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UK Public sector cuts Newswire Archive

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Police came for me at 5am

23-12-2010 14:04

On the 17/12/10 (Last friday) The police came to my house with a warrant for my arrest. They came like the stasi in the night, getting me out of bed at 5am in the morning.

They had a warrant for my arrest, with the charge of Affray and Conspiracy to affray.

Full article | 16 comments

Protest 2010: Into the Spectacle

22-12-2010 15:59

The use of agent provocateurs at the London Student Demonstrations 2010, and the key photo ops that came out of it. The Hammer Gang, and others, not only attacked innocent demonstrators with hammers, but lead 1] right-wing newspaper photo-ops 2] a campaign of entrapment. Time to fight back!

Full article | 4 comments

Newcastle: HSBC 2 Defence Campaign launched for men arrested in anti-cuts demos

22-12-2010 12:50

Occupation of Eldon Square shopping centre
A defence campaign has been launched in Newcastle to oppose the charges against two demonstrators, Mark Pearson and Patrick Reay, who came out on 18 December 2010 alongside hundreds of others, to demonstrate against government cuts to education and other public services, benefits and jobs.

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Situ type destruction. AN ADD ON: London 9th December 2010

21-12-2010 23:30

revolt against plenty's dave and stu on 'student' demos

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Student: Why I am protesting

21-12-2010 13:27

David Cameron recently wrote in the Evening Standard, ‘Before protesting, students need to get the facts straight.’ There is an establishment theory that the student protests are a knee-jerk reaction to reform. They claim that the student actions are ‘hysterical’ and ‘ill-informed’: basically, we don’t know what we’re talking about. Students just want an excuse for a ruckus, the theory goes; we are bored of daytime TV and binge drinking, so we’ll try rioting for an adrenalin-filled change.

Full article | 10 comments

20/12 london protest called by EDL; destructive political rumour-frenzy!!!

20-12-2010 15:28

An explanation of what went wrong with the 20th of december london protest and what implications this might have for future protests...

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Militarism and Economic Crisis - War Profiteers' News

20-12-2010 11:33

 http://wri-irg.org/epublish/19/409

It was between 9/11 and the ensuing war against international terrorism (in Afghanistan and Iraq) initiated by the USA, with the help of the majority of European countries, that the already sizeable military spending of the USA’s allied countries began to increase significantly. In this regard, the USA has spent $1100 billion. In Europe spending has not gone so far. However, these defence budgets have increased above their national GDPs, with an annual average 5% increase.

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Tax dodgers shut down again

20-12-2010 02:14

My Public Library Pay Your Tax So It Can Stay Open
It was the last weekend before Christmas, the busiest time, the cash bells ringing, then came the snow. It was the last weekend before Christmas, UK Uncut had decided to target the tax dodgers, shut down as many retail stores as posible, then came the snow.

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save EMA!

19-12-2010 19:22

At our school, Beckfoot in Bingley we decided more needed to be done about the cuts so we organised a silent protest in aim of Saving EMA. We got hundreds of students turning up and even some teachers showing their support.

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Clifton Suspension Bridge Banner Drop

19-12-2010 14:28

After students in Italy successfully performed a banner drop and occupation of the tower of piza and colloseum Bristol responds to an open invitation to act in solidarity with a banner drop from Bristol's most iconic landmark. Join the movement! Make the bankers pay!

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Hope Against Hope: A necessary betrayal

19-12-2010 11:29

critical thoughts on going beyond the student struggle

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Tax dodging shops feel the pressure

18-12-2010 20:22

Bristol city centre tax dodgers feel the pressure after the Uk uncut inspired protests come to Bristol on the busiest shopping day of the year. Shops are shut down, protesters infiltrate Topshop, shoppers faint as they find out the scale of tax dodging carried out by Bristol’s shop owners, Police support protest. Forget the next shopping revolution, the new word on the streets is shutting the shops down, hitting them where it hurts the bottom line.
Bristol contains a huge and varied range of shops, oops sorry I mean tax dodging corporations sucking the life out of our economy on a daily basis. It seems that Philip Green has infiltrated the shopping consciousness with his bastions of consumerism Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins (does this women even exist), Burton, Evan etc. This repulsive man propagates our high streets with his goods, yet feels it is okay to siphon any profit to tax havens (Monaco) and his wife (1.2 billion pay off). It seems that this tax dodger shops shares Bristol City Centre with Vodaphone and their tax avoidance skills and Barclays who are on hand to help your corporation offshore your tax. So as these organisations and their owners wallow in your own wealth, we see public services cut and people’s lives destroyed. Not only this but Philip Green has been appointed by the ConDem government to oversee the swingeing austerity measures whilst he effectively stealing from the economy. This is a man if you don’t hate already is also best friends with Simon Cowell and Michael Winner.

