespread evidence of breaches of the rules. The financial crisis is blamed in part on the way bankers were incentivised. TELEGRAPH
("And if the incentives are wrong, you will get failure," said the recently knighted former boss of the utterly useless FSA, Sir Hector Sants.)

The Government is paying staff from powerful firms including energy giants and a leading bank to work at the heart of Whitehall
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that employees from the "big six" energy firms have been seconded to work at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Staff come from Centrica (British Gas), Barclays, Rolls-Royce, National Grid, Shell, ConocoPhillips and RWE (nPower).Some are working for free, implying that these companies get a benefit from supplying them. A DECC spokesman said the secondments were "standard practice" in government and that the secondees brought knowledge and expertise that was "vital" in helping the DECC to do its primary job. INDEPENDENT
(...of doing us over.)

Big companies now pay less tax than they did 12 years ago despite a big jump in profits
The economy has grown by 55% over the same period. The trend may be the clearest signal yet that tax avoidance has blossomed under a more business-friendly strategy at HMRC. In contrast, receipts of both personal income tax and small companies' income tax are higher. TELEGRAPH

Facebook hid £440m in Cayman Islands tax haven
Filings show last year Facebook moved money to Ireland and then the Caymans to avoid paying tax in Britain and its other main markets. TELEGRAPH

Advertising giant WPP boss Martin Sorrell says tax 'a question of judgement'
Sir Martin argues that companies such as Google and Starbucks pay tax more out of a sense of corporate social responsibility, than because the law forces them to. BBC NEWS
(...where 'corporate social responsibility' = avoid catastrophic bad publicity and lost sales.)

Banks are 'too big to prosecute', says next bank regulator boss
Andrew Bailey, chief executive designate of the Prudential Regulation Authority, said the largest banks have become too big to prosecute because of the impact criminal charges would have on confidence in them. Banks accused of fraud include HSBC (money laundering), Barclays and RBS (rigging markets). TELEGRAPH

Paying a living wage could save the government £2bn a year
According to two think tanks, paying staff at least £7.45 per hour outside London, and £8.55 within the capital, would boost the nationwide income by £6.5bn a year. Low income workers spend, rather than save, so the benefits would be immediate. The government would collect more income tax and pay out less in benefits and tax credits. BBC NEWS

Banks at risk of 'perpetual' cycle of bankruptcy
Alix Partners, the influential advisers to senior bank executives, says large banks risk getting caught in "perpetual" cycle of bankruptcy like aerospace companies and carmakers unless they radically alter the way they do business. Investment banks still pay their staff far too much, and the "overpayment effect" last year was $18bn (£11bn), or close to 30pc of the world's top 15 banks' combined pre-tax profits. TELEGRAPH
("...and that's the last time we listen to Alix Partners," said all Alix Partners' clients in one voice.)

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Us versus Them? Recommend an article for publication

We at Ripped-off Britons aim to provide you with well sourced facts and data so you can digest and pass them on by word of mouth, by email, by re-tweeting.

But there's a limit to what we can do. So we invite you to find relevant articles and recommend them to us for publication on our blog.

We ourselves look around for suitable material ourselves, and have already gratefully accepted contributions from a number of guest authors. But there are only so many hours in a day available from our other duties. So we invite you, our readers, to suggest articles you have come across by doing the following:

• Email us a link to the article, to suggestions@rippedoffbritons.com
• We will check out the article, to see if it fits in with our campaigning
• If it does, we will contact the author and invite them to contribute the article to Ripped-off Britons
• If the author accepts our invitation and we publish the article, we will invite you to select a Ripped-off Britons cartoon of your choice, which we will print and sign and post to you. (Perhaps not as liquid as cash, but it's the only sort of Quantitative Easing we can afford, and a sight less dodgy than the Bank of England's).

