Evil Diaries: Fulminations
Starmer was yesterday criticising Rishi Sunak, a chap who hugely impresses me given his obvious intelligence, good judgement and sparkling wit.
Starmer drew attention to the fact that taxation is higher today than it has been for many decades and that Sunak has introduced 15 taxation rises. But what else would the prat expect given the country’s financial position? And that is not all: Labour is the party that has in decades past introduced taxation which can be best described as pointless – I am thinking back to the Jenkins and Callaghan years. And it was Labour that nearly took us insolvent fourteen years ago. Truly, it is the Conservatives’ bad luck that just after we were starting to pull away after the Brown debacle of 2008 we got hit by Covid. God alone knows where we would now be had Starmer and his motley crew been in charge.
Needless to add, some fool decided to have a go at Mrs Sunak for being well off and the beneficiary of her India-resident father’s industrious development in India. So much so that the fool tried to suggest that Mr Sunak had developed the non-dom law to his personal advantage. Dear God! And I remind readers that Mr Sunak has recently given £100,000 to his alma mater Winchester.
The history of non-dom taxation is at least a century old and the way Britain has handled this has been hugely culturally and economically beneficial to Britain. Only a deliberately misrepresenting fool like Starmer would criticise Rishi Sunak.
Mind you the BBC and C4 are having a go. And they get it all wrong. Truly, the BBC should never go anywhere near figures. They are phenomenally bad at handling them. I offer just one instance: time and again this morning the BBC declared that Mrs Sunak does not pay tax on her overseas “earnings”. The truth is quite different. She pays a flat £90,000 a year for the privilege of not paying tax on her overseas income where that income remains sheltered offshore.
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Elsewhere, C4 should be sold by HMG. Only an idiot could fail to spot the trend in broadcasting – just look at the rise of Netflix and Co.. A sale is quite obviously the way to go.
Incidentally there are similar problems at the BBC with its licence fee funded operation. Poor old Michael Grade: he is entering the hellhole of uninformed stupidity.
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En passant, I mention to a holder of equities that for the first time for many years inflation automatically increases the nominal value of a portfolio but not its spending power and leads to taxation on non-existent gains. So far, no one has generally commented on this. But its effect will be increasingly obvious.
I doubt that anyone at the BBC has hit on the idea that buying oil company shares is the answer to higher fuel prices. Some pay good dividends.
I don’t find Mr Cawkwell’s remarks very helpful for the development of our investment strategy and politely request that he confines his remarks to concentrate on that purpose
I find Mr. Cawkwell’s remarks trenchant, cogent and illuminating. He is commenting on matters that affect us all so he deserves to be heard.
“Never Dull”. Useful advice for the smaller investor who prefers an independent approach. I’m surprised , unless I missed it, that you haven’t flagged up Enjoy D’Allen for the National. Perhaps it is to obvious. Best.
Netflix model not looking so robust heavily -indebted. Channel 4 has enormous catalogue of films which allows lesser known directors and producers to develop their trade and allows smaller film companies exposure. This was one of Margaret Thatcher’s successes and it remains relatively independent.