Why is that Newsnight?

Posted on May 29 2012

From Aditya Chakrabortty's (excellent as usual) column in the Guardian this morning:

[On tax avoidance], Sorrell goes one better [than Philip Green]. In September 2008, he wrote an op-ed for the FT about how his London staff suffered "ruinous housing costs, high crime levels and creaking public transport". Just a few months after issuing this plea for greater public spending, he moved his FTSE 100 firm to Dublin for tax purposes, even while keeping its offices in London. Oh, and as Ferdinand Mount points out in his book The New Few, in 2008 the WPP boss got 631 times the wage of his average employee. Yet somehow Sorrell's views on what should be done about taxes for the super-rich get far more airtime on Newsnight than, say, a tax-justice campaigner such as John Christensen.

Would you like to explain?

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6 Responses

Ian Stevenson says:

May 29 2012 at 1:33 pm

Comment is free on this article. You had several mentions.
MoxP logo Peterloo massace 9:52 pm 28/5/12 gave a link to Hansard claiming it”shredded” your figures. According to them the tax gap is only 35 billion.

I think you’ve repudiated that one before.
- Richard Murphy says:
  
  May 29 2012 at 1:38 pm
  
  Here, amongst many others
  
  http://www.pcs.org.uk/download.cfm?docid=95EEB3DB-774D-4D7D-961819F5F9EAF339
Gareth Marklew says:

May 29 2012 at 4:13 pm

Judging by the first comment here, it seems that some people’s views aren’t always universally welcomed – no matter how right they may be!
- Richard Murphy says:
  
  May 29 2012 at 7:14 pm
  
  I’ve corrected the false claim
  
  But you’re right – some people are dismissed whatever they say
  
  I’m one
  
  I can live with it
  - Tim Holmes says:
    
    May 31 2012 at 10:17 am
    
    The problem is that you are writing a report saying HMRC are understaffed whilst being funded by the PCS union, which represents the taxman. That fact is not mentioned in the report.That is misleading and should be rectified.
    
    10% is a not insignificant sum and would call into question an auditor’s independence.
    
    Note that the issue is not whether you are biased or not – no one is neutral and can never be so. The point is you have a conflict of interest: you are conflicted.
  - Richard Murphy says:
    
    May 31 2012 at 10:24 am
    
    I wrote a report published by PCS and you think anyone will think I’m not paid to do so?
    
    Come on – that’s ludicrous! Or called clutching at straws.
    
    And does that mean anyone who ever receives a grant is always and forever conflicted? If so how could anyone, bar the wealthy, ever take time to consider issues?
    
    You logic is simply bizarre and runs along the lines of “if you have expertise on an issue because someone gave you funding to consider it then you’re never ever allowed to talk about it”
    
    I think that’s simply called the suppression of free speech
    
    And in any event, I’ve made disclosure