When last year multinationals like Starbucks, Google and Amazon came under fire over tax avoidance, the focus naturally turned to the accountancy firms that enabled them to do it. In particular after it was revealed in September that Tesco had over-stated its first-half profits by £250m, the spotlight fell on PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC), Tesco’s auditor for […]
Posts Tagged ‘Corruption’
The dozy watchdogs who make vast profits but are immune from prosecution
Jan 18th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.
Our corrupt, self-protective, unaccountable Establishment
Dec 29th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.By chance several events in the few days before Christmas highlighted poignantly how the British Establishment – the small political-economic-financial elite who went to the same public schools and the same universities (usually Oxbridge) – automatically close ranks to protect each other when they come under pressure. Jonathan Burrows, a former MD of Blackrock Asset […]
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Tories buy election
Dec 17th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Democracy is a great system, except that those in power do their uttermost to subvert it, circumvent it, and twist it to their own ends, and quite often succeed. Take the current state of play between the parties in Britain. In March this year the Electoral Commission recommended there should be no increase in spending […]
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The Osborne forked tongue is cranking up for the Autumn Statement
Nov 14th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The Chancellor’s response to the £1.1bn windfall handed to him by the fine on the banks is a classic in Osborne double-speak. We’re told the money will be “used for the wider public good”. He means tax cuts as an electoral bribe. He says “today we take action to clean up corruption by a few […]
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Big accountancy firms’ corrupt fiddles for the banks must be stopped
Oct 22nd, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The evidence piles up that the private sector auditors of banks have manifestly failed in their duties. All the major banks received unqualified audit opinions from Deloitte & Touche, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, and Ernst & Young. Private sector auditors have a history of silence and are immersed in too many conflicts of interest. The evidence is […]
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Dirty politics down under
Aug 31st, 2014 by Bryan Gould.Two weeks ago we carried a piece entitled New Zealand’s Nixon by Bryan Gould about the practitioners of “attack politics … whose natural milieu is the cesspit” and one New Zealand National party (i.e. conservative) politician in particular. This week she resigned in disgrace. Judith Collins’ resignation has, it is suggested in some quarters, allowed a line […]
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New Zealand’s Nixon
Aug 19th, 2014 by Bryan Gould.Many explanations are offered for the fact, as evidenced by both opinion polls and falling voter turnouts at elections, that voters in New Zealand and across the western world seem increasingly disenchanted with democracy. Perhaps the most obvious reason for the voters’ disaffection is their sense that politicians, having solicited popular support and got themselves […]
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Ecclestone shouldn’t be able to bribe his way out of bribery – he should go to prison
Aug 12th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It is shocking that Bernie Ecclestone could offer a £100m payment to walk free of a massive bribery case for which he was clearly guilty. He admitted he had given an official a £44m bribe in order to head off an investigation into his tax affairs, but when this is rumbled he gets away with […]
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Cameron granting peerages for party donations is as corrupt as Lloyd George
Aug 10th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.It really stinks that Cameron’s latest list of peerages includes so many Tory party donors like the Asian jewellery tycoon who either personally or through his company has made 20 donations to the Tories in the last six years, and the Tory co-treasurer who has donated over £2.3 million to the party. This rancid exchange […]
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Recall of MPs bill is a farce
Jun 5th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.Zac Goldsmith MP deserves credit for sponsoring a bill to introduce a mechanism for the recall of MPs and to ensure that it was effective. He won a vote in the Commons in support of the principle of his bill, but the government ignored it, as they have done in about 20 instances in this […]
