OVER TO YOU DAVE

Tax evasion and tax avoidance, one way or another, is rarely out of the headlines especially as many heavily indebted governments are increasingly keen to hunt down every tax dollar / euro / pound that is owed by tax evaders avoiding (unlike the rest of us) paying their dues to society.  This week, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [ICIJ] who are based in Washington DC, have in collaboration with international media, began publishing  results into their research into tax evasion and off-shore tax havens.

The journalists have been sifting through an electronic mountain of information - literally  millions of records leaked from Britain's offshore financial industry, exposing for the first time the identities of thousands of holders of anonymous wealth from around the world. The list is interesting from presidents, ex-presidents, oligarchs,  plutocrats, a daughter of a notorious dictator and a British millionaire who is accused of concealing assets from his ex-wife.

The shock waves resulting from the leak of some 2 million emails and other documents, mostly from the British Virgin Islands (BVI), should expose the scale of the offshore tax evasion trade and the identities of tax evaders. It has been estimated that wealthy individuals involved in tax evasion and tax avoidance could potentially have as much as $ 32 trillion dollars (£ 21 trillion pounds) stashed in overseas and off-shore tax havens – which if equally divided could perhaps roughly give around $3000 dollars to every living person on earth.

Across La Manche things may be starting to get interesting, Jean-Jacques Augier, President François Hollande's campaign co-treasurer and close friend, has now identified his hitherto secret his Chinese business partner. The French President is already wallowing in a scandal as it turns out that his former budget minister consistently lied about having a Swiss bank account for 20 years. On the other side of the planet, the Mongolia's ex finance minister and deputy speaker of its parliament may have to resign from politics as a result of his off-shore financial interests.

While there is nothing wrong with a company being based in a tax haven does not necessarily mean that a company is avoiding tax or taking advantage of the hitherto pretty impenetrable secrecy that tends to surround tax havens, even if the tax jurisdictions are closely associated with tax evasion. That said, tax havens tend to be masked by secrecy and low taxes, and there have been few attempts to identify them. UK Revenue and Customs does not provide a list of tax havens.

The ICIJ has done an excellent job with its naming project, which may damage the confidence of the world's wealthiest people, who can no longer be certain that the size of their fortunes remains hidden from governments and from their tax paying neighbours. As well as Brits hiding wealth offshore, the data reveals a staggering array of government officials and rich families from Canada, the US, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, China, Thailand and former communist states. The ICIJ data reveals that their secret companies are mostly based in the BVI.

The Westminster government may have half-heartedly highlighted shown a desire to clamp down on tax avoidance and the PM might have slagged off celebrities, for using a tax avoidance scheme in Jersey. Yet he seems to be acutely reluctant to deal the tax havens that happen to be UK Crown Dependent territories.  Most reasonable people accept that there is a real need to deal on a global basis with the problem of off-shore companies and those individuals who are actively engaged in tax avoidance, tax evasion and / or money laundering. It’s all a tad embarrassing as the problem is that the UK is at the heart of the problem and has consciously chosen not to regulate its own crown dependencies.

The scale of the off-shore problem may take your breath away. The Cayman Islands; currently home to some 12,000 corporations has a population of 50,000, yet is home to 70% of the planets hedge funds (as of June 2012). The British Virgin Islands (population 22,000) is home to 823,502 registered companies. General Electric who paid no tax in 2010, made a $14.2 billion dollar profit. Barclay's has 181 subsidiaries (as of June 2012) registered in the Cayman Islands and paid little UK tax on its worldwide profits. The Dirty Digger's News Corp managed to base 152 subsidiaries in tax havens across the planet (according to the US Government) and managed to pay no UK corporation tax between 1998 and 1999.

US President Obama was 100% right to suggest that the governments of the world should jointly tackle the issue of tax evasion and tax havens. By tackling the tax havens, the tax avoidance and the questionable dealings of the derivative traders, hedge funds and the off balance sheet trading then we might go so way towards dealing with the consequences of the worldwide financial crash. Yet that nice Mr Cameron and the other 18 millionaires in the cabinet do seem to be stalling when it comes to closing  the tax loopholes.

