United Kingdom

Midweek MOATS, Ep 180. with George Galloway (and vid)

https://twitter.com/MoatsTV/status/1582872483811962880

With guests Gonzalo Lira (from Kharkov) and Peter Osborne. #LizTruss  #UkraineRussiaWar  #EU

https://twitter.com/Number10cat/status/1583072541677002752?s=20&t=Xa8u3Q...

Even an old banana could have lasted longer!

NDPP wrote:

Paul Mason's McCarthyite Mind Map

https://twitter.com/Louis_Allday/status/1581970015917867008

"In attempting to outline how to defeat fascism, Paul Mason pins his hopes to the bourgeois state - reflecting trends within the British left unable to contain their admiration for Starmer's 'ruthless pragmatism."

That's one way of describing it...Unfortunately, these authoritarian tendencies are not restricted to Mason or the British left.

He's trying to be this century's Orwell...in the World War II BBC blacklist-maintaining sense.

..very informative 7.44 min video

Corbyn Sets the Record Straight

..indeed!

Boris has pulled out of the race for English PM (the Scottish and Northern Irish gave the most seats to parties wanting independence) . 

The UK's blond haired blue eyed fascist didn't last long. Even the financial markets couldn't stand her overt cronyism.

Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs and hedge fund manager, is the wealthiest man or woman ever to become PM. "Sunak and Murty are the 222nd richest people in Britain, with a combined fortune of £730m as of 2022. ... [His] wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the Indian billionaire businessman who founded Infosys." He continued to deal out favours to the businesses and the financial sector as a minister and have his family benefit in paying taxes and was involved in partygate -attending parties while the public was told to stay home during Covid. 

As the pandemic generated financial consequences, Chancellor Sunak's measures received criticism as some workers were unable to qualify for the Treasury's income support measures. The acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said that people were being unfairly "hung out to dry", with "their dream jobs turning into nightmares" after hundreds of MPs contacted the Chancellor.[60] The Institute for Employment Studies estimated that 100,000 people could not be eligible for any type of government help as they started a new job too late to be included on the job retention scheme, while the British Hospitality Association informed the Treasury Select Committee that between 350,000 and 500,000 workers in its sector were not eligible.[61][62]

Sunak was part of a committee of Cabinet ministers (also comprising Johnson, Matt Hancock, and Michael Gove) that made decisions on the pandemic.[63]

Sunak received a fixed penalty notice alongside Johnson for attending a party, but he did not deliver a statement or resign ...

Fraud against the schemes

In June 2020, David Clarke, chair of the Fraud Advisory Panel charity and a group of top white-collar crime experts wrote a letter to Sunak, the National Audit Office, and others, to alert them the risk of fraud against the government tax-payer backed stimulus schemes. They called for publication of the names of companies receiving Bounce Back Loans to enable data matching to prevent, deter and detect fraud.[79][80] In September 2020, it emerged that Government Ministers were warned about the risk of fraud against the financial support schemes by Keith Morgan, CEO of the state-owned British Business Bank who had concerns about the Bounce Back Loan Scheme and Future Fund.[81] In December 2020, it was reported that banks and the National Crime Agency also had concerns about fraudulent abuse of the Bounce Back Loan Scheme.[82] In January 2021, the NCA reported that three city workers who worked for the same London financial institution had been arrested as part of an investigation into fraudulent Bounce Back Loans totalling £6 million. The NCA said the men were suspected of using their "specialist knowledge" to carry out the fraud. This form of insider fraud was a risk highlighted in the letter sent to Sunak in June 2020.[83] A 2022 Freedom of Information request to the British Business Bank, the state-run body administering the bounce back loan scheme, found that almost one fifth, or 193,000 businesses had failed to meet their repayment terms as at 27 June 2022.[84] The UK government estimated that £4.9 billion of bounce back loans may have been lost to fraud.[85]

