You’ll recall that he was prominent in the “analysis” of Starbuck’s accounts to show that they were tax dodgin’ bastards? Here’s what his mate, Vince Cable says about it all:
“The danger at the moment is that this just spills over into a generalised anti-business, anti-multinational sentiment which is unhelpful because we do want successful businesses, we do want inward investment. We don’t want people to be stigmatised on the basis of ad hoc little bits of research.”
Mr Cable said that the issue had been discussed in Government and that there would be legislation if necessary.
“It is quite possible that some of those companies have been traduced in a very unfair way,” he said. “As it happens my staff spent quite a bit of time talking to Starbucks and going through their accounts with them and it did turn out that they hadn’t made any profits here on which to pay tax.
Therefore Murphy was wrong. As he has been over each and every one of the cases that have hit the headlines: the Greens, Vodfaone, Google, Amazon and on. Every single damn time his “accounts” turn out to be noting other than people obeying the law exactly as it is written. And absolutely none of these cases would have turned out any differently under his Gimpster (that is right isn’t it?) proposal. All arrangements would be under that new law just as they are now: entirely legal. So they cannot be, even by his definitions, tax avoidance for Gimpster obliterates the possibility of tax avoidance so he tells us.
It just is quite remarkable how people can lie themselves into the national consciousness.
14 responses so far ↓
1 So Much for Subtlety // Mar 10, 2013 at 10:12 am
It just is quite remarkable how people can lie themselves into the national consciousness.
It has been that way ever since Karl Marx felt the need to fix the figures to show the British working class was not in fact getting richer and richer.
Which is the one redeeming feature of our Ritchie. The Left has gone from a greater threat to the world than the Nazis were, to relying on an incompetent figure who seems to have wandered off the set of Dad’s Army in a fit of dementia. Never have the mighty fallen so far. And as long as they rely on buffoons like Ritchie we can all sleep safer knowing that they pose little threat to anyone.
2 Ian B // Mar 10, 2013 at 10:17 am
First rule of activism: it doesn’t matter if the Jews really do kidnap Christian infants and drink their blood, so long as you can create a general feeling among the population that they do.
3 Tim Almond // Mar 10, 2013 at 10:58 am
Well, it was nice of him to say something when it all kicked off. Perhaps remind MPs that their business is concerned with governing the country, and passing the laws that specify the behaviour that people should follow and nothing else.
Then again, Starbucks need to learn the lesson of the alcohol industry – you don’t defend your interests by being nice. They should have started playing hardball the moment that the left started their noises.
4 Flatcap Army // Mar 10, 2013 at 11:06 am
I don’t know who it is that tweets as @MurphyRichards and writes the blog at http://justicefortaxesnetwork.wordpress.com/ but whoever it is seems to have a fair degree of technical understanding and catches Murph’s chippy, smug tone exactly
5 bloke in spain // Mar 10, 2013 at 11:26 am
“It just is quite remarkable how people can lie themselves into the national consciousness.”
The reason, of course, libertarianism struggles to make inroads into the public conciousness. Sorry guys, but the rule of the game s, it aint got no rules. People don t want the truth, they want something to believe in.
6 Westlancs // Mar 10, 2013 at 2:53 pm
Tim, I’ve expressed my opinion about Ritchie before now. I don’t think he’s lying as such; he blagging it, making it up as he goes along and then deluding himself it’s deeply researched fact. He isn’t a “tax expert” at all; the real ones call themselves tax professionals.
7 SimonF // Mar 10, 2013 at 4:53 pm
“As it happens my [Vince Cable's] staff spent quite a bit of time talking to Starbucks and going through their accounts with them and it did turn out that they hadn’t made any profits here on which to pay tax.”
Obviously the capitalist pig dogs and their tax avoiding consultants have run rings round the understaffed and under paid civil servants. What is needed is more members of the PCS civil servants.
8 Westlancs // Mar 10, 2013 at 6:26 pm
It seems Simon is another ‘tax expert”. Perhaps he would like to share the source of his expertise, his rigorous training, extensive experience etc.
9 bloke in france // Mar 10, 2013 at 7:36 pm
No 8
I think No 7 was being ironical. Could be wrong, but irony is tricky. Are bog comments so dumb we need the sarc slash? I hope not.
10 PW // Mar 10, 2013 at 8:18 pm
@9
#7 was so obviously a parody that part of me thought #8 might be trying to do it more subtly…:)
Agreed, sarc tags should never be necessary this side of the pond…
11 SimonF // Mar 10, 2013 at 8:32 pm
The HTML options don’t wok very well on here; not only were the sark tags dropped but the strikethrough tag didn’t work on “more members of the PCS”, Ritchie’s paymasters.
Maybe I should have started the comment “Obviously Ritchie’s position will be something like…….!
12 Westlancs // Mar 10, 2013 at 9:35 pm
I’d like to pretend that of course I saw the irony and was being even more subtly ironic. Truth is though, when you deal withh the PCS you get used hearing them talk like that, totally without irony! So no, the award for Thicko of the Day goes to me (shared with Ritchie). Oh and thank you all for kindly pointing it out for me.
13 SimonF // Mar 10, 2013 at 10:03 pm
A Lancastrian eating humble pie – now that’s cheered up this Yorkshireman’s day
14 Surreptitious Evil // Mar 10, 2013 at 10:55 pm
“Umble pie”, surely? (And there is no missing apostrophe, not even to appease the daemon that is wrecking havoc on the comments.)
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