The BVI has incorporated more than a million such offshore entities since it began marketing itself worldwide in the 1980s. Company owners' true identities are never revealed. Even the island's official financial regulators normally have no idea who is behind them. The British Foreign Office depends on the BVI's company licensing revenue to subsidise this residual outpost of empire, while lawyers and accountants in the City of London benefit from a lucrative trade as intermediaries, claiming that the tax-free offshore companies provide legitimate privacy.

Closer to home, in November 2012 a National Audit Office report revealed that of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is struggling to curb aggressive tax avoidance schemes is costing the UK billions of pounds in lost tax. Much to the embarrassment of the Con Dems, tax evasion and tax evaders and the hunt for their concealed cash remains a big issue in the USA, in the UK you get the impression that the Conservative dominated Con Dem Westminster government hopes will quietly go away.

One result of the US government’s pursuit of tax evaders means that Switzerland's oldest bank is to close permanently after they pleaded guilty in a New York court to helping US citizens evade paying their taxes. It was the first foreign bank to plead guilty to tax evasion charges in the USA. Other Swiss banks have taken steps to prevent US citizens from opening offshore accounts to avoid paying tax. Yet here in the UK, the Con Dem Government has reduced the number of staff in Revenue and Customs from around 100,000 to 65,000 and plans to further reduce the numbers to around 50,000 by 2015.

The reality is that the UK Government is in up to its neck when it comes to tax evasion, it’s heavily involved in aiding and abetting tax evasion worldwide. British Overseas territories, including the Cayman Islands, help to hide around trillions from pounds from the different nation’s tax authorities. In the belly of the beast lies the City, which may explain Cameron’s reluctance to do anything about the problem as some of the city banks are hand in glove with drug dealers, dictators, rogue states and terrorists when it comes to money laundering and may perhaps also offer comfy lucrative seats on the board to former Westminster politicians further down the line.

SOMETHING WE WILL NEVER SEE...

President Obama

The USA and England may not just be divided by a common language and the Atlantic Ocean, there is the issue of tax evasion and tax avoidance. Last week President Obama, during his State of the Union Address to a joint session of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, briefly lambasted those who sought to pay as little taxation as possible.

The gist of his comments ran along the lines of everyone needed to pay their fair share of tax, otherwise the American dream was broken, and that hard work was no longer rewarded and that unnamed others should be required to play by the rules and do their bit too – and pay their fair share of taxation, the same as everyone else does.

That is about as close the an American President can get to having ago at tax evaders and even then he may get accused of playing the ‘class war' card. Tax or its apparent avoidance briefly became a big issue in the US Republican primaries as Newt Gingrich effectively forced Mitt Romney to publicise his tax returns, which revealed the fact that he made $20m (£13m) last year in unearned income.

Newt Gingrich's supporters then funded a series of adverts labelling Mr Romney a "vulture" and "corporate raider", and accusing him of making his millions by asset-stripping and firing workers. He openly mocked Mr Romney's bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

Prime Minister David Cameron

Mitt Romney then duly gave as good as he got and laid into Newt Gingrich by focusing much of his attack on Gingrich’s political and personal integrity and he attacked the way he has made money, and accused him of being a lobbyist.

So tax, tax evasion and tax avoidance in times of austerity may well be a big issue in the forthcoming US Presidential election amongst other things. After all we are all supposed to be in this together. David Cameron used to make much of saying we were all in it together, but, that no longer seems to be, nor ever was the case.

This is something that David Cameron will no doubt go out of his way to do his best to avoid making any reference to this issue now or any-time soon. Some of us (its now pretty apparent) are in it a great deal less than most of us.

I mean, its awfully awkward, having gone out to bat in Europe for the square mile and conveniently forgetting the UK’s other 5,999 square miles. I think for most of us, despite the increasingly desperate Tory spin, it is now pretty clear where David Cameron stands (or squirms) in his position, it would make dinner with Lord Ashcroft awfully embarrassing.

ALL IN IT TOGETHER?

News that George Osborne has done a deal with the Swiss in relation to the secret bank accounts held by UK citizens may not wholly be good news. There has been much speculation as to exactly how much the new levy will bring in and the figure of £5 billion pounds has been bounced about by the Sunday papers.

