#property accountant uk

[uk-property-accountant]

Self Assessment Tax Returns – A Complete Guide

The UK Self-Assessment tax system requires individuals and businesses to report their income and pay taxes if not deducted automatically. Taxpayers must file a Self-Assessment Tax Return annually if they fall into various categories, including self-employment, high earners, or those with specific types of income like savings or foreign earnings. Registration involves obtaining a Unique Taxpayer Reference (UTR) and setting up an online account. Deadlines are critical: informing HMRC by October 5th for new filers, submitting paper returns by October 31st, and online returns by January 31st. Accuracy in reporting income, expenses, and other financial details is crucial to avoid penalties, with options to amend returns if necessary. Maintaining records is essential, with different retention periods based on circumstances. Late filing or payment incurs penalties, but appeals are possible with valid reasons. Overall, compliance ensures taxpayers meet their obligations under UK tax law while managing their financial affairs responsibly.

Read More: Self Assessment Tax Return: Guide

[parxarchive]

awstenknight instagram story [november 24, 2023]

[smanthaolson]

Let Property Campaign (LPC)

[mmbaaccountants]

Small wonder then that so many people turn to us for the help of a crypto tax accountant UK regulations are a veritable minefield. But we think that our ability in this area demonstrates our capacity. If we can navigate your finances through the crypto minefield you can be sure that when they come to us for a Property Tax Specialist London clients have confidence that we can navigate through those matters too.

[skippyv20]

This is a message from @sandiedog3-deactivated20240814

Hi Skippy, just to let everyone know that I felt it necessary to deactivate my account last night. The reason is that 3 of the Twitter accounts I follow and have posted information from on Tumblr are being prosecuted by the UK Thought Police and are due to go to Court.

People who follow or reblog from them are also allegedly under surveillance which would therefor include myself.

It really is ridiculous here so I have deactivated all of my Social Media accounts. I won't stop blogging but need time to regroup and doubly ensure that I won't end up in Court. The sentences are ridiculous and it seems that the current PM is coming down really hard now on Social Media.

Here is the advice I have been given if you are a UK Blogger.

Ensure you use a VPN

Make sure you have an anonymous email address if possible for example Proton do one

Delete all Social Media accounts if there has been anyone challenging what you say or any hint that anyone is working to report you to the Police . There are literally groups on Social Media especially Facebook and Twitter now of Leftists have been reporting bloggers or Social Media accounts to the Police such as the 3 I have mentioned and their followers.

Reset your phone and wipe it completely

Start again if you wish but take extra care and be vigilant that anything you post will not be used against you at this time

Read and digest the Human Rights Act Sections 9, 10 and 14 as this will inform you about your Rights in Law albeit they are using current updates to some Laws regarding Hate Speech Online etc (I will post about that in my new blog)

The advice below is not Professional Legal Advice just advice given to anyone anxious about possible visits from Police for prosecution

If the police do visit DO NOT allow them into your house as they can then search your premises and confiscate your phone, computer etc. If you don't allow entry they will have to provide a warrant to search your property and take away your communication devices

If they take you to a Police Station for questioning DO NOT SAY ANYTHING EVER AT ANYTIME THAN NO COMMENT OR NOT GUILTY - the onus is then on the Police to provide proof that you have used hate speech or incited anyone to riot etc

Get an independent lawyer or advice as the Duty Solicitor would advise you most likely to plead guilty for obvious reasons

Opt for a High Court case by pleading not guilty - this will cause more hassle and they may drop the charges due to insufficient evidence

Apparantly no one as yet has pleaded not guilty and/or opted for a High Court hearing as most are unaware of their legal rights and have been advised to plead guilty

I am writing this from memory so please feel free to chip in or correct any mistakes

I have asked Skippy to post this ask for me. My 1,500 followers will most likely know who I am and when I restart with a new blog I will get the message out to you all

