{"id":25084,"date":"2014-06-12T06:34:41","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T05:34:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=25084"},"modified":"2014-06-12T06:34:41","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T05:34:41","slug":"the-city-of-londons-lawyers-score-zero-out-of-four-on-britishness-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2014\/06\/12\/the-city-of-londons-lawyers-score-zero-out-of-four-on-britishness-test\/","title":{"rendered":"The City of London’s Lawyers score zero out of four on Britishness test"},"content":{"rendered":"

I note that the Department for Education has defined Britishness. According to the Telegraph<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Department for Education named the \u201cfundamental\u201d values as democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, and \u201cmutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought I should apply this to the City of London's lawyers, about whom I wrote yesterday<\/a>. Let me repeat what they have said, as noted by the Law Society Gazette:<\/a><\/p>\n

The City of London Law Society revenue law committee has called for the creation of an independent body with the power to veto tax legislation.<\/p>\n

In a response to the Office of Tax Simplification\u2019s competitiveness review, the committee says HM Revenue & Customs officials may have understated difficulties when briefing ministers<\/p>\n

The committee response adds: \u2018Whilst to some extent inevitable in a democracy, these phenomena are hugely damaging to the UK tax regime\u2019s reputation for stability, and the creation of a constitutional check to limit the scope for them to occur would in our view be of real benefit.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So let's apply that Britishness test, shall we?<\/p>\n

Democracy? That's a fail: they hold it in contempt.<\/p>\n

Rule of Law? That's a fail too: they want to overturn it.<\/p>\n

Individual liberty? It's a fail again: they want liberty for a few, not all.<\/p>\n

Mutual respect? I don't think so! On this it's 'agree with us or else'. It's another fail.<\/p>\n

So, zero out of four for the City lawyers on their Britishness test. Time for a detention, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I note that the Department for Education has defined Britishness. According to the Telegraph: The Department for Education named the \u201cfundamental\u201d values as democracy, rule
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-city-of-london"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}