I am sure that an extra £5 billion would be nice, I mean we have to pay for those pesky bank bonuses or those aircraft carriers somehow. What has, however, been largely overlooked is that what Osborne has done is effectively legitimise the holding of bank accounts that are secret from the Inland Revenue.

We still need to (globally) deal with the problem of off-shore companies and individuals who are engaged in tax avoidance, tax evasion or money laundering. The scale of the problem is quite staggering, take the Cayman Islands; which are home to some 12,000 corporations and have a population of 50,000, yet are home to 70% of the planets hedge funds.

The British Virgin Islands (population 22,000) is home to 823,502 registered companies. General Electric paid no tax in 2010, yet made a $14.2 billion dollar profit. Barclay's has 181 subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands and paid little UK tax on its world wide profits. The Dirty Digger’s News Corp has 152 subsidiaries in tax havens across the planet (according to the US Government) and paid no UK corporation tax between 1998 and 1999.

If developed countries exchequers lose out then it’s much worse for developing countries. Tax dodging costs developing countries $ 160 billion dollars per year (Christian Aid). Some $ 1.2 trillion dollars was illicitly removed from poor countries in 2008 (US Integrity Research Centre).

If the governments of the world got together, as President Obama suggested, and tackled the tax havens, the tax avoidance and the questionable dealings of the derivative traders, hedge funds and the off balance sheet trading then we may go so way towards dealing with the consequences of the worldwide financial crash. Perhaps if that nice (rich) Mr Cameron and the other 18 millionaires in the cabinet were to work with other governments worldwide to close the tax loopholes then perhaps we truly would all be in it together? Perhaps not!

MEASURING PROGRESS?

President Obama

A few years down the line and we are all still paying (and are going to carry on for some time) though the nose for the banking fiasco (crisis is too dignified a word for it) that was overseen by New Labour and is being paid for by the rest of us. Post election (back in June 2010) George Osbourne and the Tories reluctantly paid lib service to the publicly stated need to regulate the more unsavoury aspects of the banking sector. Nominally at least they signed up to President Obama's publicly stated aim to regulate tax havens.

Just in case you forget, it was back in January (2009) when President Obama announced two more than reasonable measures to curb the banks, the first aimed to stop banks from engaging in proprietary trading, private equity, or any other activity for their own profit unrelated to serving customers. The second measure aimed to take further steps to limit the balance sheet size of banks so that they cannot in future acquire “too big to fail” status.

Theodore Roosevelt

President Obama was absolutely right to characterise his proposals as a victory for common sense and while we may have some way to g before the banks are forced to act responsibly, the first steps have been taken. David Cameron and the Tories (despite everything that has happened in an almost unregulated, greed driven finance sector over the last few years) are still far to enamoured with their friends, the dodgy money men in the City of London.

There are times when you can find yourself wondering just exactly how far we have progressed in the last hundred years of so? In the later years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century US Presidents, Presidential candidates and politicians including Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) and William Jennings Bryan (a Democratic Presidential candidate) were opposed to the power of big business and fought against the dangers of monopoly capitalism (as personified by ‘Standard Oil’ and ‘the Trusts’ in Teddy’s case).

William Jennings Bryan

In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, a future Democratic presidential nominee, warning against the power of finance, said: “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan had and in my opinion still has a pretty valid point - if you believe in the ‘free market’ and the City money men claim to, then no organisation can be too big to be allowed not to fail.

While Westminster bailed out the banks with massive public subsidies, which effectively made some of the banks 'publicly owned’, they are still run by bankers, who are so thick skinned that they carry on regardless with the awarding of bonuses. The Con Dem UK Government should have seriously consider breaking up and ‘privatising’, perhaps selling the shares on the open market (with specific quotas on how many shares any one institution can own) – because from where many people are sat these bloated banking organisations appear to be a serious block on the ‘free market’.

There is still a pressing need for similar rules for financial institutions across the globe, off shore must become a matter of historical record – there must be no where the financial institutions can hide and no more endless threats of taking their “ball” (businesses operations) elsewhere and relocating because they have lost their so called special status. It's important to remember, that no one, not even bankers or MPs are above the law and no one is above financial regulation, scrutiny, free from responsibility and consequences for ones actions.

