The real benefit cheats

“Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.“
- Noam Chomsky

Daily, we see adverts on the Television encouraging all of us to tell the Nazi’s authorities if you know a Jew benefit cheat. Suspect everyone. Don’t talk to your neighbours unless you’re questioning them, under an intense light, around a table, with a one sided window. Hide in your attic, writing a diary, if you happen to be Anne Frank a single mum obtaining a few extra pounds in benefits to help feed your kids, because you’re apparently an evil stain on the fabric of British society. The papers are talking about it, the Tories are constantly talking about it, the Welfare state is coming under attack from everywhere. And yet, we’re conveniently encouraged to ignore, just forget, put to the back of our minds, as if it isn’t important, the issue of Corporate tax evasion and avoidance, that cost us all an absolute fortune in lost revenue, but happily enrich those at the top. I wonder who’s behind this little Media scam.

The leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, today told the BBC that he intends to force those who are out of work, back into work. Whilst the sentiment is indeed welcomed, I cannot help but feel it’s a little short sighted. Firstly, it is my (perhaps flawed) understanding of Conservatism, that only the elites, the wealthy and the well educated deserve jobs they actually desire. It speaks to my anti-Tory side when I hear such simplistic statements from Right Wing stating that they wish to get people back into work as quickly as possible. What these sort of statements suggest, is that a bunch of people who are currently claiming benefits, will be shoved into jobs that completely disintegrate any form of individuality they had left. Forced into largely fatuous jobs in Tesco, or McDonalds, to further enrich the guys at the top, seems to me to be nothing more than transferring dependency from the State, to hugely influential Execs. It is hardly ideal. It certainly isn’t the answer.

Surely a system that allows those at the top to reap massive wealth, hide their taxable wealth in offshore accounts, and keep wages low whilst they themselves reward themselves with huge salaries and bonuses, which in turn seemingly fails to “trickle down” as promised, is merely perpetuating the need for a strong welfare state? If we are truly to tackle unemployment and a State dependency, it would be my (perhaps flawed) suggestion that we start at the top, and revamp the entire system. It may be a great place to start, from a non-Tory perspective (given that they appear to have completely ignored this issue, choosing instead to focus on a full out attack – designed to please those voters who have a home and a car and a safe job – on those on benefits) to bring up the subject of the most costly benefit and tax abuses to the UK economy – Corporate tax avoidance.

According to his interview in The Sun, David Cameron has set out his ten goals for a new Tory Britain. The “Progressive Conservative” (as he previously described himself), has set out plans to drastically cut public spending, give tax breaks to the rich, Corporate tax cuts, and force people to work for whomever the Tories wish them to work for. I’m not sure a Tory politician could be any more regressive than that. So that’s the “progressive Conservative” label dead and buried. It also strikes me as rather punitive, that a man who along with progressive, labelled the Tories “the party for the Environment” has not once mentioned an environmental policy as one of his main policies. Apparently, tax breaks for Corporations is far more important.

He also fails to mention that whilst benefit claimants certainly do impact our economy, it is such a minuscule level in comparison to Corporate tax avoidance schemes. The Commons public accounts committee estimated that Corporate tax loopholes cost the UK up to £13bn a year in lost revenues. The National Audit Office, in 2006 released a document showing that of Britain’s top 700 Companies, 60% paid far less than £10m in Tax, which accounts for less than 2% of what they actually owe. If I started to do the same, I guarantee middle class England would demand I be put straight into prison for cheating the system.
According to The Guardian:
“The UK-based drinks giant Diageo plc has transferred ownership of brands worth billions of pounds, including Johnnie Walker, J&B and Gilbey’s gin, to a subsidiary in the Netherlands where profits accrued virtually tax-free. Despite average profits of £2bn a year, it paid an average of £43m a year in UK tax – little more than 2% of its overall profits.“

Meanwhile, bailed out British Bank, Lloyds Group, after receiving £17bn of taxpayer money, is being investigated for encouraging tax avoidance with an undercover Panorama investigator posing as a wealthy customer. The Lloyds banker refers to income that is paid through Hong Kong, to clients in order to “get around the European Savings Tax Directive” is caught on film saying:
“It’s of no interest to us whether you tell the taxman or not. It is not our business.” It stands to reason then, that when Lloyds (who I bank with) tell me they’re committed to responsible banking, they’re lying, quite pathetically too. Whilst Lloyds Group cut wages, cut jobs, forcing more onto the benefit system in the process; their execs are enjoying hugely inflated salaries and bonuses. The……system…..is……wrong!

