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.

HAS THE MASK FINALLY SLIPPED…

News that David Cameron has directly intervened in an independent inquiry into political funding to demand a more favourable outcome for the Conservatives, should not really come as much of a surprise to most independently minded observers. Nor should the fact that the Conservatives apparently favour a severe clampdown on Labour's trade union donations come as much as a surprise.

The Independent (Saturday 22nd October 2001) reveals that the Committee on Standards in Public Life will propose a £10,000 cap on donations to parties by individuals and organisations in a sensible effort to "take the big money out of politics". With this avenue of potential funding cut off, if the proposals go through, political parties would receive a multimillion-pound increase in state funding.

The proposals would also bring in much stricter controls over the affiliation fees paid by the unions to Labour (as a Labour loathing Unison member I would more than warmly welcome this) but they would apparently not be subject to the cap. The Independent says that Cameron has apparently made a last-minute appeal to the committee to revise its draft proposals.

Somewhat naturally the Conservatives, who tend to have more flush individual donors, who no doubt pay for what they get, than other parties, are not surprisingly in favour a £50,000 pound cap. One wonders whether the Conservative mask has finally slipped so that their true colours are revealed or whether or not Cameron is merely reverting to type.