The OCED has estimated that some $10 trillion dollars worth of private wealth is concealed in Paradis Fscaux (tax havens). These financial dead letter drops tend to be used by banks, multi-national companies, corporations, the super (and not so super) rich, drug dealers, dictators, terrorists, fraudsters and other criminals who use them to hide and launder their wealth. One side effect of Paradis Fiscau is that they enable people and organisations to avoid paying their fair dues to the society in which they live, unlike the rest of us mere mortals.

To put things in perspective - that $10 trillion dollar figure produced by the OCED means that the lost taxation normally accrued would be more than double the entire planet's global aid budget. President Obama, President Sarlozy and Chancellor Merkel are on record saying that off-shore capital needs to be properly regulated - Gordon Brown (remember him?) waffled, the Con Dems are pretty quiet or are they merely in the pockets of the money men in the City.

In relation to the banking crisis and the vast debts that us mere mortals are having to repay, perhaps is best to paraphrase Winston Churchill, 'Never have so many had to pay so much on behalf of so few!'. And we are going to carry on paying...and the money men continue to escape regulation... so much for progress...

PARADIS FISCAUX

In relation to the banking crisis and the vast debts that us mere mortals are having to repay, perhaps is best to paraphrase Winston Churchill, 'Never have so many had to pay so much on behalf of so few!'. George Osborne and the Tories have reluctantly gone along with the much publicly stated need to regulate the more unsavoury aspects of the banking sector. The question is will they sign up to President Obama's stated aim to regulate tax havens?

Just in case you forget, back in January (2009) President Obama announced two measures to curb the banks, the first aimed to stop banks from engaging in proprietary trading, private equity, or any other activity for their own profit unrelated to serving customers. The second measure aimed to take further steps to limit the balance sheet size of banks so that they cannot in future acquire “too big to fail” status.

President Obama is right to characterise his proposals as a victory for common sense and while we may have some way to go before the banks are forced to act responsibly, the first steps have been taken. I wonder if David Cameron will follow suit sooner or later – or are the Tories (despite everything that has happened in an almost unregulated, greed driven finance sector over the last few years) still far to enamoured with their friends, the dodgy money men in the City of London.

On occasion you may find yourself wondering exactly how far we have progressed in the last hundred years of so? In the later years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century US Presidents, Presidential candidates and politicians including Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) and William Jennings Bryan a Democratic Presidential candidate) were opposed to the power of big business and fought against the dangers of monopoly capitalism (as personified by ‘Standard Oil’ and 'the Trusts’ in Teddy’s case). In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, a future Democratic presidential nominee, warning against the power of finance, said: “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan had (and in my opinion has) a valid point - if you believe in the ‘free market’ (and the City money men claim to) then no organisation can be too big to be allowed not to fail. The massive public subsidies effectively made some of the banks 'publicly owned’, yet they are still largely run by bankers who are so thick skinned or self interested that they carried on regardless when it came to the awarding of bonuses - would that they had been more generous when it come to advancing loans to small to medium sized and larger businesses in their hour of need.

The new Con Dem UK Government should seriously consider breaking up and 'privatising' the larger 'publicly owned' financial institutions, and selling shares on the open market (with specific quotas on how many shares any one institution can own) – because from where many people are sat these bloated overgrown banking organisations appear to be a serious block on the ‘free market’.

We also need to a degree of similar rules for financial institutions across the globe, off shore must become a matter of historical record – there must be no where the financial institutions can hide and no more endless threats of taking their “ball” (businesses operations) elsewhere and relocating because they have lost their so called special status. it is important to remember, that no one, not even bankers (or MPs) are above the law and no one is above financial regulation and scrutiny.

The OCED estimated that some $10 trillion dollars worth of private wealth is concealed in Paradis Fiscaux (tax havens). These financial dead letter drops tend to be used by banks, multi-national companies, corporations, the super (and not so super) rich, drug dealers, dictators, terrorists, fraudsters and other criminals who use them to hide and launder their wealth. One significant side effect of Paradis Fiscaux is that they enable people and organisations to avoid paying their fair dues to the society in which they live, unlike the rest of us mere mortals.

