The FT has reported this morning that:
The UK government insisted on Tuesday that ministers did not know the full facts about the HSBC tax scandal until this week, in a collective closing of ranks in Parliament and in British financial services over the affair.
“No government minister had any knowledge that HSBC may have been involved in wrongdoing in regard to its Swiss banking arm prior to the reports of the last couple of days,” a spokesman for UK prime minister David Cameron said.
With the greatest of respect to those involved, this require them to be either liars or stupid or both given that the information was readily available on the web at the time, not least from the BBC, who I quoted.
The alternative is that they are lying now.
This denial really is a remarkably unedifying spectacle that brings discredit on all involved and I would rather think better of ministers than that.
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http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmtreasy/uc1371-iii/uc137101.htm
And Hansard states this was raised with a treasury select committee in September 2011
Lying of course, because Cameron thinks we’re stupid and we’ll accept his statement without question…
No wrong, just wrong. The BBC article says “The bank is not accused of any wrongdoing”.
Your heading here is ‘Lying or Stupid’ isn’t it Richard.
P.S You and both know how often you press delete to hide embarrassment; don’t go writing “why would I do that?”
I press delete to save my readers having to read the sort of crap you write
Ironman
You’re getting rustier and rustier everytime you write!
The BBC commments are in relation to staff at HSBC itself.
Richards’ comments are in relation to the parliamentarians and their claiming not to have know anything about it.
Two different organisations; two diffeerent behaviors under the spotlight. So one does not contradict the other. OK?
Too much champagne for breakfast again perhaps?
To avoid embarrassing yourself again, try these old words of wisdom:
Measure thrice;
Check twice
Cut once.
I may well be mistaken, but the Falciano document cache names names. It is now time to comb through those names and look for:
1: Political donors;
2: Constituency officers;
3: Media players in a position to influence MPs or senior civil servants;
4: Persons involved in the recruitment of senior public-sector managers to private consultancy positions and non-executive directorships;
5: Clients of commercial entities who might be in a position to offer such positions and, in particular, clients whose relationship manager (or whose subordinates) might have been in a position to make such offers.
In some ways, it would be reassuring to discover that such straightforwardly venal motives are at the root of HMRC’s wilful negligence and Westminster’s silence; the people can be identified and excluded from future decisions about tax evasion and prosecutions.
The alternative would lead us to conclude that this is not about individuals: rather, that it has become a matter of institutional failure which will persist after the most culpable individuals -or scapegoats – are identified and removed.
That is to say: we might be led to conclude that HMRC and much of Her Majesty’s Government, and the major parties in Westminster, are happy to permit the state to be undermined by tax evasion, fraud and a de facto immunity from the processes of law by the powerful.
Such conclusions lead to counsels of despair.
I think you have hit the nail on the head. It is called “Regulatory capture” and is a feature of some/many/most? government depts. First hand, I can identify DECC (50% of staff are on secondment from energy companies) – policy output tends to reflect this “reality”. The (in)action by HMRC and the “rapport” between past heads of that org and companies suggests a similar situation.
A possible solution wrt HMRC (& implemented by National Grid) would be to sack everybody & have them re-apply for their jobs.
Nile. From what was reported in The Guardian the Falciano files do indeed contain names. So, I think you suggestion an absolutely excellent one, because in the space of one inquiry it would make transparent the full extent of the networks of influence and patronage, and the cronyism and corruption that sits at the heart of modern day UK government and polity. And what sits at the centre of that web? The City.
“I would rather think better of ministers than that”
I don’t think we can-even with the best will in the world-“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” No more “looking through a glass darkly” on this one!
Perhaps a good theme for a sermon by the Rev (sic) Green?
How could they not have known there was something to investigate? I have no expertise and no knowledge at all: but I knew in 2011.
http://thosebigwords.forumcommunity.net/?t=47596654&p=333640483