The articles we seek need to be more than unsupported assertions. We want evidence to back up the assertions, such as:

• Quotes from recognised sources
• Data from respected organisations
• Well presented graphs and graphics

Campaigners like us are in competition with those who sell their rip-offs. Rip-offs that include dodgy financial products; gouging energy and transport price hikes; mendacious political stances. In this competition, in spite of the overwhelming financial power of advertisers, impecunious campaigners can still punch above our weight. According to a survey by Nielsen (a research company that aims to provide “the most complete understanding of what consumers watch and buy”):

“Although television advertising will remain a primary way marketers connect with audiences due to its unmatched reach compared to other media, consumers around the world continue to see recommendations from friends and online consumer opinions as by far the most credible.”

Which still means us campaigners are at a vast disadvantage, but less vast than you might think. 

The difference, dear reader, is you. People believe you far more than they do a costly advertising campaign or a weasel government statement. In contrast, corporate executives hoping to swipe your money and government ministers hoping for promotion and for private clients for their "cab for hire" services are greeted with the scepticism they deserve.

To give you an idea of the size of the challenge campaigners face in the tug-of-war between information and disinformation:

Britons on average see 1,400 adverts each month, according to the “review of television advertising and teleshopping regulation” report by OFCOM.

According to research by Nielsen and Brad Insight UK the ten sectors with the biggest advertising budgets spent £6.2 billion in 2010 to persuade you to part with your money:

In most sectors the top 10 spending companies did the bulk of the advertising. Incredibly, the top 10 spending retail companies threw nearly as much money into adverts as the whole of the finance industry:

The helping fist provided by successive governments in the mugging of consumers is evident from the ironically named "Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations" that legalises the ripping off of half the population. As it is by OFCOM’s regulations that allow up to 1 minute in 5 of television time (12 minutes per hour) for adverts. 

And in terms of advertising, the budgets are increasing. According to the Institute of Practioners in Advertising (IPA), "In 2011, total adspend (including direct mail) increased by 2.7%, to £16.1bn (current prices)"





In their book published in 1885, Thomas Smith and J.H.Osborne observed it takes twenty views for an advert to catch its target:

1. The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it.
2. The second time, they don’t notice it.
3. The third time, they are aware that it is there.
4. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they’ve seen it somewhere before.
5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad.
6. The sixth time they thumb their nose at it.
7. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it.
8. The eight time, they start to think, “Here’s that counfounded ad again.”
9. The ninth time, they start to wonder if they’re missing out on something.
10. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbours if they’ve tried it.
11. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads.
12. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product.
13. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value.
14. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like this for a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for it because they can’t afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact that they will buy it sometime in the future.
17. The seventeenth time, they make a note to buy the product.
18. The eighteenth time, they curse their poverty for not allowing them to buy this terrific product.
19. The nineteenth time, they count their money very carefully.
20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, they buy what is offering.

In the modern day, with the great diversity of media channels, advertisers assail us many more than 20 times pledging that if we do what they tell us we will be better off. We hope that you will support us to compete and punch above our weight with our cartoons and articles in your conversations, emails and re-tweets.

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For the Knights and Lords, Dames and Ladies of British Industry

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

December 2012 saw a former chief of the Financial Services Authority (Hector Sants) and December 2013 a former deputy governor of the Bank of England (Paul Tucker) knighted. Men whose responsibilities included regulating the banks during the banking crash. They joined the array of lords and knights in the well padded seats of the City of London's financial district.

Every bank, insurance company and investment firm covets a noble or two to adorn its board. What could possibly go wrong if a peer of the realm is at the helm?

It is not just financial services. Lords and ladies, knights and dames grace the boards and regulators of electricity, transport, education, health, and just about every major commercial endeavour. Judge them not by their fruits, but by their titles.

To recognise these valiant men and women who fearlessly take responsibility for our nation's well being, ensuring the good and chivalrous behaviour of their companies and those they regulate. In praise of these goodly citizens who use their bodies, minds and reputations as buttresses against all the unseemly pillaging and ripping-off, we give you an excerpt from Monty Python's tale of Camelot:

Brave Sir Robin ran away.
Bravely ran away, away!
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin!

