Posts tagged ‘Uk Uncut’

Harsh Lessons and Pyrrhic Victories

So Starbucks has, as we now know, given into the pack of rabid dogs which have been assailing it by agreeing to review its tax position in the UK.

Whilst personally I’d like to hope that the result of the review will be them paying even less money to the UK Treasury, I doubt this wish will come true. Nor, I guess, will my second choice of the company sending a cheque for a single penny to UK Uncut and telling them to spend it wisely.

The hypocrites at The Guardian reported on Monday that in order to finance this change of heart Starbucks have begun withdrawing employee benefits. Predictably this lesson in practical economics hasn’t gone down too well with the idiots below the line. It’s almost as if they expected Starbucks to use the magic money tree to have obtain this extra dough without any of the laws of physics economics being broken…

If I were a shareholder* I would at this point be fairly livid. No, not over the changes to employee benefits, but at the thought that a company I part own is giving more of it to the wastrels in government to piss up the wall in pointless ventures, be they foreign or domestic.

I hope that the shareholders of Starbucks request answers as to why the policy has been changed and ask to see what the, if any, financial rationale for this decision was. If no decent answers are forthcoming then I suggest that they should demand that the heads of those responsible be delivered to them on platters as they don’t seem to be aware of their duty.

For myself I shall now be boycotting Starbucks. As someone who doesn’t drink coffee this isn’t a major hardship for me but I have, in the past, been known to pick up a hot chocolate on very cold days. Not any more.

* I might be one indirectly but I’d have to check the full holdings of those funds my pension contributions pay into to be sure.

I shouldn’t laugh…

…but in this case I’m finding it very difficult not to.

Everyone’s least favourite volunteer tax gatherers, UK Uncut, have decided to go after Bono – everyone’s least favourite pious rockstar* – claiming that he (and U2) avoid tax. (Warning, what figures are shown are courtesy of Richard Murphy.)

Now, as much as I think Bono should shut up, stop singing and crawl back into whichever hole he crawled out of, I have no problem with him wanting to reduce his tax bill by all available means – and I imagine what he has avoided over the years would probably make the £4m that had Adele admitting she was ‘ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire‘ look like chicken feed.

And, just to complete the circle of deliciousness, the wannabe tax collectors are planning on protesting at Glastonbury on the same day that U2 are headlining the Pyramid stage.

It truly would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

* Yes, I realise that this is a close call between him and Bob ‘give us your fucking money’ Geldof.

A tip of the hat to @heytherewombat for bringing this to my attention.

Thought for the Day

penny_dreadful said, in response to the last post:

If I see the phrase ‘pro-cuts march’ one more time…

Which finally made me realise what it was that had been getting my goat about some of the media and other coverage of the Rally Against Debt. It was described as a ‘pro-government’ rally. But we weren’t.

Why not?

Lets consider the positions of the two campaigns:

  • Uk Uncut wants spending on services to increase.
  • RAD wants spending to decrease so that we might begin to start reducing our National Debt.

Government spending is (as those who haven’t been blinded by the lies know) going up. Yes, spending on some services is coming down but total government spending will be higher in 2015 than it was in 2010.

On that basis, which campaign is ‘pro-government’?