Press release: Students and UK Uncut disrupt tax boss' conference speech
Posted on Wed 9th Nov 2011, 5:15pmPRESS RELEASE: STUDENTS AND UK UNCUT DISRUPT TAX BOSS’ CONFERENCE SPEECH
For immediate release
Tel 07415063231
Email ukuncut@gmail.com
UK Uncut and students from London caused a major embarrassment for HMRC boss Dave Hartnett by staging a mock thank-you celebration from top tax dodgers during a keynote speech at the Tax Journal Conference [1].
The students, dressed as executives from Vodafone and Goldman Sachs, entered the main auditorium just after Hartnett had begun speaking.
Having made their way up to the stage, they presented the embattled HMRC boss with bottles of wine, flowers and champagne as a mock ‘thank you’ for Hartnett’s role in letting the firms off billions of pounds in tax.
A blushing Hartnett clutched a giant thank-you card emblazoned with 'Goldman Sachs Says Thanks' as the ‘executives’ continued to sing his praises.
Hartnett has come under increasing fire for striking backroom deals with mega-rich corporations that have cost the taxpayer billions of pounds at a time of austerity [2].
As recently as Monday, Britain’s top taxman was dragged in front of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee for a third time to answer questions on the dodgy deals with Vodafone and Goldman Sachs that cost the taxpayer up to £6bn and £10m respectively. The session ended with Hartnett being forced to deny he had plans to resign [3].
University College London student Katie Clarke said: “Dave Hartnett signed off Vodafone’s £6bn tax dodge. That money could have prevented not just the cuts to higher education, but all of the cuts in public services over the past year. If Hartnett had a shred of self-respect he’d resign immediately.”
UK Uncut supporter Greg Tomasson said: “HMRC has just announced it will be going after 146,000 pensioners to demand hundreds of pounds from them following a tax code cock-up. Meanwhile, its boss is striking secret deals with mega-rich corporations to let them off billions of pounds in tax. Hartnett has brought the UK’s tax system into disrepute and he has to go.”
[1] The conference, billed as ‘the definitive event for the corporate tax community’, featured sessions on ‘mitigating tax risk’ and ‘tax optimisation’ and involved some of the richest companies in the world including HSBC, Rolls Royce, Shell and Government-owned RBS. See http://www.taxjournal.com/tj/events/tax-journal-conference-2011
[2] A survey last year found that Hartnett was Whitehall’s most ‘wined and dined’ civil servant, treated by corporations 107 times in 3 years to top a survey of 172 senior civil servants. Tory MPs and commentators from across the political spectrum have joined the call for Hartnett to resign.
[3] http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9349
For immediate release
Tel 07415063231
Email ukuncut@gmail.com
UK Uncut and students from London caused a major embarrassment for HMRC boss Dave Hartnett by staging a mock thank-you celebration from top tax dodgers during a keynote speech at the Tax Journal Conference [1].
The students, dressed as executives from Vodafone and Goldman Sachs, entered the main auditorium just after Hartnett had begun speaking.
Having made their way up to the stage, they presented the embattled HMRC boss with bottles of wine, flowers and champagne as a mock ‘thank you’ for Hartnett’s role in letting the firms off billions of pounds in tax.
A blushing Hartnett clutched a giant thank-you card emblazoned with 'Goldman Sachs Says Thanks' as the ‘executives’ continued to sing his praises.
Hartnett has come under increasing fire for striking backroom deals with mega-rich corporations that have cost the taxpayer billions of pounds at a time of austerity [2].
As recently as Monday, Britain’s top taxman was dragged in front of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee for a third time to answer questions on the dodgy deals with Vodafone and Goldman Sachs that cost the taxpayer up to £6bn and £10m respectively. The session ended with Hartnett being forced to deny he had plans to resign [3].
University College London student Katie Clarke said: “Dave Hartnett signed off Vodafone’s £6bn tax dodge. That money could have prevented not just the cuts to higher education, but all of the cuts in public services over the past year. If Hartnett had a shred of self-respect he’d resign immediately.”
UK Uncut supporter Greg Tomasson said: “HMRC has just announced it will be going after 146,000 pensioners to demand hundreds of pounds from them following a tax code cock-up. Meanwhile, its boss is striking secret deals with mega-rich corporations to let them off billions of pounds in tax. Hartnett has brought the UK’s tax system into disrepute and he has to go.”