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New Years Resolutions - should we have faith that goodness will come from within?

We at Ripped-Off Britons have kept our focus on those who rip off within the law. The targets of our blog posts and cartoons are as likely to be seen glowing in the company of princes and bishops as sweating in a commons committee or court room. 

The role call of lords and knights passing through Parliament's Grimond Room in 2012 sounds like a list of nobles sitting at the Round Table in King Arthur's Camelot. Actually they were perched on the naughty seats attesting to the disgrace of the Banking industry in front of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. The hearings may have been uncomfortable for those gallant and noble men with accusations of being "delusional" and "dishonest" ringing in their ears. But after three hours of wriggling and wiggling in the Grimond Room they were driven in a car paid for by the proceeds of their dodgy activities back to a comfortable home paid for by some more of the proceeds of their dodgy activities, to have a glass of single malt paid for by...(you get the general idea).

Of course we should be resolute in the campaign against rip-offs and rippers-off. It is for us campaigners, those who draw and write and those who tweet and retweet, to point out their frauds and negligences. But what will actually stem the tide of scams and injustices is the resolution of the perpetrators themselves. They are proud spirits who, like Sir Thomas More's devil, cannot abide to be mocked and jeered. But they have almost impenetrably thick skins. In the end, their resolve must come from within.

So we invite suggestions for a New Year's Resolution for those who perpetrate and have the power to stop some of the rip-offs:

Contributions from some of our guest authors in 2012 can be read here:

• Deborah Hargreaves, High Pay Centre: Excessive Pay
• Richard Murphy, Tax Research: Tax Dodgers
• Richard Hebditch, Campaign for Better Transport: Transport Industry
• Honestly Banking, the undercover banker: Bankers

Email further contributions to resolutions2013@rippedoffbritons.com

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New Year's Resolution - Tax Dodgers

By Richard Murphy

Adviser to the Tax Justice Network and the TUC on taxation and economic issues. He is also the director of Tax Research LLP.

Can I shock the world and say what I’d really like someone to do in the New Year has something to do with tax?

I believe in tax. I think it’s the price we pay for living in a decent, democratic, wealth generating and wealth sharing democracy. I don’t think we’d have any of those things without a strong tax system. So I don’t like tax cheats. 

They abuse the system, undermine democracy, increase inequality and leave decent people to pick up the bill – except that their capacity to do so is now at its limit.

So what would I like someone to do? I’d like a General Anti-Tax Avoidance Principle to be included in UK law. Not the nonsensical apology of a general anti-abuse rule that the government is proposing but something like the Bill Michael Meacher put to the House of Commons in September this year.  

Now, I am biased: I wrote this Bill. But it would stop tax avoidance in its tracks, make using tax havens hard, let H M Revenue & Customs tackle companies like Google and rebalance the tax equation in favour of the honest and the poor.

It could be done. That’s why I have picked this option of the many available to me. The Bill is still waiting for its second reading in the Commons. The option of passing it is available. 

It’s my New Year’s wish that it reaches the statute book.

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New Years Resolution - Transport Industry

By Richard Hebditch, 
Campaigns Director, 
Campaign for Better Transport.

The one New Year's resolution Campaign for Better Transport would like is for Patrick McLoughlin, the Transport Secretary, to resolve that 2013's rail fare rises will be the last to be set above inflation.

The rises on 2 January 2013 are the tenth anniversary of above inflation fare rises. Increasing them by one per cent above inflation year after year has meant that they are now outstripping wage increases by ever increasing amounts. For many on low to middle incomes, it simply means that they can no longer afford to travel to work in London or other city centres.

The Government have promised to end such rises but they have set no target date to do so. A New Year's resolution to end above inflation rises once and for all would be a late Christmas gift that millions of rail passengers would welcome.

If you want to help encourage Mr McLoughlin's choice of New Year resolution, then please sign our 

petition at http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/fair-fares-now

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