To put things in perspective - the $10 trillion dollar figure produced by the OCED means that the lost taxation normally accused would be more than double the entire planet's global aid budget. President Obama, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel are on record saying that off-shore capital needs to be properly regulated - Gordon Brown (remember him?) waffled, will the Con Dems sign up or are they in the pockets of the money men in the City or under the influence of Lord Ashcroft - who's
heart may be in Belize with his wallet?

LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD

Adam Price makes a fair point when he observes that while the Cold War is long past and that the world has changed, he notes that the mindset and attitudes of the London based parties are still focused on the dynamics of the the old Cold War. The conflict that the UK is currently involved in is a world away from anything that could have been envisaged during the old Cold War days even by the coldest of cold warriors. Putin's Russia and Obama's America sat down recently, with a host of other states to discuss nuclear weapons and other nuclear issues and end up with a significant reduction in nuclear warheads - what do we get from the three London based Parties - silence!

Now the UK government's 2006 White Paper (on Trident) stated that building replacements would cost between £15bn and £20bn and that would (using 2006 prices) include between £11bn and £14bn for the four boats, and between £2bn and £3bn for the refurbishment of the replacement warheads, not to mention an additional £2bn to £3bn for infrastructure and upgrades over the life of the submarines.Oddly enough these figures make no reference to running costs, maintenance, refits of the submarines, or any additional costs in the missile programme from 2030, when the Trident D5 missile will cease to be in service.

It's worth noting that not everyone agrees with these figures, certainly Greenpeace don't, they have estimated that the full cost of replacing and running the Trident system on a like-for-like basis (as New Labour and the Conservatives have promised to do), will be between £80bn and £100bn in total. Which works out at around £2bn pounds per year over the weapon system's expected lifespan of 40 years, in real terms this is estimated to be some 5% of the annual defence budget, which currently rolls in at approximately £38bn per year.

Replacing Trident with a like for like system, makes little military sense and no economic sense at all. To do this when the old style confrontation that was the Cold War ended some twenty years ago makes little sense. We in the West, face wholly different security threats which are a world away from the old Cold War. It's about time the the UK government caught up with the modern world and stopped living in the past and cut its budget and its cloth to match current realities.

WELL DONE MR PRESIDENT

The news that the US President and his holiness, the Dalai Lama (the Tibetan Spiritual and Political leader) had a meeting in the White House (on 19th February 2010) may cause an acute epidemic of teeth grinding in Beijing within the ruling elite of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and much rubbing of somewhat blood stained hands. One wonders how long it will be before Gordon Brown or his successors meet with the Dali Lama in 10 Downing Street. Judging by the spineless nature of the UK Government's recent and not so recent dealings with the PRC - which barely even attempts to conceal its hideous human rights record - the Dalai Lama may well have a long wait before he enjoys any hospitaliy at the hands of a UK Prime Minister.

THINK AGAIN MR PRESIDENT

President Obama, has gone and done it, as part of his new vision for space exploration as part of his $3.8 trillion (£2.4 trillion) budget proposal to Congress yesterday, he has called for a halt to Constellation, the project that aims to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2020 and has already cost $9 billion.

One immediate side effect of this proposal is that the International Space Station, which would have been scrapped in 2016, will now get a five-year extension to its working life. Additionally the business of getting US astronauts there and back again will be effectively privatised, with a subsidy of some $6 billion of funding, while NASA continues to work on developing new technologies for longer-term space exploration.

In the wings stands China, which will not be unaware of how things will look if China beats America back to the Moon. US President George Bush when he vowed to return Americans to the Moon by 2020 was acknowledging that it was important not only for manned space flight to flourish; but also important for those humans in space to include a healthy number of Americans.

The Europeans have a space programme of sorts (admittedly largely French, Russia has retained (by the skin of its teeth) a space programme. What about the UK? well the Conservatives finally finished that dream off in the early 1970's when a Tory Minister saw no future for private satellite launches...which brought the remnants of the Blue Streak programme (originally cancelled in 1960) to an end.

The next historic landmark may well be that of the Peoples Republic of China putting a man on the Moon, which may help to rundown America’s technological supremacy. China, already produces more engineering graduates than America. If congress approves the budget then we may be seeing the moment when Washington’s sense of international supremacy begin to decline, as its global political and scientific stature also begins to diminish.

