The Conservatives really said that. In 1950. In their election manifesto. How far they have gone in the wrong direction since then. It is impossible to believe a Conservative would say that now.

Jesse Drucker of Bloomberg has become one of the giants of tax journalism. His latest is out this morning and in it he argues: In early November, members of the U.K. Parliament assailed executives from Google Inc., Starbucks Corp.  and Amazon.com Inc. for moving billions of dollars in profits into tax havens. Less than a month later, Chancellor of
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Earlier this year much play was made by HM Treasury that they would bar tax avoiding companies from public contracts. And now the FT reports: A company that has paid no corporation tax for eight years has won a £150m government tender to improve mobile connectivity, despite calls for it to be excluded from public sector contracts. Arqiva, the
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WPP was one of the companies that ‘left’ the UK in protest at the controlled foreign company rules that were intended to bring their tax haven activities within the cope of the UK tax net. But, as Ernst & Young have trumpeted in their publication for the Conservatives to which I have drawn attention this morning: The Government’s drive
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When one of the most right wing commentators on the FT says this, you have to wonder what Cameron can do to move right: This is already an exceptionally conservative government – there is little scope to move to the right without testing the limits of sound government, says Janan Ganesh But I’m sure he
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This was one of the Conservatives’ election posters: I wonder if Julie for Llandudno thinks that now?

The FT has launched an Austerity Audit today. The first part of the summary of its findings is stark: Cuts to welfare payments will hit the local economies of northern towns and cities as much as five times as hard as the Conservative heartland southern counties, according to research commissioned by the Financial Times into the impact
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I see no reason to celebrate the life of Margaret Thatcher. I offer sympathy to her family, of course, but we have to remember what Margaret Thatcher did for this country. In one of her first moves on coming to office she delivered capital market liberalisation. What that meant was that money was allowed to
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To quote the Guardian: Her legacy is of public division, private selfishness and a cult of greed, which together shackle far more of the human spirit than they ever set free. I think that says pretty much all that’s needed. May she rest in peace, but let’s not for a moment forget the massive and
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