Economics of the madhouse

PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of Britain's top accountancy companies, has had private meetings with the financial directors of Private Equity Firms to find ways of avoiding paying the new 50 per cent rate of tax. Despite their criminal role in almost destroying the world economy, they intend to avoid paying even their minimal share towards the billions the taxpayers have shelled out.

Thousands of these low-life gamblers and speculators are expecting million pound bonuses this winter. Barclays, for instance, are paying tens of millions to its US subsidiary made up of traders from the bankrupt Lehman brothers. The US-government-rescued Goldman Sachs is also paying out tens of millions.

It is estimated by the TUC and others that if all tax loopholes and havens were closed, the UK alone would collect an extra £25 billion a year in tax revenue, enough to pay for proper care and pensions for the elderly many times over. With Obama and the EU pressing to end such scams, it is Brown and Mandelson that are holding us back. The Royal Bank of Scotland (owned by the Government) is donating millions of dollars through a US subsidiary to lobby against the Obama proposals.

The economic situation in which finance capital recovers while unemployment continues to rise leads to increasing social tension and some strange bedfellows. Churches, anti-poverty groups and some trade unions have called for the reintroduction of usury laws (ie, regulations to prevent excessive interest). The taxpayers have been financing the banks to help the economic recovery through the Bank of England's half a per cent rate. The banks of course have been putting the rates up, so increasing their profits and further squeezing the taxpayers.

Afghanistan

During the long drawn out illegal invasion of Iraq the UK military constantly called both openly and behind the scenes for the transfer of resources to Afghanistan. Basically they wanted to try their weapons out in areas where they would not get into any trouble by killing 'civilians'. They put intense pressure on politicians in the UK and they got their way. What happened is they found themselves fighting an enemy with a long record of smashing British imperialism. Over the last two years these troops have been driven out of over 80% of the territory in Helmand they previously held. Only the weakened US stooges running the UK would not have withdrawn and above all conducted a ruthless purge of the UK top army brass who argued for the switch of resources. These generals really are brass-necked.

Swine flu

Swine flu did not appear from nowhere. It originated in Mexico, from US-owned pig farms. In Mexico and the US these farms are on a huge industrial scale. The pigs have developed so many diseases that the farm conglomerates have taken to developing their own vaccines. These have not been overseen by any government department. This has allowed viruses to develop which can mutate into those that affect human beings.

Secret GM crop trials

Leeds University has restarted trials on GM potatoes. They are surrounded by a high fence with security lighting and 24-hour guards. The big myth that New Labour and Leeds University put out is that these trials are necessary to fight world hunger. In fact, as Prince Charles has pointed out, they are planned so that big agricultural companies can hold famers throughout the globe in financial hock.

Under European Union law the Government is forced to publish the sites of GM trials. This has allowed activists to trash them. To get round this they have been very quiet about the current trial and are looking at ways of helping the big seed companies by trying to get round the law.

Legalisation of drugs

The Alliance for Green Socialism has long called for the decriminalisation of cannabis and a serious inquiry into the legalisation of drugs. But many are going well beyond this, given the complete and absolute failure of the war on drugs. A recent document commissioned by a drugs reform charity has produced a cost-benefit analysis of legalisation of drugs, something which governments have steadfastly refused to do. It draws the conclusion that the net savings to the taxpayer of such moves would be between four and half billion to thirteen billion pounds, obviously a real major saving to help the NHS etc, and the Independent Drugs Monitoring Unit reckons that an extra one billion pounds could be raised by taxing cannabis.

Even the Economist has written that "Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution".

Since New Labour's brilliant success in Afghanistan in flooding the UK with heroin, something clearly has to be done. The AGS's policy on drugs' time has come.

David Kelly's strange death.

With the beginning of the long drawn out cover-up inquiry into the Iraq war there have been a number of calls for the re-opening of the inquest into David Kelly. They have come from his friends and from paramedics. Now 13 senior doctors have called for a review, saying the suicide verdict was unsafe. However one of them puts forward the fanciful theory that he was bumped off by an Iraqi hit squad. It is not clear what the motive would be, seeing that he was proving that they had no weapons of mass destruction. However Blair and his government had a very strong motive for removing Kelly. The original inquest called no one who was an expert in covert killings.

Rats and the sinking ship

The New Labour MPs in the Leeds area have finally began to realise they can go down with Brown or try to find a safe hole before the massacre at the General Election. The Observer has estimated up to 120 of them will jump ship countrywide.

About 18 months ago, because of boundary reorganisation, Ed Balls, the pro-Academy Schools Minister, needed a new seat in the Wakefield/Leeds area, the main reason being that he that could continue his highly profitable housing arrangement with his wife, Housing Minister Yvette Cooper. A number of local MPs were approached and asked to fall on their swords to allow this Brown favourite to remain. They all refused, two of the most public refuseniks being Colin Challen, MP for Morley and South Leeds. and Colin Burgon, MP for Elmet.

The situation now looks very different. The first to fall was Challen who allowed Balls in and somehow got a highly paid government sinecure in an energy conservation organisation. Now Colin Burgon has also announced he is not standing again. This follows announcements from John Grogan (Selby) and Paul Truswell (Pudsey) that they also were not standing. John Battle, the very New Labour MP for West Leeds, had already announced he would not be standing, allowing an even more New Labour type to take over the seat. In his case the rumour is that as a Privy Council member he could be 'awarded' a place in the House of Lords so he can chair some Roman Catholic quango.

George Mudie (East Leeds) and Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) are staying. They both have safe seats and emerged relatively unscathed from the expenses scandal.

This leaves our old friend Fabian Hamilton, the MP for Leeds North East. He was implicated heavily in the expenses scandal. He claimed his mother's house in London as his first house while the family home in Leeds became his second home and therefore eligible for various grants. This was switched back when he purchased a property in London. He also topped the expenses expenditure for the whole of Yorkshire. However when the New Labour Party members of Leeds North East were presented with the opportunity to remove him they bottled out deciding. effectively, to give the Tories a clear run.

However, many electors have not been satisfied with Hamilton's explanations. For instance Tiberius Leodis on his blog has drawn attention to the number of times Hamilton has used a company called Serif Systems to purchase Apple Macs, iPods, iPhones, cameras, and internet services (only the last of which they actually offer for sale on their website), and how this company has a similar name to a number of companies he was connected to before becoming an MP. I am sure there is a perfectly simple explanation for this and why Serif Systems suddenly got into the movie camera supply business. But the explanation should come quickly for although Lobley, Hamilton's hapless Tory opponent, has been told to lay off the expenses scandal, others are already beginning to investigate further.

I am more interested in why Hamilton's office needed to spend nearly £600 in one year with the confidential waste company Shred-It. It would have been much cheaper to have bought a high-end shredder.

Hamilton has an endearing habit of using the expensive cameras bought with our money to have photographs taken with all his staff and himself. These beautiful objets d'art are placed on the person's desk to remind them whom they are working for. We too are often passed photographs of Hamilton. See left so as to remind yourselves who not to vote for.