Prof Prem Sikka, my old tax justice friend who now sits in the House of Lords as a Labour peer, has been asking a series of questions of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy with regard to failings at Companies House. These are two that have just been answered, wholly inadequately, as is apparent:
As Prem and I have often claimed, there is no effective system of checks in place at Companies House making it, in effect, a supplier of licensed identities available for the purposes of fraud and corruption.
There can be no wonder that we have a problem with regard to money laundering in the UK. The simple fact is that we have actively permitted it. Despite the fact that some of us have been highlighting these problems for well over a decade nothing has yet been done to tackle them, and there is no indication as yet as to when the government will bring forward any legislation, if it will do so at all.
Could it be that they really do not care?
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Presumably they are squeezing in the last of the corrupt money they can before the next election? (unless of course they win that, in which case they just won’t bother)
I’m sure Boaty McBoatface is on there somewhere too as a director.
What a farce.
“Could it be that they really do not care?”
I’m afraid, Richard, that it’s worse than that. Judged by their continuing state of dogged inaction, they do care and, as the old Beyond The Fringe joke had it 60 years ago, “It is the policy of the Conservative Party, to see that this position is maintained.”
Richard asks (about the Conservative Government) “Could it be that they really do not care?” I’d contend that they DO care a very great deal, but only about preserving their gravy train. It appears to me that the UK is now a kleptocracy and it’s no coincidence that there is no, or inadequate, surveillance and regulation in so many key areas of the economy (FCA, audit, government procurement, Free Ports, overseas tax havens, tax evasion, honours, “Golden Visas” – on and on it goes). All of this apparent incompetence is simply a smokescreen to enable vast amounts of money to circulate in a way that enables the government, the Tory Party and the Establishment to benefit from massive donations, inducements, back-handers etc. In addition, it also fuels the Tory ideology of shrinking the state since none, or very little, of these vast sums of money will ever be put to use in sorting the UK’s glaring inequalities.
The constant, blatant lying and deception of ministers and the failure of most of the media to call it out is all part of the game plan to divert attention away from the gigantic money laundering mill that is the UK. It would also help if the Speaker in the Commons took a more robust line on lying and misleading the house. Viewed from Scotland, the news emanating from England increasingly seems like news from a foreign land where they do things differently. I don’t recognise the UK of today as being anything like the UK I grew up in: it has become a land where lying, cheating and fraud have become so commonplace that little attempt is made to disguise it. UK has become like a Banana Republic and an inconsequential one at that, but also with a monarchy to sustain. One of the functions of that monarchy was to add pomp and gravitas to the UK’s reputation around the world, until recent events wrecked that. So, what’s left? There surely has never been a better time for Scotland to become independent.