On global capitalism in Lenin’s day, the Bolshevik leader had this to say: “Imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries … hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by “clipping coupons”, who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is idleness …” If only the money men of 21st century Britain remained excrescences on the economy, of directing their stooges to invest capital and growing fat off the labour and talent of others. At the risk of being wistful, this ideal-typical view of your average capitalist is long buried and have gone beyond mere uselessness. Drunk on their parasitism, they are oblivious to how their appetites are not just imperiling the health of the enterprises they gorge upon, but threaten to kill them outright. Continue reading
Tagged with Philip Green
High street horrors
Today I did something I felt deeply ashamed about.
I bought a pair of leggings from Top Shop. Philip Green’s Topshop. The Philip Green who’s registered the company in his wife’s name so he can avoid paying tax – his wife lives in Monaco. UKUncut, the tax justice pressure group, explains it very clearly.
This put me off going into Topshop – as did the fact that their security guards gave me and my friend a hard time when we tried to look at the Christmas lights back in 2010. But I’m afraid I cracked today – actually I gave in a few weeks ago, when I bought a top in Miss Selfridge, also owned by Green.
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Miliband man versus Tesco monster
Britain is a sleepy nation until a riot wakes it up. The hated poll tax trundled on until mass riots triggered its demise, taking Thatcher with it. Tax dodging on a colossal scale continued unimpeded until UK Uncut shut down Vodaphone and Top Shop in Oxford Street and made Philip Green’s £2bn tax-free dividend to his wife in Monaco a national scandal. Now a riot last weekend in Bristol against a planned Tesco score has put the overweening dominance of Tesco under the searchlight. Do we let Tesco (and other superstores) maraud the retail markets of Britain without check? If not, how do we hold them to account? Continue reading
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Support UK Uncut and those arrested at Fortnum & Mason – “non-violent and sensible,” innocent and victimised
In a few short months, UK Uncut has reshaped public opinion on tax avoidance. Its peaceful actions, light-hearted and engaging people never previously involved in political activity, have left corporate Britain running scared, forced the Treasury to run training sessions in response and thrown the right-wing anti-tax Tax Payers Alliance onto the defensive. In a brilliant exploitation of the power of Twitter, they occupied not only Vodaphone‘s shops but their website too. Polly Toynbee, appearing herself at an action in Topshop, declared “these brilliant protests on tax-dodging can unite us all“. Continue reading