The Steeple Times asks emerging market investor David Reuben Jr: “What’s on your mantelpiece?”
The Steeple Times shares “wit and wisdom”. What’s your guiding force?
I try to follow the “Golden Rule”. Treat others the way you would prefer that they treat you. Be careful how you are with people on your way up, you just might meet them on the way down.
“Don’t get even, get medieval” is, in our humble opinion, a great motto. What’s yours?
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.
HMRC publish a list of tax evaders but neglect to mention any large corporations
The hotelier and real estate heiress Leona Helmsley stated: “Taxes are only for the little people” before being convicted of income tax evasion in 1989.
Leona Helmsley (1920 – 2007)HMRC’s list of deliberate tax defaulters published on 21st February 2013
Yesterday, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs published a list of names and addresses of nine individuals and companies who they describe as tax defaulters. Amongst the names on the list are a grocer, a hairdresser and a coach operator and the amounts owed range from £29,111 to £447,904.
In response, Richard Murphy of Tax Research called the list of names: “Plain, straightforward hypocrisy”. He went on to state:
“The people named are easy targets. There are clearly different categories of tax crime, with small businesses who put cash in HMRC’s pockets named and shamed; but banks, wealthy lawyers and global corporations offered anonymity. It seems that only little people pay tax and only little people are named and shamed”.
Mr Murphy is quite right. Whilst these people may owe the taxman money, their activities are not in the league of the tax avoidance strategies of Starbucks, Google and Amazon.
If HMRC don’t want to be placed in the same category as Leona Helmsley, they’d do well to change their ways. Instead they’d do better to focus on the true “aggressors” that David Cameron highlighted this week but sadly, that would probably just be too logical a strategy for this monolithic organisation to follow.
Victoria Aitken launches a single for Valentine’s Day
This Valentine’s Day, the electro-house chart topping singer-songwriter Victoria Aitken, daughter of the former Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken, has released her latest single, Kiss Me.
The cover for Victoria Aitken’s “Kiss Me” single
Of what inspired her to write it, Aitken comments:
“Sometimes we are left ‘un-kissed’ and it can just be so depressing! I was inspired by my time with an Italian man, chatting and flirting over cocktails night after night. I then became annoyed, wondering when he was going to make his move. I believe many women and men feel like this: there is a certain vibe and then nothing”.
Produced by Marc JB, who has remixed seventy #1 UK dance chart hits for artists such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna, the single features a cover by the up-and-coming British visual artist Zoobs. In it, Aitken wears a headpiece and eye veil by Jane Taylor, a milliner who has created headwear for amongst others Paloma Faith and The Duchess of Cornwall.
The French romantic writer Victor Hugo once stated: “A compliment is like a kiss through a veil” and Victoria Aitken in Kiss Me certainly explores this further.
To listen to Kiss Me, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3P2AW6S5UI
Nadine Dorries appeared on Andrew Neil’s Sunday Politics yesterday and declared: “My career is not over… It’s only just beginning.”
Nadine Dorries
The MP for Mid-Bedfordshire may be a bit of her mouthpiece and though her time in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! was cringeworthy and tasteless, she’s the one having the last laugh. Her critics mock her as “Mad Nad”, but they are wrong. Dorries has made headway to share the issues she believes in and she has indeed become a household name.
Ms Dorries declared that she went on the show: “For the greater good of the Conservative Party” but as her parliamentary whip remains withdrawn, she plainly fails to understand that her colleagues are still less than thrilled with her. If they were sensible though, they should relent before she decides to jump.
Neil repeatedly asked Dorries if she would defect to UKIP and she tacitly denied such a possibility. One guest commented: “They [the Conservative Party] would be crazy to make her a UKIP martyr” and we agree with Andre Neil in his suggestion that: “She’ll live to fight another day.”
Jilly Cooper’s state of the nation style summary strikes chords with Matthew Steeples
Best-selling bonkbuster author Jilly Cooper might be best known for novels such as Riders and Jump! but in the 1980s and 90s she was equally lauded as “one of the Conservative Party’s most ardent supporters.”
Jilly Cooper
Cooper, born in 1937, showed she still has a grip on the nation’s pulse yesterday when she declared that the Conservative Party is “full of terrible people now” to The Spectator’s “Steerpike.”
Separately, in a comment to The Telegraph’s “Mandrake,” Mrs Cooper shared her thoughts on Pippa Middleton’s first book, Celebrate:
“[It] wasn’t a good idea. I don’t blame her – I think that she was ill-advised… All I can say is that I hope the British don’t demonise her because of it. She seems a lovely girl and her sister is wonderful.”
Ever the diplomat, Jilly Cooper, in these comments, shows herself as a truly brilliant wordsmith. She has tact and decency but at the same time doesn’t hold back when it comes to honesty.
Nigel Farage should put in a call. Mrs Cooper could be just the asset UKIP needs to transform them from a “bunch of loons” to electability.
