Ah, one rule for the rich…
Bernie Ecclestone was spared a prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to misleading Britain’s tax authority about overseas assets worth more than 400 million pounds.
Ecclestone has also agreed a civil settlement with HMRC, under which he will pay £652.600,000 covering tax, interest and penalties for 18 tax years between 1994 and 2022.
Weirdly, though, at the Tory Party Conference, Hunt ranted about coming down hard on people claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance, and heaven help you if you claim a penny of benefits that you were not entitled to. As far as I know he never said anything about people who dodge tax.
Even more sickeningly, when you die, they pay you only to the day that you shed your mortal coil. If you have been overpaid they are right on to you demanding that £4.30 back.
Of course, paying that kind of fine for a 90+ year old billionaire means absolutely nothing. So he as good as got away with it. But then, as I recall he has made large donations to the Tories and Labour. What do you get for £14,000,000?
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Well, I never…
The BBC have some amazing luck. They go out on to the streets and pick random people to interview, and lo, these people agree with them.
And they think we believe that.
This could, of course, be the reason that Scotland is the place in the UK and surrounding imperial possessions, where the fewest number of people subscribe to the BBC.
When it comes to defecting representatives, of whichever elected body, in whichever country, I can’t help thinking that no matter what party they defect from and which one they defect to, they should stand down.
Cameron was elected as an SNP MP with a large majority. The second party was Labour and the Tories were third. She really has no business collecting a salary for not being elected.
It’s not impossible that, were they to hold a by-election, Labour would win the seat from the SNP. If that’s what the public wants, so be it. It is even possible (although highly unlikely) that the Tories would win the seat. But it should put to the test in any case.
An even more ridiculous situation comes about when a list member of parliament changes party. They don’t have the excuse that it is possible that they were elected because of their personality. They weren’t elected; their party was. It happened many years ago when two SNP listers didn’t like the party’s decision to reverse their attitude to NATO. They sat in parliament as Independents, when they had been put there to balance the seats in accordance with votes. They should have been replaced with someone else from the list.
Surely we need rules about this.
On the subject of Cameron and her husband (who has resigned as an SNP councillor), I’m sort of bemused that people who supported independence for Scotland and were representatives for a left of centre, independence supporting party which wished to re-join the EU, would, regardless the motive, stand down from that party and join instead, a far right party, which was against devolution, never mind independence and which , regardless of all the negative consequences, supports a hard Brexit.
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LET THE BODIES PILE HIGH
I hope that there will be criminal charges brought against them, but they’ll bribe or buy their way out of it
World beating incompetence and narcissism gave us the worst record in Europe on Covid 19.
Taken together with the Channel Four “Partygate” docudrama, which shows that they disregarded the demands they put on the public because people like them didn’t follow petty rules, this Covid Inquiry is turning out to be a bit of a catastrophe for the Tories.
And it’s most embarrassing for the current prime minister, Sunak, whose incompetence and tight fistedness with money for poor people (but not for his mega rich wife, who did very nicely out of Covid funding) appears to have cost many lives.
It would be good to see him add to his criminal record, but I suspect he’d just get in his helicopter and push off to somewhere we couldn’t get him.
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MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
My mother’s State Pension day was a Thursday and she died on a Friday. The DWP were one of the first people I contacted to let them know, and her pension was stopped immediately which was fair enough, but a couple of months later I received a letter stating that my mother’s estate was in debt to the tune of £xx being the amount ‘overpaid’ in the week of her death. I was warned that should this not be paid, her estate would be referred to a collection agent. Never having been referred to a collection agent myself, or my parents, to say I was somewhat incensed was putting it mildly. I contacted them and the person at the other end apologised, I refunded the money which was a matter of a few pounds (I’m not quibbling about that), but as you say there’s one law for the rich and one for the rest of us. I had to deal with the same issue with regard to my father’s death, but this time it was his superannuation provider which suddenly contacted us months later and demanded a few £’s back because he had received his pension and ‘inconveniently’ died half way through the month.
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Horrible experience, JH.
My mother died during (but not of Covid) so everything I did was either on-line or by phone.
The Registrars Office was amazingly helpful; they dealt with the state pension. So too were the funeral directors.
Her company pension people were unbelievably rude. And, as she’d had the temerity to die in the middle of the month and inconvenience them, they told me that they would have to reduce the payment. They then took 10 minutes while I was on the phone, to work out how much less they were going to pay to her estate.
I remember feeling as if I had inconvenienced them by letting her die and putting them to all that extra work.
You don’t need that kind of horror at a time like that.
I’m sure when my grandmother died the state asked for money back from her pension, which had just been paid around the time she died. Like yours, it was a tiny amount but they wanted it. Another job to do at a time when there was so much else to think about.
The best one was when my father died he had an insurance policy and I went in to their offices to cash it in, taking all the necessary documentation.
The vacant girl behind the counter, who had been as helpful as a broken leg, informed me adenoidally that she couldn’t process it unless he came in himself to make the claim.
