I have a simple rule for my own blog: I don’t write about things I don’t know something about. So there’s no US politics here, and nothing about the credit crunch - others are much better qualified to write about those sorts of things. Oh how I wish print journalists would follow the same approach! There’s an article in

Mr Speaker, Here is Gordon's my pre-budget report, in full:IT'S NOT OUR FAULT GLOBAL AMERICA'S FAULT GLOBAL (we're fucked, by the way, but if I say 'Global' enough, we won't be blamed) NOT OUR FAULT GLOBAL NOT OUR FAULT GLOBAL TAX THE RICH TAX THE RICH TAX THE RICH (vote for us please) I commend this to the House etc....And you could barely see Gordon's lips move. So what does this plaintive wail ...

Yes. It shall be the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to appoint a committee of inquiry to report within 6 months on the practical action necessary to introduce a banking transactions tax. What’s one of them? For the purposes of subsection (1), a banking transactions tax is a tax, charged at the rate

Er.....A weekly article for the Telegraph, that is. From the BBC's Hard Talk: It's chicken feed. I think that frankly there's absolutely no reason at all why I should not knock off an article as a way of relaxation. I write anyway, I happen to write extremely fast. I don't see why on a Sunday morning I shouldn't knock off an article - if someone wants to pay me for that article then that's their l...

Declan Gaffney’s article today on Left Foot Forward, brilliantly gets behind the misinformation about the 50p tax rate (This following quote is abrdiged, read the full article here) Twenty economists writing to the Financial Times (£) state: “We are concerned that Britain’s 50p income tax is doing lasting damage to the UK economy. “It gives the UK one

Increased resources to be made available to HM Revenue & Customs to tackle tax haven / secrecy jurisdiction abuse as well as tax avoidance and evasion in general; Spend more on the taxmen who belong to the taxmans’ union that paid Ritchie to write the report. My word, that is a surprising thing to find

Scotland's councils would be forced to write off almost £1 billion of unpaid poll tax and council tax, under proposals tabled by a SNP MSP.

Under the heading ‘Sotomayor Racist Comments Controversy Spreads Through Battle Lines’ one article says: Sotomayor's extreme likelihood of confirmation almost makes these alleged racist comments unlikely to make a big difference. Yet it will take up a few news cycles as Sotomayor faces racist comment charges while preparing for her hearings. Sotomayor has been vetted and considere...

Carol Thatcher has been barred from the One Show after being reported for a racist comment. More to follow. Full story HERE Update: It looks like this was a private joke blown out of proportion by the PC brigade. I think Carol was being a naive comparing the tennis player to a Golliwog, but I'm sure there was no racist intent. However, some will scream racism no matter what.

The research that Tax Justice Network published yesterday morning on tax evasion is, I think, shocking. The full report is here. I've posted a summary table of tax evasion for 145 countries too. The real question is why does this matter? What's the problem with the UK losing £69.9bn a year to tax evaders?