Matthew Steeples responds to the recommendations of Leveson
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” was one of Edmund Burke’s most famous observations.
Today, David Cameron’s former spin doctor Andy Coulson and ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks were in court to face charges of having conspired to pay Ministry of Defence employee Bettina Jordan-Barber around £100,000 for information. How terribly convenient for our Prime Minister that this court appearance coincided with Lord Justice Leveson issuing his report into press standards.
Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Leveson issues his report todayA spokeswoman for Hacked Off (http://hackinginquiry.org) responds to Leveson’s report. Kate McCann stands to her rear.Rebekah Brooks arrives at Westminster Magistrates Court this morning
In the inevitable media firestorm in the run up to today’s report being issued, one question has been missed and that question is: “Did we really need a £4 million inquiry to tell us that there are elements of the press that have done wrong and did we really need a 9-month inquiry to tell us that the Press Complaints Commission was a “toothless poodle”?
Inevitably, the media and politicians have reacted against many of Leveson’s suggestions and “victims” have suggested he should have gone further. The main suggestion made was that there should be a “new independent system of self-regulation underpinned by the law.” It’s hardly a revelation and it’s hardly a solution.
“Bad men and foreigners shouldn’t be allowed to run our press,” commented Conservative MP Sir Peter Tapsell of the report. He added: “[Media] ownership should be confined to British nationals.” This utterly ludicrous suggestion shows how out of touch certain politicians in this country are. We live in a global society in which the Internet allows information to be shared across transnational boundaries and as a result our media has to operate globally.
Sir Peter Tapsell MP
Our own audience is illustrative: 38% of our readers are based in the UK, but 31% are American. We have an ever-growing readership in Russia and China and receive countless comments from individuals in places as far apart as New Zealand and Finland. Though many may loathe him, the person whom Tapsell’s attack was directed at, Rupert Murdoch, is not a force for evil. He’s simply a tycoon who wishes to make money and get on with running his business. He should be left to do such and the media should be left to self-regulate.
Sir Christopher Meyer and Baroness Buscombe, appointed cronies who were put in place to regulate the media in the UK were responsible for the mess created at the PCC. They failed because they were busybodies with political agendas and they failed because they did not go the whole hog when it came to dealing with the bad apples. As a result, public trust disintegrated and the PCC will deservedly be scrapped.
The bad behavior of a small number of people should not destroy the free press as a cornerstone of our free society. Today is an illustration of a case where good men actually should do nothing.
Matthew Steeples takes a view on the story of David Cameron, UKIP, racism and foster homes
First David Cameron described UKIP supporters as “mostly racist” and then a pair of ex-Labour supporting foster parents from Rotherham had three children taken from their care due to their support for that party. Sane people are rightly asking: “What is going on?” and also wondering: “What on earth is ‘Call Me Dave’ playing at?”
The UK Independence Party is an organisation that reflects the views of many in this country and a significant segment of our readership back them too. Equally, many do not and UKIP rightly accepts that. Of course, by their very existence they are a party whose stances polarize opinion and their naff logo and the proclamations of some of their odder members do make rational individuals cringe from time to time.
Nigel Farage
Nigel Farage, the party’s best asset, is a man guided by sense. He has pointed out many of the significant failings of the European Union and he does it boldly and with a belief bolstered by a dedication to improving Great Britain’s lot. Like or loathe him, here is a politician with passion and one whose influence is growing.
A site that proclaims itself as: “Britain’s most-read political blog,” PoliticalBetting.com, takes a different view and backs Cameron’s statement in suggesting: “There is an Islamophobic element to UKIP that mirrors many parties in Europe.” They refer to “golliwog supporters” and even add:
“David Cameron is right to stand his ground and not apologise for his earlier remarks about UKIP. What should worry him more is the growing number of people in his own party who seem quite relaxed with working with them. They are either blissfully unaware of what lies underneath the party’s anti-European statements or worse are prepared to tolerate them for electoral gain.”
All a decent couple did was to attempt to care for unfortunate children and their political alliegances are an irrelevance. PoliticalBetting.com and David Cameron’s generalisations about UKIP are also wrong and Rotherham council’s actions are utterly abhorrent. Have none of these people learnt anything from how the media firestorm of the Jimmy Savile saga was fueled? Isn’t it about time that they woke up and got their own houses in order instead of ranting about racism and foster parenting?
Of Italian-Jewish descent, Caring is of the “supermarket-sweep” school of empire building. This billionaire started out in the rag trade but now controls the majority of the top restaurants and clubs in Central London. He survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and viewed that to be a wakeup call. Since then he’s donated millions to charity and focused on his two passions: golf and shooting. This buccaneering businessman generally passes on breakfast and lunch and lives between a converted stable block set in 500 acres near Dulverton and a mansion on The Bishops Avenue. What will he buy next?