Please know I am not giving up - I am a member of the UK Free Speech Union and they are working in a Legal Capacity to protect the Free Speech of UK Citizens as is Elon Musk and the Reform Party UK

Of course I will be praying for everyone on Skippy's Prayer list as always and will be back

Love you all

This is so shocking that the UK is at this point! Prayers for all!🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Pits aren't evil, but it's disingenuous to ignore how prevalent they are in dog bite and fatal attack statistics (both on humans and animals). These dogs were bred for bloodsport, and more specifically they were bred to not send out warnings before attacking, that's not going to magically go away just because you're good with dogs or because an individual pit is friendly. If that were the case, the majority of dog attacks wouldn't consist of pitbulls, pit mixes, or other trouble breeds like rottweilers.

Even if the dogs were 100% safe the weird culture surrounding them would continue to be a problem. Why does one individual dog breed need such a zealous defensive squad? Why do attack survivors have to tread on eggshells to avoid offending owners of the dog breed that attacked them? Why do so many people pin the blame on the human or animal victim of an attack when these dog breeds are designed to snap without warning? Why is "bully bashing" so reprehensible, but shit like "chihuahuas are hellspawns" and "cats are so mean" acceptable?

Alright, I suppose we can dissect this.

Claim: Pit bulls are more prevalent than any other breed in dog bites and dog bite fatalities

Fact: this claim is only relaying bite incidents regarding pit bulls and “pit bull type dogs” in the US. Why does that matter? Well these surveys self-admittedly were inaccurate, and no conclusion could be drawn from them, simply because they were relying on the public to accurately identify the breed of dog that bit them and it didn’t account for cases that were not reported or the dog could not be identified as one breed or another. These surveys also did not account for prevalence of one breed over another in the country. Why does that part matter?

Well you could factually say that most smokers in the UK are white. If you then say white people in the UK are significantly more prone to nicotine addiction, that’s a very false conclusion to draw if you don’t account for the fact over 85% of people in the UK are white. This is the same level of false conclusion being drawn from those dog bite surveys because, as I have said before, there are a lot of pit bulls in America. But besides that, they are a very common breed in low income areas. Dog bites are more likely to be reported in a low income area because if a rich person’s dog bites someone, they tend to pay off the victim to avoid the dog being labeled as an aggressive dog and taken away or put down for being too dangerous. Low income families obviously can’t do that. Low income areas will also commonly have lower/less sturdy fencing and other limitations that can lead to a dog escaping the owner’s property. A lot of the bites reported also involved dogs where an owner could not be located, which means strays. A large stray dog of any breed is absolutely dangerous. If I see a stray malinois or something I’m not going to be thinking “ah well thank goodness it isn’t a pit bull” because I don’t particularly want to be bitten by a malinois either.

Bottom line though, the CDC stopped collecting data on what specific breeds were “more dangerous” because there was too much statistical error in the nature of collecting the data for any meaningful conclusion to be drawn.

Claim: pit bulls were bred to attack opponents with no warning which means they can and will attack at any time

Fact: this is another example of a false conclusion.

For one thing, I couldn’t find any non-biased sources claiming that pit bulls specifically were bred to attack without warning, but even if we say that’s true for sake of argument, attacking an opponent dog in a fight without telegraphing their attack doesn’t mean “this dog does not engage in any body language” thus making them unreadable or whatever. They wag their tails when happy, whine when they want something, and yes! They do in fact curl their lip and growl when they want you to stop doing something. They bark at noises or scents they don’t trust, and they bow and roll when they want to play.

They’re dogs. Therefore, they share a lot of the same body language cues as any other breed will give you.

Claim: pit bulls were bred as fighting dogs so they’re bred for aggression.

Fact: dogs classify other dogs and humans in very different categories of their mind in much the same way they classify a rabbit and a cat and a cow in different categories of their mind. A dog that’s extremely reactive to other dogs may not be reactive towards humans at all.

