Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 185
February 10, 2015
Dodging Tax
The big story of today is tax evasion in the Swiss office of Britain’s biggest bank and who knew about what when, from Cameron downwards.
Part of the problem is Britain’s tax code which runs to 17000 pages. Within it are multitudes of allowances, as well as loopholes and ambiguities. It is only a small step from an allowance to a loophole and from avoidance which is legal to evasion which is not. The solution may lie with a great deal of simplification, so that like VAT or PAYE there is little scope for argument or fraud without committing a crime. This blog favours the abolition of coporation tax and at the same time profit as a taxable event. Instead a turnover tax which would be paid wherever the money was transacted, irrespective of where the individual or corporation was domiciled, even if head office were on the moon.
February 9, 2015
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Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war. Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?
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Ukraine : The Arguments
This is the position of the West.
Russia has violated international law by trying to redraw the map of Eastern Europe. She has not respected the post Soviet borders of a now independent democratic state and is stoking a war by arming and supplying militant separatists in the eastern provinces of Ukraine, which prevent the Ukrainian army restoring Kiev’s authority. Russia is supplying heavy weapons as well as military trainers and possibly several thousand volunteers from regular Russian forces massed on the border. Putin has grabbed Crimea, another breech of international law and now wants a large slice of Ukraine. If he is not stopped all the Baltic states are potentially at risk from uprisings by ethnic Russians within their population followed by Russian intervention to support them. Nato must stand firm in the face of naked aggression and the EU and the US have imposed economic sanctions on Moscow in the hope of weakening Putin to the point where he will agree a peace deal. The US is threatening to arm the Kiev forces with modern technology and hardware, but most of Europe is against such a move.
This is the position of Russia
The West has broken promises not to expand Nato east and instead of working in partnership with Russia it has followed an agenda of forcing newly independent states to choose between Russia and the West, using membership of the EU as a reward. Following the collapse of the Soviet empire Russian minorities were marginalised and discriminated against in Ukraine and when a properly elected democratic government decided to favour Russian economic ties over those with the EU, the West stoked street protests which eventually led to paralysing unrest and the overthrow of the government. This was a completely illegal process.
The Russian minority in the East and in Crimea felt threatened by the emerging pro EU replacement government, which had far right components which were sympathetic to Nazi ideals. Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join the Russian federation, having been part of Russia since the time of Catherine the Great and the eastern provinces of Ukraine demanded autonomy from Kiev. Kiev then sent its army to crush what it called terrorists involved in an armed insurrection, when in truth ethnic Russians were defending themselves against what was supposed to be their own government. This has shattered any prospect of reconciliation and the only solution lies in a substantial degree of autonomy in the ethnic Russian provinces, a withdrawal of Kiev forces and no further advance east for Nato.
The Situation in Ukraine
Like so many countries which have spent generations as part of another state’s empire, Ukraine begins independent life inhabited by a divided people; those who want to be part of Europe and those who feel themselves bound by blood, culture and sacrifice to Russia. For a while they cohabit, scoring off each other as one bad government supersedes another. Eventually the patience of those leaning west snaps and they overthrow the government which has started to lean east. Riot and civil commotion are the means, egged on by well meaning but mischief making politicians from western democracies who come and march and make speeches in solidarity with an ambition, the undertows of which they neither see nor understand.
The new caretaker government installed by the mob says some very stupid things which terrifies the ethnic Russians in the east, who start holding demonstrations and making declarations of their own. Kiev sends its army to restore territorial integrity and quell the insurgency now in effect, branding it terrorism. The ethnic Russian appeal to Putin. There is now a state of civil war. Everybody blames everybody else. An election is held but only those loyal to Kiev vote to instal a President and government not accepted by the eastern provinces which boycott the ballot. In the east elections are held setting up an independent authority recognised by nobody but accepted by Russia as in situ. This new rebel government adopts a flag which is a startling echo of the Confederate battle flag when the United States of America burst apart and into civil war in 1861. But that is quite another story. Or is it?
Peace?
We all hope so, but as Merkel says, it will not be easy. But peace never is. That is why there are so many wars.
February 8, 2015
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NHS Worries
The news that hundreds of avoidable deaths have been saved by putting eleven hospital trusts into special measures is mixed news. It is very good that death rates have fallen; it shows that very large numbers of avoidable deaths occur in the NHS and that is very bad. This underscores the reality of the NHS. At one level it is brilliant but at other levels very much less so. Can this be remedied? Not with its present operating model.
First of all the NHS is funded back to front; second too many consultants are engaged in private practice; third the hierarchical medical profession has too many artificial barriers and practices; four hospitals should operate continuously at full blast, 24/7 365 days a year. More on all this another time. This is just to flag up that there is a better way.
February 7, 2015
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Ukraine Weapons: Merkel Is Right
The German Chancellor openly disagrees with the chatter coming out of Washington and NATO that somehow supplying beefed up weapons to the Kiev government, in which this blog has scant confidence, would help to bring peace. It would stoke war and give Russia a pretext to fight it in the open with its own forces to defend the lives of its own ethnic Russians in the east of what is now no longer a viable unitary state. That is entirely the fault of Kiev and sooner or later it will have to face up to the consequences of its own actions.
No more can be said until we see whether the emerging peace deal has a chance, but meanwhile we very much hope Mrs. Merkel stands firm.
February 6, 2015
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Moscow: Peace Hopes
Europe faces two threats at the moment. Knee jerkers would say from Greece and Russia. It fact both come from within itself. The Greek problem, which has been discussed elsewhere, is entirely of Europe’s making, although it blames Greece for all of it. Likewise Ukraine, but according to Europe it is all Russia’s fault.
Well, as readers of this blog know, we do not think so. The problem in Europe is that it has a generation of bureaucrats and politicians who cannot see the strategic outcome of tactical decisions. It was a mistake to advance the the EU eastwards without at the same time building better inclusion of Russia; it was even more unfortunate to expand NATO east way beyond what it had previously promised. It was a blunder for all sorts of Western leaders to attend the street protests which ended in the collapse of the Ukrainian government because the Far Right drivers of the rebellion terrified the ethnic Russians in the east of the country. Crimea just walked away.
The sanctions imposed on Russia have put Europe into deflation, high unemployment and uncertainty. A possible Greek exit from the Euro, has become more likely as a consequence of various EU postures of the last several days. Add to that a full scale proxy war in Ukraine and the EU is in serious economic trouble. It may also find its gas turned off.
So the news that Merkel and Hollande are in Moscow discussing a plan is very good news. Part of that plan must be not just to end the fighting, but also to bring Russia back into Europe. Only then can peace be guaranteed and economic growth be restored. It could lead to a more constructive approach to Greece as well.
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