Why choose between ‘lying’ and ‘stupid’ when Tories can be both?
David Cameron: Lying AND stupid?
Richard Murphy in Tax Research UK tells us that the FT has reported this morning:
“The UK government insisted on Tuesday that ministers did not know the full facts about the HSBC tax scandal until this week, in a collective closing of ranks in Parliament and in British financial services over the affair.
“No government minister had any knowledge that HSBC may have been involved in wrongdoing in regard to its Swiss banking arm prior to the reports of the last couple of days,” a spokesman for UK prime minister David Cameron said.”
His response: “With the greatest of respect to those involved, this require them to be either liars or stupid or both given that the information was readily available on the web at the time, not least from the BBC, who I quoted. The alternative is that they are lying now.”
Of course they are lying, as commenter John McCabe pointed out with this link. He added: “And Hansard states this was raised with a treasury select committee in September 2011.”
Another commenter, the amusingly-pseudonymed ‘Theremustbeanotherway’, pointed out why they must also be stupid: “Cameron thinks … we’ll accept his statement without question.”
This writer is keen on the way forward suggested by ‘Nile’:
“The Falciano document cache names names. It is now time to comb through those names and look for:
“1: Political donors;
“2: Constituency officers;
“3: Media players in a position to influence MPs or senior civil servants;
“4: Persons involved in the recruitment of senior public-sector managers to private consultancy positions and non-executive directorships;
“5: Clients of commercial entities who might be in a position to offer such positions and, in particular, clients whose relationship manager (or whose subordinates) might have been in a position to make such offers.”
‘Nile’ continued: “In some ways, it would be reassuring to discover that such straightforwardly venal motives are at the root of HMRC’s wilful negligence and Westminster’s silence; the people can be identified and excluded from future decisions about tax evasion and prosecutions.
“The alternative would lead us to conclude that this is not about individuals: rather, that it has become a matter of institutional failure which will persist after the most culpable individuals -or scapegoats – are identified and removed.”
Yes, indeed. To mix a metaphor, let’s open up the can of cronyism and corruption and give it a good airing!
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These arrogant people don’t even try to hide their lies, dishonesty and corruption. They have most of the media on their side so they tell blatant lies.
They kind of *have* to be both. The Tories try to live off a false perception of competence. To maintain that illusion, they have to lie to conceal the stupidity.
Please explain why tax evasion is illegal and tax avoidance isn’t. Surely both deprive the Exchequer of funds. Surely if profits are made in any country that is the country in which tax should be paid and if everyone was honest about it then taxation would fall for everyone.
Avoidance is about finding loopholes in the law that allow the earnings to go undeclared legally. Evasion is breaking the law altogether.
This will end up like Theresa May and the sex scandal put off, set aside, hoodwinked, silenced data shredded, witness’s silenced / gagged / bought off.
Corruption at the highest levels of our “Transparent” Government and a starving sanctioned woman steals food for her baby and ends up in Court and so on and so on.
Wonder what event they will bring in to divert attention this week so all the peasants can be brain washed and side tracked.
Those responsible should face the full force of the Law, then again they control that to how silly of me. God help us all.
God help us all with these b*****ds
Tories are often stupid but I don’t think so in this case. Cameron. like IDS and McVey, will just lie and lie and lie because they aren’t held to account. I don’t know if Labour are doing all they can but the media, with their vested interests, are certainly letting the Conservatives off the hook.
The stupid Conservatives are those who vote for them despite it being absolutely contrary to their own interests in reality. The true believers in neoliberalism, who think businessmen are wealth creators, who think tax dodging is fair game, who think billionaires earned their money. The actual politicians and business leaders who spout this nonsense know that is exactly what it is – nonsense. They don’t believe it will bring prosperity for all or if you work hard you can reach the heights. It just suits their interests to have hoards of people pulling their tripe out for inadequate pay and no workplace rights under the misapprehension that it will earn them a place at the top table.
Misdirection on a unprecedented scale. Well, since religion, anyway.
… in your opinion (about religion).