[1] The conference, billed as ‘the definitive event for the corporate tax community’, featured sessions on ‘mitigating tax risk’ and ‘tax optimisation’ and involved some of the richest companies in the world including HSBC, Rolls Royce, Shell and Government-owned RBS. See http://www.taxjournal.com/tj/events/tax-journal-conference-2011
[2] A survey last year found that Hartnett was Whitehall’s most ‘wined and dined’ civil servant, treated by corporations 107 times in 3 years to top a survey of 172 senior civil servants. Tory MPs and commentators from across the political spectrum have joined the call for Hartnett to resign.
[3] http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=9349
Guest post: Join us on Wednesday to defend education and fight the cuts
Posted on Mon 7th Nov 2011, 4:41amThis is a guest post by Michael Chessum from National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts
This Wednesday, tens of thousands are expected to attend the national demonstration against fees, cuts and privatisation in education. The march will leave Malet Street at 12pm and go through Trafalgar Square and up the Strand, before passing the occupation at St Paul’s to rally at Moorgate Junction. The decision to march on the City, rather than to Parliament, will highlight the fact that whilst the banks caused the economic crisis, students- and millions of ordinary working people in the UK- are paying for and suffering its consequences.
Our education is not for sale
We want to send a message on Wednesday that we won’t let the Government hand over education to the markets. Education should be a public service, accessible to all– not a corporate enterprise.
Protesters therefore intend to derail the government’s higher education white paper. This has been widely described as a chaotic and regressive attempt to introduce markets and private providers into education, effectively ending it as a public service.
Solidarity with electricians and the hardest hit
Students will be joined on the day by thousands of striking electricians, who are marching with Unite the Union in protest at a 35% national pay cut. NCAFC is supporting the electricians’ strike as part of a broader opposition to pay and pensions cuts ahead of the November 30th strikes.
The demonstration will then finish at Moorgate Junction, next to London Metropolitan University, which is one of the hardest hit institutions in the UK. London Met has the highest percentage of working class students in the country, with more black and minority ethnic students than the whole of the elite Russell Group combined.
Ending a society run by and for the 1%
The last academic year saw a 70% cut to London Met’s undergraduate course portfolio and a move to more vocational-style degrees, and even greater cuts are expected over the next year. Meanwhile FTSE 100 directors' pay has risen by over 50%.
As Claire Locke, President of London Met students’ union, has pointed out, the government’s policies ‘have led to a disproportionate attack on our most vulnerable students. We have already had students drop out due to financial hardship and lack of student support.’
We must stand together and build a mass movement to fight the unjustifiable fees and reckless cuts. Let’s make November 9th a day Cameron and Clegg can’t ignore and won’t forget.
This Wednesday, tens of thousands are expected to attend the national demonstration against fees, cuts and privatisation in education. The march will leave Malet Street at 12pm and go through Trafalgar Square and up the Strand, before passing the occupation at St Paul’s to rally at Moorgate Junction. The decision to march on the City, rather than to Parliament, will highlight the fact that whilst the banks caused the economic crisis, students- and millions of ordinary working people in the UK- are paying for and suffering its consequences.
Our education is not for sale
We want to send a message on Wednesday that we won’t let the Government hand over education to the markets. Education should be a public service, accessible to all– not a corporate enterprise.
Protesters therefore intend to derail the government’s higher education white paper. This has been widely described as a chaotic and regressive attempt to introduce markets and private providers into education, effectively ending it as a public service.
Solidarity with electricians and the hardest hit
Students will be joined on the day by thousands of striking electricians, who are marching with Unite the Union in protest at a 35% national pay cut. NCAFC is supporting the electricians’ strike as part of a broader opposition to pay and pensions cuts ahead of the November 30th strikes.
The demonstration will then finish at Moorgate Junction, next to London Metropolitan University, which is one of the hardest hit institutions in the UK. London Met has the highest percentage of working class students in the country, with more black and minority ethnic students than the whole of the elite Russell Group combined.
Ending a society run by and for the 1%
The last academic year saw a 70% cut to London Met’s undergraduate course portfolio and a move to more vocational-style degrees, and even greater cuts are expected over the next year. Meanwhile FTSE 100 directors' pay has risen by over 50%.
As Claire Locke, President of London Met students’ union, has pointed out, the government’s policies ‘have led to a disproportionate attack on our most vulnerable students. We have already had students drop out due to financial hardship and lack of student support.’