Future Fund

The Future Fund, is a £1.1 billion investment portfolio set up by Sunak in May 2020 and managed by the British Business Bank. The fund invested in 1,190 mainly early-stage companies at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. One director overseeing the portfolio described the companies as mostly "zombie businesses", leaving the fund with "a significant tail of dormant companies".[86] Future Fund investments include sex-party firm Killing Kittens[87] and events start-up Pollen, which fell into administration in August 2022.[88][89][90]

Eat Out to Help Out

Main article: Eat Out to Help Out

In July, Sunak unveiled a plan for a further £30 billion of spending which included a stamp duty holiday, a cut to value-added tax (VAT) for the hospitality sector, a job retention bonus for employers and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme,[91][92] aimed at supporting and creating jobs in the hospitality industry. The government subsidised food and soft drinks at participating cafes, pubs and restaurants at 50%, up to £10 per person. The offer was available from 3 to 31 August on Monday to Wednesday each week.[93] In total, the scheme subsidised £849 million in meals.[94] Some consider the scheme to be a success in boosting the hospitality industry,[95] however others disagree.[96] In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, a study at the University of Warwick concluded that the scheme contributed to a rise in COVID-19 infections of between 8% and 17%.[97]

On 26 September, Sunak was said to have opposed a second lockdown with the threat of his resignation, due to what he saw as the dire economic consequences it would have and the responsibility he would have to suffer for that. ...

Fixed penalty notice

Main article: Partygate

Boris Johnson and Sunak at the former's birthday celebration on 19 June 2020; both men later received fixed penalty notices for attending the gathering

On 12 April 2022, Sunak was issued with a fixed penalty notice after the Metropolitan Police believed he had breached COVID lockdown restrictions by attending a birthday party.[102] A total of 82 others also received fixed penalty notices, including Johnson.[103]

Register of ministers' interests

In November 2020, Sunak was reported by The Guardian to have not declared a significant amount of his wife and family's financial interests on the register of ministers' interests, including a combined £1.7 billion shareholding in the Indian company Infosys.[104] Sunak is required under the ministerial code to declare interests that are "relevant" to his responsibilities and "which might be thought to give rise to a conflict" with his public duties.[104] The independent adviser on ministers' interests investigated and concluded that Sunak had not broken any rules. ...

He said that the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic had been disrupted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He cut fuel duty, removed VAT on energy saving equipment (such as solar panels and insulation) and reduced national insurance payments for small businesses and, while continuing with a planned national insurance rise in April, he promised to align the primary threshold with the basic personal income allowance as of July. He also promised a reduction in income tax in 2024. ...

Cryptocurrencies and NFTs

As Chancellor, Sunak was pushing ahead with a new law that would pave the way for stablecoins to be used for everyday payments, despite fears from the Bank of England about the financial stability of the technology.[113][114] In April 2022, Sunak ordered the Royal Mint to create a UK government-backed non-fungible token (NFT) to be issued by summer 2022.[115][116]

Non-domiciled status of his wife; and Sunak's US permanent residency

In early 2022, newspapers reported that Sunak's wife Akshata Murty had non-domiciled status, meaning she did not have to pay tax on income earned abroad while living in the UK.[117] The status cost approximately £30,000 to secure, and allowed her to avoid paying an estimated £20 million in UK taxes.[117][118] Following media controversy, Murty stated on 8 April that she would pay UK taxes on her global income, adding in a statement that she didn't want the issue "to be a distraction for my husband". A Whitehall inquiry was launched into who had leaked the details of her tax status.[119] Labour party leader Keir Starmer accused Sunak of "taxation 'hypocrisy' on the grounds that he is putting up taxes for ordinary Britons while his family has been reducing its own tax liabilities".[120]

Reporting around this time also revealed that Sunak had continued to hold United States' permanent resident status he had acquired in the 2000s until 2021, including for 18 months after he was Britain's treasury Chancellor, which required his filing annual U.S. tax returns.[121][122] An investigation into both his wife's tax status and his residency status found that Sunak had not broken ministerial rules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rishi_Sunak