GETTYGeneva Attorney General Olivier Jornot leaves HSBC offices as a search gets underway
The puzzle is: why are we so utterly discredited in the eyes of the people? The answer is staring them in the face. Apart from the very small proportion who spend their whole lives whingeing and complaining about the slightest thing that goes wrong, the British actually ask for very little.
But there is one word that is dye-stamped into the British mass psyche. That word is “fair,” or its larger cousin “fair play”. Now there’s an oddity here. That single phrase is understood by the British with total and immediate clarity.
Yet it exists in no other European language. In French for example “jeu juste” (literally fair play) is utterly meaningless.
So in German “aufrechte Spiel” would leave them staring at you in complete bewilderment. The reason is childishly simple. The phrase doesn’t exist because the concept doesn’t exist.
But go past a school playground in this country and you’ll hear some shaver knee-high to a grasshopper yelling in protest: “Ere, you can’t do that. It ain’t fair.” He doesn’t know Latin or Greek but he instinctively knows what is fair and what is not.
The reason why the Establishment is broadly loathed today is that it treats us with complete unfairness. Maybe it was always so, but now in the digital, online, internet world, we know. Take justice; sin and retribution, criminality and punishment.
There are two quite different systems; one for them and one for us. If a truck driver, working class of course, by stupidity or recklessness rolls over his truck and wrecks both vehicle and cargo, there is no mercy.
He will be charged and convicted. Licence gone, livelihood gone, on the rubbish tip of life. If a shopkeeper, middle class, fiddles the books; if his brother defrauds the Social Security; if his wife goes shoplifting, there is no charity from the authorities.
This is theft and this is punishable as theft. But if a banker by insane risk-taking, by negligence and greed, ruins a major bank there is no retribution. The bank is deemed “too big to fail” and billions of our money will have to bail it out of its unnecessary debts.
And those responsible? No problem, old boy. Just retire with mega-salary, pay-off bonus, eyewatering pension pot. But the inside of a court room? You must be joking. Politicians, senior civil servants, top lawyers – all have a very small chance of ever being held to account for gross negligence, peculation or fraud.
But bankers appear to be completely immune from British law. Over the years they have insanely gambled with depositor money, skimmed savings accounts, mis-sold pensions, cheated, stolen, lied and connived to enrich themselves by rigging lending rates, foreign exchange rates and LIBOR rates. They have been bailed out and gone back to same fraudulent practises.
Now it is revealed one of the giants HSBC has enabled and assisted fat cats to squirrel money abroad and cheat the tax man. We none of us like taxes but we know they are necessary to run a country and have to be paid. Unless you are perched at the top of a bank.
Then you just grab and grab and grab until you are a multi-millionaire. And the depositors who worked long and hard? Stupid sheep ready to be shorn. Now here’s a good question for a TV quiz.
How many have ever gripped the brass rail of a dock in a court of law. Or ever will? To my recall…..not one. So if any erminerobed peer asks why he is not admired and respected, that’s the answer.
The way this country is run is grossly unfair.
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GETTYDavid Cameron's silent auction faced criticism
The way this country is run is grossly unfair
The bar of the Jolly Cricketers has never been known as a nest of sedition nor yet a cauldron of insurrection. But for the last week it has been looking like a UKIP branch office.
And all because of that Conservative Black and White gala. What on earth did they think they were doing? Is there no one at Headshed with the slightest understanding of the media? Is no one aware of how the papers would latch on to such a bevy of sleazeballs and spivs as they allowed in to consort with the great and the good of the Tory stratosphere?
I mean, there were at least a dozen one simply would not have on one’s yacht. With Headshed’s usual exquisite timing they managed to have it the day the scandal exploded of HSBC, Britain’s biggest bank, only recently under the overlordship (literally) of a cove made up to peer of the realm and government minister, running a secret private bank in Switzerland for the mega-rich who also tend to donate to…. Headshed.
Now as a trusting soul I have to believe that not one of them running their dosh into HSBC (Geneva Branch) on sack trolleys was in any way trying to evade tax. But I also have to wonder why they feel the need to shove their wealth under a Swiss Alp.
We have discreet and private banks in this country, you know. As a Cockney might say, I just don’t know what to Fink. But as a popularity-seeking exercise 90 days short of an election that ball and the secret bank are up there with the Titanic.
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GETTYLaura Wright sang to the crowd at Twickenham on Saturday
Can you tell the nature of a game by the people who watch it? During the England- Italy rugby match last Saturday the camera frequently panned across the crowd when action on the pitch was temporarily halted. And the people in the crowd were laughing, cheering, joking, waving, beaming with enjoyment.
Fans of Italy and England were intermixed with nary a hint of antagonism. Just goodnatured joshing. And by the by, some seriously stunning girls came on screen including a fast-asleep baby labelled Mummy’s Little Mascot.
That’s after Laura Wright, left, serenaded the crowd. How different from soccer where the crowds seem to hate the opposing team and fans. You’d think the bodycontact sport would have the violent supporters, but it’s the other way round. Maybe all that thumping is therapeutic, inspiring good humour. There must be a reason. The contrast is dramatic.
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One last comment about taxation chaos, then let’s just get on with our lives. The main reason for the bewilderment millions feel in the face of the precise meaning between “evasion” (illegal) “avoidance” (legal but immoral) and “tax planning” (legal and sensible) is the book of tax law, the so-called Yellow Book.
It is so long and so convoluted that lifelong accountants cannot understand it. As far back as 2009 it was 11,500 pages spread over five huge volumes of close-typed print, the longest in the world.
It used to be a third that length and understandable. Who exactly trebled its length and made it incomprehensive? Gordon Brown, that’s who. Along with the abolition of banking controls (leading to national ruin) another of that numpty’s gifts to the nation whose finances he misgoverned for 13 years.
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The burning alive of the Jordanian pilot by IS may in fact prove to be an atrocity too far.
Hacking the heads off Westerners causes a great fuss over here but leaves all Arabia uninterested. But with the Jordanian pilot IS has antagonised millions of fellow- Arabs, starting with Jordan who are also Sunni Muslims. Moreover, the young man came from a numerous, influential and powerful tribe.
The pilot’s father is a highranking sheikh within that tribe and he has sworn vengeance. And they know about blood feuds in that neck of the woods.
If there is one thing these Jordanians could really do it is trace and track the Caliph who absolutely had to be the ordergiver for the horrible manner of the young pilot’s death. Give our Intel.
People a whisper as to where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is to be found and we could do the rest – from the air.
The Caliph’s death would shatter IS and he is assuredly already on the Kill List.
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The Chief Constable of Durham Mike Barton has appealed for drug addicts not to be jailed but medicated through detox. and rehab until recovery. No problem from this quarter but there is one from another.
Police records prove a staggering amount of acquisitive crime (stealing, burglary, mugging etc) derives from addicts trying to raise the price of their next fix, which they can in no way raise by lawful work.
So yes to society helping the addict kick the habit but it will only work in a programme inside a secure environment, i.e. a closed residential clinic. But these are megaexpensive; certainly not within the NHS budget let alone the police budget.
So who is to establish, staff and run them? So yes, compassion for the addict, but for the importers, dealers, traffickers of these life-destroying chemicals – no mercy.
If the narcotics were incredibly hard to acquire or millionaires-only expensive, the addict might have to turn to the state for help.
But the habitcontinuing drugs are hugely available and cheap enough to be afforded by a life of low-level crime. Until the traffickers get life without the option, they will remain so. But too often they get off with a slap. What is Mr Barton going to do about it.
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