I've just looked at the voting on last week's motion in the European Parliament on the motion on measures designed to tackle tax avoidance and evasion throughout Europe.
The motion in question did, amongst other things:
* Condemn Switzerland for not cooperating on tax evasion
* Condemn tax competition;
* Demand better company registrars and registers of trusts;
* Demand full country-by-country reporting;
* Demand more resources for tax authorities;
* Condemn the use of tax havens.
The motion was a clear statement of condemnation of morally repugnant tax abuse, including things like tax evading in Switzerland.
The motion was carried by 534 to 72 (see page 35 of Thursday results).
The only major political party in the whole of the EU to vote against the motion was the Tories.
So much for the abhorrence at tax abuse" it's so strong they voted to perpetuate it.
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You probably heard this already but if not then it’ll give you some pleasure!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9715000/9715304.stm
Nice one John Humphrys.
I couldn’t possibly comment!
R
[…] Shame his party couldn’t vote for measures to tackle  tax avoidance in the EU last week in …. […]
Cos they’re hypocrites. Next question!
And, of course, ‘cos they are fairly confident that votes in the EU parliament do not get widely reported or discussed in the UK – unless it’s a ‘Europe votes to ban bendy bananas’ shock horror madeup topic – so they are hoping that a lot of the public will not notice or find out and they’ll get away with it.
Which is why blogs like yours are so important.
To answer my question of the weekend, UKIP, like the Tories voted against it. Farage was not on the list.Some of his European parliament group voted for it.
The BNP Brons and Griffin abstained.
Why,oh why, isn’t this being carried on the BBC news (unless I missed it) or the newspapers?
I wish I could answer your last question
Richard, I’m not a Twitter user but if I were and had this story I’d tweet Faisal Islam on C4 News and see if he’d follow through. Him and Jon Snow and the team seem to be about the only decent news reporters nowadays.
Well, well! Is anyone surprised?
I hadn’t seen the voting figures, but could have – indeed had – guessed who would have voted against this exemplary motion. Actions speak louder than words.
Meanwhile, here in France, fingers firmly crossed for the next two weeks after a good start yesterday in round one (ot the elections, obviously).