We must stand together and build a mass movement to fight the unjustifiable fees and reckless cuts. Let’s make November 9th a day Cameron and Clegg can’t ignore and won’t forget.
Guest post: How I saved my local nursery
Posted on Sat 29th Oct 2011, 1:40pmThis is a guest post by Lucy Reese, mother of Angus (6), Stanley (2) and Max (6 months)
A few years ago, like all good New Labour voters, I was obviously all for public services, but other than the bins and the NHS had very little need for them. Then I had kids. And everything changed. I’d always worked and was determined to do so after I had kids. My job as a TV producer paid quite well, but even so forking out nearly £400 a week in childcare – for a fairly bog standard private nursery – was pretty eye-watering. It was much more than my mortgage. By the time my lovely son was two and a half I knew I couldn’t carry on working the hours I did without going completely bat-shit mental. A ghastly programme about The Spice Girls was the tipping point. I had no work life balance and had to change the way I worked.
Fortunately, by this time my son had moved to a brilliant council run nursery called Caversham Children’s Centre, in Kentish Town, North London. I loved everything about it and it was affordable – the fees were about half what we’d been paying before. It gave me the breathing space to work out how I could change direction. I found I could do some TV stuff from home and also began to pick up work in F.E colleges, which I loved. I had another baby, started a PGCE and got more hours in the college. Throughout all these changes the nursery was a constant – our second boy went there too.
Since both my husband and I are self employed – he makes websites – we can’t afford to turn down work just because it doesn’t fit in with school holidays. I got work teaching summer schools so we started using the brilliant holiday play schemes run out of Camden Square Playcentre. It may sound cheesy, but these services are like extended family for millions of people like us. We can’t plead abject poverty, but to keep working, we need good quality affordable childcare. We want to spend some time with our kids and provide them with emotional security – we just couldn’t do this and pay private sector childcare fees.
Fast forward to the 2010 election. THEY got in and I remember saying to my husband that I reckoned the nursery and the playcentre would be for the chop. People like Cameron have never needed public services and think only lazy scroungers use them. By the end of 2010, it was announced that the playcentre would close in 2012 – then we found out in January of this year that the nursery would be closing in August.
When I got the letter about the nursery closing I burst into tears. Pregnant and hormonal, I just couldn’t handle the news. But I refused to go down without a fight. Fortunately all the other parents felt the same and to cut a long story short we worked together and although the nursery did close in August, it has recently reopened as the Caversham Community Nursery after we convinced the council to transfer management to a local community association.
The campaign was draining and involved dozens of meetings, hassling local councillors, standing in the street outside the Co-op and making a series of deputations to Camden Council. I gave birth in the middle of the campaign – baby Max has been to more council meetings than you could care to mention, both in and out of the womb.
So why did the campaign work? First off, we decided to work with our local Labour councillors, rather than harangue them for closing the nursery. We also pooled our skills. One of our group was a management consultant and produced an amazing business plan. Another mother is a PA and a brilliant organizer – with access to free printing facilties for leaflets! I used my contacts in local politics and media and gave the campaign focus with a Facebook group. The group’s leader, another TV producer, created amazingly convincing documents and sat up till the early hours refining our deputations to the council. It was bloody hard work but it paid off and though the process was at times frustrating, it was also incredibly empowering and shows what can be done if you work collectively. It made me understand the importance of local government and the experience has made me keen to stand as a local councillor – something that previously would have had about as much appeal as drinking a bucket of cold sick.
I’m now back on the campaign trail again and have started an action group to save Camden Square Playcentre – yes, it is just down the road from the Amy shrine. This is a truly amazing place that provides holiday play schemes, after school clubs, breakfast clubs and under 5s drop ins. Black kids play with white kids, posh kids play with poor kids and disabled kids play with able bodied kids. The brilliant staff are trained in everything from child protection to child psychology – the idea that they could be replaced by some “Big Society” volunteers is frankly insulting. The playcentre keeps single parents off benefits and keeps stay at home mums with toddlers sane. It gives boisterous six year old boys somewhere to let off steam after school and kids in wheelchairs the chance to make friends with kids from mainstream schools. If this sounds like utopian bullshit, sorry, but it’s the kind of service that actually makes the world a better place.
We’ve had our first meeting and are hopeful that there is a chance that we can do what we did with the nursery and get a voluntary sector provider to take over the running of the service.
Please sign our petition - http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-camden-square-playcentre.html - we still need all the help we can get. Thank you for reading.