But today the Bristol Anti-cuts Resistance came to town, coming out in solidarity with Protesters across the country taking a stand against this evil tax avoidance, which costs the government fifteen times more than benefit fraud in lost revenue (and amounts to approximately £14bn a year), and tax avoidance which amounts to over £25bn a year.

This faction consists of a range of concerned citizens from Bristol's best coming together to fight the good fight to save our treasured public services. This non-hierarchal bunch of freedom fighters decided to take on this axis of evil based in the Centre of Boadmead. First to shut was vodaphone who seem to designed new tactics with the shutters coming down almost instantly as the faction approached. Next in a three pronged attack Barclays locked its doors instantly and through windows the manager was seen hanging his head is shame, obviously saddened at his implication in such atrocious tax avoidance (hope your bonus is worth it). Then opposite the next target was British Home Stores, funny name for a shop whose owner actively takes money off the British People, making it more expensive to live in their home, I suppose the store bit is accurate. So after holding the ground in the axis of evil for several hours, the resistance moved to combat the big cheese Top Shop. Brave comrades entered the shop incognito and resisted the consumerist machine, they bought nothing even though gloves were on offer and it was cold. This crack group of protesters resembling the A-Team managed to raise awareness of Top Shop customers and staff from the inside. Rather than being glad of this and thanking the protesters for showing them the light, security guards and police were on hand to stop the staff from rebelling and giving away clothes for free out of disgust of their bosses tax dodging skills. Next was Dorothy Perkins, despite continued calls to speak to her, old Dorothy failed to show, problem sunning herself in Monaco with Phils wife and mates Michael Winner, Simon Cowell. It was at this point the shoppers could not take any more and frail members of the public began to faint after the scale of the tax dodging was becoming more and more clear.

So all in all a good day for the Bristol Anti-cuts Resistance, several shops shut for several hours, masses of the general public supported the cause, shop owners see the error of their ways and a great day was had by all. Protestors sent a big shout out to the Police for their continued support of the demonstration, making sure they were with demonstrators at all time to showing their solidarity to resistance, you have got to give it to them they are always there come rain or shine helping to bring forth the new shopping revolution and fighting the cuts.

See you on the streets, next year the resistance and police have even bigger demo's planned.

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Security Guards Hate Leaflets

18-12-2010 17:22

Protests against companies accused of dodging taxes took place across the UK today, with protestors in Kendal, Cumbria targeting Topshop and Vodafone.  The group were met with swift action by shopping centre security guards, furious that anyone would dare to hand out leaflets to shoppers.  Violent removal followed.

 

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Greedy Boots Bosses protest (Sheffield)

18-12-2010 16:51

The headquarters of Boots the Chemist is a P.O. box in Switzerland. No staff, no building, just a small post box.

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HSBC Occupied in #ukuncut action

18-12-2010 16:22

In central London, 23 activists have staged a 'sleep-in' [1] as the £2bn that HSBC will save could have paid for the estimated £1.8bn cuts to housing benefit which will force many to lose their homes. 20 Activists are also currently occupying an HSBC branch in central Liverpool.

Emi Summers says "Its bad enough Vodafone got let off, but now other companies like HSBC are all pushing to get the same deal from HMRC. With a current Minister having led the bank while this tax dodging was happening who knows what dodgy back room deals are going on. These companies should be made to pay the full tax so we can save our vital public services from being slashed"

This comes as Ukuncut holds its biggest day of action yet with protests taking place in over 50 towns and cities across the country against the coalition's public sector cuts and wide-spread tax avoidance by the wealthiest in society.

UKuncut have revealed today that HSBC is their latest target after it emerged yesterday that the bank is trying to be let off a £2billion tax bill. Ukuncut activists have today secretly targeted two of its branches in central London and Liverpool.

This follows on from an investigation printed only yesterday in Private-Eye by the former HMRC tax-inspector Richard Brookes. In it, he states that following the decision by HMRC to reduce Vodafone's tax bill by up to £6billion, it is thought that HSBC are trying to reach a similar settlement which will reduce their tax bill by £2billion. The current Trade Minister, Stephen Green, was also the Chief Executive of HSBC throughout the period that this tax avoidance took place.