At which, I’m ashamed to say, I lost my temper and pointed out to her (excuse implied language): “FFS you dimwit, he can’t come in he’s Fing DEAD”.
That got attention from colleagues who actually possessed a couple of brain cells and I got the money sorted.
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I echo your comments about the Registrars Office.
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The kindest of people.
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Thank you JHall and Tris for the examples of the heartlessness of some of our state agency. I’ve made a note, deaths need to coincide, be synchronous with state cycles of payment.
A bit of forward planning and I’m sorted. I have a chest freezer, just need to Google defrost time for a 72kg body.
Tris, I would have been surprised if such treatment brought anything less than your outburst. No shame.
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Just as well you’re good at all this sciency stuff, Alan.
Gotta get the time exactly right…
Yeah, I wasn’t upset, but just frustrated that someone doing that kind of job could be THAT thick that she didn’t realise that when you are claiming on a death policy, the person concerned would be….um… dead!
The important thing was really that someone a little more emotional affected could have been dreadfully upset by the whole thing.
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Yes, need to be precise. Should my idea catch on, the DWP would soon become suspicious at the increase in death certificates with hypothermia as cause of death.
I’ve made another note. Precision.
On this subject, re. preserved deceased family members. In Japan, it was reported, that many young people were keeping the death of their parent/s secret from the state. Having purchased a large chest freezer, they continued to live on the parent’s pension.
I gave no help or input to the freezer as a solution to the logistics.
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Well, maybe there is a large Munguin readership in Japan, Alan.
🙂
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How dreadful sounds like the girl was in the wrong job, sort of thing you’d imagine in a satirical show, not real life.
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I couldn’t believe it.
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Sounds absolutely awful. Dealing with the death of a loved one is bad enough, but to be threatened with a collection agency, whoever they are, debt companies? It all sounds a tad dystopian. 😔
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Indeed.
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Rules are for the little people!🧐
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So it would seem.
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Not just rules, indeed abiding by the law only applies to the little people. That became clear during COVID, well, except for the SNP politicians, they are also the little people.
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Yes. It seems that being an SNP MP led to far higher sanctions that being a prime minister or chancellor. Hopefully the investigations into the parties will lose Sunak his job and a few others too.
But she should be grateful that she didn’t cop for a £20,000 fine like a poor student in England somewhere.
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And taxes, Nico.
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Of course 🧐
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Oh yes, most assuredly taxes.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/13/uks-top-civil-servant-said-government-looked-like-tragic-joke-during-pandemic
I’ve just been reading about the absolute shambles among the people at the top during the worst crisis since 1945.
Apparently Jophnson wasn’ really in charge and neither was Cummings.
It was Carrie.
This is some scary stuff and some of them need to do some prison time for their wilful neglect of their duties while hundreds of people were dying every day.
Oh and all NHS staff, and probably many more people who had to work through it, should be given big pay rises.
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I’ve just read that. It’s awful.
In notes that appeared on the inquiry screen Johnson scribbled “bollocks” on one and on another said: “Do we really believe in long Covid. Why can’t we hedge it more. I bet it is complete Gulf War Syndrome.”
He was not fit to be a minister, far less Prime Minister!
I agree, they should all be locked up
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Utterly unsuited to the job… well, to any job.
I think I read somewhere that a million people now have Long Covid, which is a Post Viral Fatigue, in the UK.
And for someone who stands at the Cenotaph and mourns the sacrifices of the troops who gave their lives for their king/queen, it’s a bit of a cheap shot to run down the PDS suffered by people who didn’t lose their lives but suffered from seeing their best friends’ brains being blown out right next to them.
He is, without doubt, a disgusting individual.
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Aye Niko, so are chest freezers, unless you go for one o yon big fancy long ones!
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Tories and their “hard working” criminals.
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Is it just me, but I can’t look at photos of animals in a loving embrace, without feeling emotional. Of course, especially dogs. Your photograph is lovely.
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I’m the same, Alex.
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I always appreciate it when you put something lovely at the end of a post which involves things that make me angry or sad, like today’s. It’s like getting a hug after hearing the bad news.
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What a lovely way to put it.
I will remember that for the future. 🙂
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Bernie Ecclestone, from memory, he gave a £1,000,000 donation to the Labour party. I’m sure it wouldn’t be anything as underhand as to make sure that F1 was exempt from the upcoming EU tobacco advertising ban. The fact that F1 was exempt must have been pure coincidence.
Anyway, the donation wasn’t allowed secrecy, others looked at it and decided that it should be returned. It was returned, but to remove the F1 advertising exemption would appear churlish, or guilty. The exemption remained.
There must be more to it, but I would need to look it up.
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LOL. Imagine you paid a bribe of £1,000,000 and got nothing except your money back.
I wonder what he wanted from the Torie that was worth 14 times that!
It’s a wonder he’s not Prince Ecclestone by now.
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😊He got what he wanted, and his money back, super good luck😉 Luck that ran out big time with the HMRC though.
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He found someone he couldn’t bribe?
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