Surely if you’re going to punish those who cost the system relatively nothing, you also have to seriously punish those who cost the system an absolute fortune, as is the case with Corporate tax avoidance. Yet, The Tories haven’t said a word on the subject. Not only that, but the end product of extreme tax avoidance across the UK economy, works only to pour extra fuel on the fire of dependency. The more a firm profits and the little it gives back, or “trickles down” the less wealth there is in circulation, the more unemployment rises. Corporate Stalinism, as I like to refer to it as, is the real stain on the fabric of British society. No politician will address it though, because our wondrous democracy relies on these Corporations, to fund it.

For me, the only way to really solve this mess of unemployment, would first be to refuse to cut public spending, until the economy picks up (which it is doing, but would not be doing, if the Tories had their way and just did nothing). Secondly, I would insist on strong penalties toward Companies dedicated to tax avoidance. Close loopholes. Once loopholes are closed, i’d cut our Trident fleet from four Nuclear Subs, to one Nuclear sub. The money saved, would then be used to to slowly ween claimants off such dependency and onto a ladder they actually wish to be climbing, to train them and put them into work they wish to be doing, work they are enthusiastic about, which the state funds for a certain amount of time until they’re employable in the sector they wish to be employed, rather than saying “okay, your benefits are gone, go get a job shovelling shit for the rest of your life”. Eighteen years of Thatcherite economics, “forcing” people back into work, did little but force the homeless rate to triple, whilst suicide rates reached their ultimate peak. It didn’t work. You cannot perpetuate the myth in people’s minds, that they are largely worthless, and only useful when Burger King toilets need cleaning. It will never work. Educating people away from the desire to consume, to out-do your neighbour, or to be a good little Corporate bitch, and toward the desire to be individual, to realise what it is you’re good at, what it is you want to do, how you wish to achieve it, is the course that education needs to take. Educating generation after generation to think the same, act the same, talk the same, like grooming them before a race where the finish line is covered in an illusion of “wants“, is a complete failure. Moreover, it will never solve the debt crises, which will continue to loom over us for decade after decade. It is never going to solve the issue of those who can work, not working. We then get a Tory government who slash benefits, and the homeless rate mysteriously doubles, suicide rates shoot up, riots take place. We then get a Labour government and unemployment sky rockets. No one thinks outside the box. The same tired policies, over and over again. Failed ideologies. We need something new.

Let’s also be clear, it isn’t the public sector that failed us all, it was the private sector. This idea of course, is unheard of, if you’re a Tory.

No to Trident

The situation involving a group of people, holding a gun to each other’s head, is not a sane situation. Nor is it going to prevent one of them from eventually pulling the trigger, which in turn, will set a domino affect rolling, in which all the people involved pull their triggers, and kill each other. The only way to stop that situation developing, is the outright ban on each of those people ever being allowed to own a gun.

Our current crop of Nuclear weaponry, consists of four Trident submarines with the capacity to hold up to 48 Nuclear Warheads, each eight times the power of the warhead that struck Hiroshima in the 1940s, killing 140,000 people. I’m not sure why we are tying in our foreign policy, with a weapon that can kill millions upon millions of people, whilst other nations (Norway for example) who do not wish to own Nuclear weaponry, seem to be coping just fine.

Gordon Brown has announced that he plans to cut the number of Trident Nuclear Submarines, from four to three when the time comes to update them. I’d assume this is some lame attempt to stick to the principles that we’ve seemingly deserted since signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty back in 1968, stating that we intended “to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament“. And whilst this is a step in the right direction for total Nuclear disarmament, it isn’t a big enough step. It is barely a step at all. The Submarines may be on the verge of being cut from four to three, but there is no talk of scaling back the 160 warheads Britain currently keeps locked away. We are still armed, which of course, leads to proliferation elsewhere. A seemingly endless Cold war mentality driven by fear and suspicion, is long out of date. Tident itself, does not need replacing.

