Praise be to UK Uncut. It’s only due to them that we’re now learning what really lay behind the Blair-Brown policy of ‘light regulation’, now gratefully continued by the Tories, and the world of difference between the treatment of the hyper-rich on the one hand and the defenders of the poorest on the other. The case currently being heard in the High Court argues that the ‘sweetheart’ tax deal reached in 2010 between Goldman Sachs and HMRC was illegal.
The deal was struck by a ‘handshake’ – as you would expect among gentlemen – between Dave Hartnett, head of HMRC, and a senior Goldman executive, ending a long-running dispute over national insurance payments payable on bonus payments dating back to the 1990s.