Manned space flight programme which can be viewed as an expensive luxury when the economy is on rocky ground, but, it is not. NASA needs to do more that merely to focus on long-range research and development. This would be a grave mistake, with financial, economic and political consequences.

The PRC has the ambition, the money and the determination to take the traditional Chinese long view. With its sights firmly set on the stars, the PRC, the world’s newest superpower is planning to put a man or woman on the Moon by 2020. Close behind is India, which launched its first unmanned mission to the Moon in 2008 and now aims to put an Indian astronaut into orbit within five years.

The curse of the modern political world may well be short-term thinking US President Obama needs to deal with the financial crisis and he also needs to be able to show the world that America knows where it wants to be several decades from now, and that the USA has the vision and will to get there.

While the proposed budget and NASA cuts will greatly irritate Congress with politicians from both sides of the political divide who see NASA’s manned space programme as vital component of US national pride, they are also important to the rest of us.

CHANGE IS COMING?

US President Barack Obama’s announcement about two key measures to curb the banks, should be welcomed, the first aims to stop banks from engaging in proprietary trading, private equity, or any other activity for their own profit unrelated to serving customers. The second measure aims to take further steps to limit the balance sheet size of banks so that they cannot in future acquire “too big to fail” status.

President Obama is right to characterise his proposals as a victory for common sense and while we may have some way to g before the banks are forced to act responsibly, the first steps have been taken. I wonder if Gordon Brown (and David Cameron) will have the guts to follow suit sooner or later – or are they and their respective parties still far to enamoured with the dodgy money men in the City of London.

Occasionally you really wonder far we have progressed in the last hundred years of so? In the later years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century US Presidents, Presidential candidates and politicians including Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican) and William Jennings Bryan (a Democratic Presidential candidate) were opposed to the power of big business and fought against the dangers of monopoly capitalism (as personified by ‘Standard Oil’ and ‘the Trusts’ in Teddy’s case). In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, a future Democratic presidential nominee, warning against the power of finance, said: “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

President Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan had (and has) a valid point - if you believe in the ‘free market’ (and the City money men claim to) then no organisation can be too big to be allowed not to fail. With what amount to massive public subsidies and effectively ‘publicly owned’ banks, run by bankers who are so thick skinned that they carry on regardless with the awarding of bonuses; then perhaps the UK Government should seriously consider breaking up and ‘privatising’, and sell shares on the open market (with quotas on how many shares any one institution can own) – because from where many people are sat these bloated banking organisations appear to be a block on the ‘free market’.

We also need to a degree of similar rules for financial institutions across the globe, off shore must become a matter of historical record – there must be no where the financial institutions can hide and no more endless threats of taking their “ball” (businesses operations) elsewhere and relocating because they have lost their so called special status. it is important to remember, that no one, not even bankers (or MPs) are above the law and no one is above financial regulation and scrutiny.

Today is the 65th Anniversary of D-Day

Today is the 65th Anniversary of the D-Day landings, when the liberation of Western Europe began, at significant cost, on the beaches of Normandy. This anniversary has been seen as significant by many ordinary people because it will be the last organised visit by veterans, who have an average age of 84 years and nine months.

The failure to invite the Queen to the 65^th Anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings certainly does not lie with the French Government, the responsibility lies with Gordon Brown and his Government. It was the UK Government’s job to monitor events, and secure an invitation for her if necessary. Now until a few weeks ago, the anniversary was intended to be a low-key affair, quite unlike the 40th, 50th and 60th.

Now any half competent Government with an eye to events and growing public opinion would have at least considered that the Queen or another senior member of her family might wish to go, and have liaised with the French to make it happen. Nothing happened because New Labour did not see this event as being of any real importance.

Only when it was announced that President Obama would be attending (because it was the right thing to do, rather than to pursue any votes) did New Labour wake up and wade in to try and salvage things from the growing diplomatic fiasco.

The whole sad business is a perfect example of Brown's utter indifference to the D-Day veterans, and to the public who have been utterly abandoned by New Labour - who were too busy chasing their globalist agenda .