Lucy is giving a talk at 2pm on Saturday 29th October at Occupy Finsbury Square. You can email her at lucy_reese33@yahoo.co.uk
A few years ago, like all good New Labour voters, I was obviously all for public services, but other than the bins and the NHS had very little need for them. Then I had kids. And everything changed. I’d always worked and was determined to do so after I had kids. My job as a TV producer paid quite well, but even so forking out nearly £400 a week in childcare – for a fairly bog standard private nursery – was pretty eye-watering. It was much more than my mortgage. By the time my lovely son was two and a half I knew I couldn’t carry on working the hours I did without going completely bat-shit mental. A ghastly programme about The Spice Girls was the tipping point. I had no work life balance and had to change the way I worked.
Fortunately, by this time my son had moved to a brilliant council run nursery called Caversham Children’s Centre, in Kentish Town, North London. I loved everything about it and it was affordable – the fees were about half what we’d been paying before. It gave me the breathing space to work out how I could change direction. I found I could do some TV stuff from home and also began to pick up work in F.E colleges, which I loved. I had another baby, started a PGCE and got more hours in the college. Throughout all these changes the nursery was a constant – our second boy went there too.
Since both my husband and I are self employed – he makes websites – we can’t afford to turn down work just because it doesn’t fit in with school holidays. I got work teaching summer schools so we started using the brilliant holiday play schemes run out of Camden Square Playcentre. It may sound cheesy, but these services are like extended family for millions of people like us. We can’t plead abject poverty, but to keep working, we need good quality affordable childcare. We want to spend some time with our kids and provide them with emotional security – we just couldn’t do this and pay private sector childcare fees.
Fast forward to the 2010 election. THEY got in and I remember saying to my husband that I reckoned the nursery and the playcentre would be for the chop. People like Cameron have never needed public services and think only lazy scroungers use them. By the end of 2010, it was announced that the playcentre would close in 2012 – then we found out in January of this year that the nursery would be closing in August.
When I got the letter about the nursery closing I burst into tears. Pregnant and hormonal, I just couldn’t handle the news. But I refused to go down without a fight. Fortunately all the other parents felt the same and to cut a long story short we worked together and although the nursery did close in August, it has recently reopened as the Caversham Community Nursery after we convinced the council to transfer management to a local community association.
The campaign was draining and involved dozens of meetings, hassling local councillors, standing in the street outside the Co-op and making a series of deputations to Camden Council. I gave birth in the middle of the campaign – baby Max has been to more council meetings than you could care to mention, both in and out of the womb.
So why did the campaign work? First off, we decided to work with our local Labour councillors, rather than harangue them for closing the nursery. We also pooled our skills. One of our group was a management consultant and produced an amazing business plan. Another mother is a PA and a brilliant organizer – with access to free printing facilties for leaflets! I used my contacts in local politics and media and gave the campaign focus with a Facebook group. The group’s leader, another TV producer, created amazingly convincing documents and sat up till the early hours refining our deputations to the council. It was bloody hard work but it paid off and though the process was at times frustrating, it was also incredibly empowering and shows what can be done if you work collectively. It made me understand the importance of local government and the experience has made me keen to stand as a local councillor – something that previously would have had about as much appeal as drinking a bucket of cold sick.
I’m now back on the campaign trail again and have started an action group to save Camden Square Playcentre – yes, it is just down the road from the Amy shrine. This is a truly amazing place that provides holiday play schemes, after school clubs, breakfast clubs and under 5s drop ins. Black kids play with white kids, posh kids play with poor kids and disabled kids play with able bodied kids. The brilliant staff are trained in everything from child protection to child psychology – the idea that they could be replaced by some “Big Society” volunteers is frankly insulting. The playcentre keeps single parents off benefits and keeps stay at home mums with toddlers sane. It gives boisterous six year old boys somewhere to let off steam after school and kids in wheelchairs the chance to make friends with kids from mainstream schools. If this sounds like utopian bullshit, sorry, but it’s the kind of service that actually makes the world a better place.
We’ve had our first meeting and are hopeful that there is a chance that we can do what we did with the nursery and get a voluntary sector provider to take over the running of the service.
Please sign our petition - http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-camden-square-playcentre.html - we still need all the help we can get. Thank you for reading.
Lucy is giving a talk at 2pm on Saturday 29th October at Occupy Finsbury Square. You can email her at lucy_reese33@yahoo.co.uk