We no longer have to worry about the Soviets. The fight we face today, is against an enemy that has no State. There is no Nation. If the largely falsely perceived threat of a unified “Al Qaeda” were to strike us with a Nuclear weapon…. who do we strike in return, especially against an enemy that is prepared to die for their cause? A farm in some obscure corner of Afghanistan? Perhaps we use the Republican American concept of just pointing to a Middle Eastern Country on a map and start to destroy it piece by piece? Or more likely, we aim the Nuclear missile toward their home in Birmingham……… not a bad idea actually.

What of Iran? That Country that poses less threat of a Nuclear attack, than Iraq did in 2002? In the 1970s, when the Shah was running the Country, and was far more evil and dangerous than the current regime in Tehran, the USA supported Iran’s nuclear program publicly. Purely because the West recognised the need, economically, for Iran to rely on Nuclear power. It freed up it’s oil supplies. Suddenly, the war men of the Republican Right have decided Iran poses a threat. In fact, Dafna Linza, writing for the Washington Post in 2005 states: “Ford’s team endorsed Iranian plans to build a massive nuclear energy industry, but also worked hard to complete a multibillion-dollar deal that would have given Tehran control of large quantities of plutonium and enriched uranium – the two pathways to a nuclear bomb.“
Quite coincidentally, the same people who were running National Security back in the President Ford era, supporting the evil Shah, were the same guys behind the immense suspicion and fear aimed toward the current Iranian administration; Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld. They were perfectly fine with Iran acquiring Nuclear technology, when it enriched their oil prospects…… but then, suddenly, in December 2007 Iran completely ceased trading oil inU.S dollars and in early 2008, Iran started trading oil primarily in Euros, and so threatened the US economy, which relies on selling mass reserves of the Dollar to other Nations who then buy Oil traditionally with. Not any more. The threat posed by Iran is miniscule when it comes to Nuclear technology. The treat, which goes unreported, comes completely from it’s new Oil-in-Euros venture.

By 2004 the World Bank had made loans worth up to £2.1bn to Iran. The World Bank, funded by the IMF, which in turn gets it’s funds from member States debts and donations; including $37.2bn a year from the USA. And so, some of the money that funds the perceived Iranian Nuclear program, is coming directly from American taxpayers, who are then told by their Politicians who don’t seem to have a problem, let alone mention this to their people, that Iran is a huge threat. YOU FUNDED THE THREAT! Those politicians of course will start wars, but be well hidden away whilst the bombs are dropped.

Now, for the sake of the boring, fatuous Right Winged argument that Iran actually does pose a threat to Global Security (let’s not forget that the biggest threat to Global Security over the past decade….in fact, since World War II… has been the USA…and that the nuclear “deterrent” hasn’t deterred Iraqi’s from killing our troops….and also coincidentally, the only nation to use a Nuclear weapon has been the USA), what do we do if we were to be attacked by an Iranian Nuclear strike? If New York, or London were hit by an Iranian Nuke, what then? If hundreds of thousands of American or British civilians are killed by an Iranian attack, how do we respond? Do we Nuke them? Another waste of hundreds of thousands of lives, living thousands more horribly burned and disfigured? Whilst our leaders who started the whole thing, are locked safely away in an underground bunker? It’s like saying “well, he ran down and killed my family member, so it’s only right that I run down and kill his family member”. If London were nuked (why am I even saying that? I sound like a Cold War fear mongering idiot), Trident submarines would come in no use whatsoever) It’s ridiculous. As seen with Hiroshima, the affects of a Nuclear strike, are horrific. It should never be repeated, or even threatened. And given the US and UK’s policy of using Iran for it’s own benefit over the past sixty years; overthrowing regimes, installing evil dictators like the Shah, referring to it as “evil” when it suits the West – it is largely unsurprising that Iran may attempt to acquire Nuclear weapons, they are obviously suspicious. If the US has the right to possess Nuclear weapons, so does Iran. Despite this, it’s overtly obvious that Iran, like Iraq, has no WMDs, because if it did, Israel would be straight in there, without a second thought. We now need to work toward better relations between States, between the West and the Islamic World, and install into the minds of the next Generation the need for a World completely free from Nuclear proliferation.

And lastly, when we apparently can’t afford decent equipment to protect and aid our troops in Afghanistan, why are we planning to spend close to £100bn, on updating an out-of-date Nuclear deterrent? Trident is an expensive waste of money, built around the Cold War mentality of fear, distrust, out right lies, and profiteering. We do not need it in a modern, civilised World. They are a disgrace to humanity. Japan has managed without them, Norway has managed without them, we can manage without them.