Fashion Nonsense, Prince Charles, Critical Thinking, Channel Islands and Tax

                                             Effortless Fashion                                               

Effortlessness, that’s a key word these days, I think. A woman wearing several thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds said to me only the other day that “effortless” more than anything was what she wanted people to think when they looked at her. And because those diamonds were myriad and minute, and worn with relaxed one-mile-wear kind of garb, effortless was what she looked like, albeit stratospherically so. What was clear was that her one mile was in a different postcode, literal and metaphorical, from mine. Would that mine might encompass so much stealth-bling.

(Anna Murphy, The Times, 2019)

You poor thing.


The Royals

Balmoral, Autumn, Joseph Denovan Adam (1841-1896)

Photo Credit: Glasgow Museums [CC BY-NC-ND]

It may not have been the best weekend of the year for Prince Charles to launch his blueprint to solve the housing crisis faced by millions of young people.

After the furore over £2.4m of public funds being spent so far – on the refurbishment of his younger son’s new home, the family’s attitude to housing might be accused of lacking the common touch.

(The Sunday Times, 2019)

Lacking the common touch? Oh surely not. Doesn’t everyone take their own toilet seat and salt pot away on holiday? And anyway, Clarence House, London, Highgrove House, Gloucestershire, Myddfai, Llandovery, Tamarisk, The Isles of Scilly and Birkhall, Balmoral are all affordable, social housing enterprises. Aren’t they?

Critical Thinking

Minerva Spearing Ignorance

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

Photo Credit: The Banqueting House -Whitehall Palace, 

Historic Royal Palaces [CC BY-NC-ND]

Given the sheer prevalence of misinformation around us, I believe that ways of identifying misinformation, combined with critical thinking, should now be taught in every school. After all its not just the fake political news that we need to avoid, but health scams and financial fraud. A firmer grounding in sceptical reasoning could help everyone – whatever their IQ – to use their intelligence to make wiser judgements.

(The Guardian, 2019)

Would not critical thinking or, as I would say, the critical spirit, be an excellent counterpoint to the shallowness of much of modern media?

Tax

Bill to make Channel Islands reveal tax secrets abandoned.

The government faced a revolt over a cross-party call for the Crown Dependencies – Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man – to introduce a public register showing the true ownership of companies based there by the end of next year.

Andrew Mitchell … and Margaret Hodge had led the drive to increase transparency and tackle tax dodgers by tabling an amendment to the no-deal legislation.

(The Times, 2019)

Dividend Day at the Bank of England, George Elgar Hicks (1824-1914) Photo Credit: Bank of England [CC BY-NC] 

A day later and Margaret Hodge had this to say:

“It is obscene that some of the super-wealthy think it is fine to avoid paying UK tax for the common good. It is even more obscene if people living in tax havens are funding and influencing politics.”

 *Sir Richard Branson, 68, denies leaving Britain for tax reasons. He bought Necker Island in 1979 and he told The Sunday Times in 2015: “Joan and I moved here…to look after our health.”

*“Sir, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, has stated that there is an obvious link between police numbers and violent crime on the streets (report, Mar 6). Politicians who are wondering how to tackle knife crime are missing one solution. The age of austerity has reduced public spending by some £270 billion over a decade and resulted in 20,000 fewer police officers on the streets. Meanwhile, illegal tax behaviours such as evasion, criminal attacks and activities in the shadow economy have resulted in £134 billion being lost to the UK exchequer during the same period. Surely it is time to give HMRC the right resources to clamp down on tax evaders and ensure that our public services are properly funded?

(George Bull, Senior tax partner, RSM, The Times, 2019)

*Sir, The 6,800 wealthy and business people who claim residency in tax havens are doing great damage to the UK, siphoning out billions of capital and annual taxes. Insult is added to injury when these migrants vote in UK elections and influence political decisions. They should lose their UK passports and citizenship…

(Noel Hodson, Director, Tax Reconciliations, Oxford, The Times, 2019)