Elsewhere, Sir Philip Green and Vodafone are likely to remain the focus of the growing public anger against tax avoidance by multi-national corporations and extremely wealthy individuals, that is estimated to cost the public purse £25billion every single year [2].

Each protest around the country has been organised autonomously by local people, often rapidly via Twitter and Facebook. Protests planned for today include pickets, sit-ins and flashmobs. There will be a disruptive tour of tax dodgers in Brighton and a 'Monaco Grand Prix' around Topshop in Oxford.

In London, hundreds of protesters will hit Oxford Street. Divided into two groups, they will stage a 'read in' at Vodafone's flagship store and a 'sports day' inside Topshop's flagship store, to highlight cuts to local libraries and school sports. Philip Green's £285m tax dodge could pay for two years of school sports and Vodafone's tax dodge could pay for every single cut to local governments this year.

Protesters have even designed an iPhone app to help people angry at the cuts to locate their local tax avoider and join their nearest protest [3].

Sir Philip Green owns the fashion empire Arcadia, which spreads across 2,500 UK stores and includes top brands such as Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins [4]

Green's empire Acardia is owned by Taveta Investments Limited - a holding company registered to a small office on the tax-haven island of Jersey [5]

Sir Philip Green is not however the official owner of Taveta Investments. Instead, the owners are his wife and immediate family, who reside in Monaco [6]

Monaco is of course famous for its 0% income tax. As a result, when Sir Philip Green - the 9th richest man in the UK with wealth estimated at £4.4bn in 2008 - in 2005 made the largest single dividend payout in UK corporate history to his wife of £1.2bn, he avoided paying a reported £285million in tax to the British public purse [7]

Amid criticism from key MPs, Sir Philip Green was also asked by the coalition government this year to advise them on austerity and cuts within the civil service [7]

Steven Hall, 31, said "Philip Green is a multi-billionaire tax avoider, and yet is regarded by David Cameron as an appropriate man to advise the government on austerity. His missing millions need to be reclaimed and invested into public services, not into his wife's bank account."

The UK uncut movement started in October, when over 30 Vodafone stores were closed by ordinary people who blockaded and picketed the store's entrances to stop trading 13 [8]

Those protests were sparked after Vodafone reached a ‘settlement' on a long standing tax dispute with HMRC earlier this year, following the change in government. Some experts believe the deal meant that Vodafone saved up to £6bn in tax [9].

Rebecca Davies, 32, said: "Over four years £100bn is expected to be lost the public purse to tax avoidance, which could pay for so many of the cuts that will hit the poorest in our society"

"The argument that only way to cut the public deficit is to cut public services is a lie. The coalition is ideologically smashing a public sector that supports the poorest in society."

She continued today that "Ordinary people around Britain will stand up and show that they will not be lied to, and that we will not let these unnecessary cuts happen without a fight."


...............................................
For further comment:
UK Uncut: | ukuncut@gmail.com | 07597354939 | 07591992825 |
..............................................

Notes to editors:

[1] http://twitpic.com/3h29it

http://twitpic.com/3h2884

[2] Richard Murphy, a long standing and respected campaigner on the issue of tax-avoidance has produced a report stating that 25bn is lost to the public purse by tax avoidance. £13bn through individuals. £12bn through large corporations.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/touchstone/Missingbillions/1missingbillions.pdf

[3] http://ukuncut.mobi/

[4] http://www.arcadiagroup.co.uk/about/index.html Arcadia also own, Burton, Wallis, Evans and Topman.

[5] http://www.arcadiagroup.co.uk/about/index.html
And the office in jersey was shown by Channel 4's Dispatches broadcast on Monday 18th October.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-72/episode-1

[6] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2004/nov/03/money

[7] http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/08/13/sir-philip-green-the-wrong-man-to-head-a-review-of-public-spending/

[8] see www.ukuncut.org.uk

[9] The original investigation was completed by Richard Brookes, a tax inspector, at Private-Eye, but has since been written about by other journalists.
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=in_the_back
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=514832&in_page_id=2
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/14/vodafone-tax-evasion-revenue-customs

 

Full article | 2 additions | 11 comments

#ukuncut actions around the country mark 'Payday'

18-12-2010 12:13

Sleep-in in HSBC Covent Garden

Earlier today, flashmobbers staged a sleep-in at HSBC Covent Garden, to highlight the homelessness that could be avoided if the bank hadn't evaded an estimated £2Bn in tax. The action was part of a nationwide series of 'PayDay' protests against tax evading businesses, orchestrated under the banner of UKuncut. many protestors reported a positive reaction to the actions from shoppers and passers by.

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