Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Press barons: the Roy Jenkins experience
According to an amendment last week to the Ministerial code of Conduct, relations with senior media powers will be transparent in future:
The Government will be open about its links with the media. All meetings with newspaper and other media proprietors, editors and senior executives will be published quarterly regardless of the purpose of the meeting.
It was another world of press relations with Government when then-Chancellor Roy Jenkins faced the turmoil of the 1968 currency crisis..
As he said;
I went back to Number 11 to receive William Rees-Mogg, then editor of The Times, who had suggested the visit with a view to a helpful leader for the following morning. As we faced a hazardous opening of the London foreign exchange market at 10 am this could be of importance and value … I thought that Rees-Moggs visit should be kept secret (and) made elaborate arrangements for him to be let in through the garden gate …
This turned into farce. He arrived at the front door, passed through the waiting throng of journalists and television crews like Moses separating the waters of the Red Sea and was ushered into my downstairs waiting room which was full of Treasury and Bank of England officials. One of those poked his head round the door of my study and said ‘A gentleman who looks remarkably like Mr Rees-Mogg has just arrived’. William assured me that our attempt at secrecy was as unnecessary as it was unsuccessful. The press he said always preserved its own confidentiality. He was certainly right to the extent that not a word about his visit appeared in any newspaper.
(Roy Jenkins ‘a Life At The Centre’ p243)
For a list of all Nick Clegg’s meetings with senior media figures since taking office up to 15 July 2011 see the Deputy Prime Minister’s page on this subject.
Labels: media barons, Nick Cleghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifg, Roy Jenkins
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Murdoch is worlds biggest welfare claimant
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (which owns News International and thus The Times, The Sun and so on) makes thousands of millions of US dollars from United States taxpayers. How much in taxes has his companies managed to avoid paying in Britain?
On profits of $10.4 bn (ten thousand four hundred million dollars) over the last four years US corporate taxes of $3.6 bn (three thousand six hundred million US Dollars) should have been paid.
Instead the US Treasury paid Murdoch companies $4.6 bn in income tax refunds.
How is this done? According to David Cay Johnson, a columnist at Reuters News Agency, in a July 12th column :
News Corp. has 152 subsidiaries in tax havens, including 62 in the British Virgin Islands and 33 in the Caymans. Among the hundred largest U.S. companies, only Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have more tax haven subsidiaries than News Corp., a 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office study found.
News Corp. had nearly $7 billion permanently invested offshore in 2009, money on which it does not have to pay taxes unless it brings the money back to the United States. Meanwhile, it can use that money as collateral for loans in the United States, where interest paid is a tax-deductible expense.
Johnson goes on to detail how this trick can be pulled off…
His concluding paragraphs:
Murdoch assiduously courts the powers-that-be for favorable laws and regulatory rulings. Contrast that with the rough and sometimes relentless attacks on politicians and government programs of his newspapers and his Fox News Channel.
Murdoch's news outlets can prove enormously helpful to politicians. His support boosted Hillary Clinton's 2000 campaign for the U.S. Senate from New York, helping her to beat Republican Rick Lazio. Murdoch even hosted a Clinton re-election campaign fundraiser in 2006, while restraining New York Post gossip mongers who looked on her husband as red meat in the White House.
Murdoch gets invited to weddings and celebrations of top American, British and Chinese officials. He flew Tony Blair halfway around the world to a company event in Australia when the future British prime minister was opposition leader.
Imagine how well Jesus might have done if he had put a corporate jet at Caesar's disposal. Or if he had a tabloid like the News of the World to put Caesar in fear of him.
So does News International extract monies from the UK by similar means? I hope someone can take up this question…
Labels: Murdoch, News International, taxes
Cay Johnson has completely withdrawn his story.
He says:
"Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp's taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp did not get a $4.8 billion tax refund for the past four years, as I reported. Instead, it paid that much in cash for corporate income taxes for the years 2007 through 2010 while earning pre-tax profits of $10.4 billion.
For the first time in my 45-year-old career I am writing a skinback. That is what journalists call a retraction of the premise of a piece, as in peeling back your skin and feeling the pain. I will do all I can to make sure everyone who has read or heard secondary reports based on my column also learns the facts and would appreciate the help of readers in that cause."
See:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/column-dcjohnston-murdoch-idUSN1E76C25320110713
Lord Voldemort fights to protect death eaters
From the book here is part of Harry's final confrontation with you-know-who
(Harry) "I'd advise you to think about what you've done ... think and try for some remorse..."
(Murdoch, er I mean Voldy) "What is this?"
Of all the the things that Harry had said to him, beyond any revelation or taunt, nothing had shocked Voldemort like this. Harry saw his pupils contract to thin slits. saw the skin around his eyes whiten.
"Its your last chance" said Harry. It's all you've got left.... be a man ...try ... try for some remorse.."
In the real world remains to be seen whether a Parliamentary and outraged civilisation's 'Expelliarmus' will in the end defeat 'Avadra Kedavra'. Or what will happen if all those political sheep are freed from the Imperius curse.
Labels: hacking scandal, Harry Potter, Murdoch