No modern breed was bred for blanket aggressive behavior because that would make them impossible to keep in captivity at all because the second someone went to feed them they’d lose a hand and the second you tried to get two extremely aggressive animals to breed they’d kill each other on sight. Pits were bred primarily to be reactive to unfamiliar dogs and for physical strength. They were not bred to be reactive to humans, and attack dogs are typically abused in some way to make them reactive to humans in the same way they’re reactive to dogs, or at minimum rewarded for reacting excessively to an unknown human to encourage more extreme reactivity.

So why does one breed need so much defense?

Because pits and other “”trouble breeds”” cause your insurance rates to go up significantly if your insurance provider finds out you own one. Because you can live in an apartment for years and get an ultimatum to be evicted or get rid of your dog despite it never showing any signs of being dangerous. Because there are people who will see a bully dog in the street and hit the gas.

It’s not about them being “more important” than cats or micro dogs, no one is saying that. No one has ever been saying that, but a pit bull gets all the hate and aggression and vitriol people throw at black cats but with legal backing on top of that. People defend the breed because there is a culture of “the only good pit bull is a dead one” and actually act on it. Yes, people insult and mock chihuahuas and that’s very rude and all, but how many places have breed bans against them?

Why do people blame the human over the animal?

Well because any dog will bite “without warning” if it’s raised to think failure to do so will cause it pain and any dog that’s never seen a human other than the ones in its house has the potential to be reactive to outside stimuli. And if you run up to a random dog and try to pet it, it’s not the dog’s fault you got bit it was your fault for just assuming you can touch any random animal and not get bitten/scratched/etc.

Do I blame children for not knowing better or victims that were charged by a loose dog? No. Is that what most bite cases are? Also no.

But hey it’s also weird to frame it as “either the dog is at fault or the victim is at fault and you’re blaming one” as like a blanket statement. Because no. That’s not what’s being said or claimed. Some bites are the fault of how the dog was raised, some are the fault of the person who was bitten, and some are a mix of both or just poor circumstances and the worst of happenstances.

Treating it as a breed specific thing rather than a “people need better education on raising and behaving around animals” thing isn’t going to make less bites happen fwiw.

[betweendoctorsanddetectives]

I can't attend a protest tonight (Wednesday) or on Saturday so I'm trying to take some measures from home to support antiracist and antifascist efforts across the country.

Where to find protests:

Keep an eye on the organisations Stand up to Racism and Hope not Hate. Their instagram accounts are probably being updated better than their websites as this is such a rapidly unfolding situation.

Stand up to Racism are accepting donations to help with antiracist efforts and I believe support bail funds during this week's protests.

Go to protests in a group for your safety. Protect each other.

Know your rights:

Green and Black Cross specialise in legal support for protesters. They have lots of useful resources on their website. Their protest support line is 07946 541 511. Write this on your arm in permanent marker and keep hold of a bustcard which contains information and advice regarding arrests and cautions. They have localised bustcards for contacting local support. Print it or write it out by hand and have it on your person. Print out many and give them to your fellow protesters if you're able.

Mutual aid:

POC are needing extra funds for things like: taxis to get safely to and from places of work, food (both takeaway and groceries) ordered directly to their houses. Reach out to friends and members of your community who could use money, company, escorting, food dropping off, dog walking, or anything else.

UK POC please feel free to ask for any funds needed in the notes of this post and I will try to either personally help or amplify your request.

Keep an eye on the news for POC and their businesses who have been targeted in attacks and then research to see if they have funds to fix or replace their damaged/burned property. I don't have specific examples to share because thankfully any funds I have personally seen have far surpassed their goals.

Forward pertinent information:

Email photos, videos, or any information you have about plans for or people involved in rioting and violence to rightresponse@hopenothate.org.uk

Help with the aftermath:

See if you can offer assistance to businesses, mosques, and public buildings that have been attacked. Help to pick up the rubble and litter in the streets of towns and cities that have been targeted.

Get informed:

Read the report by The Runnymede Trust on the mainstreaming of far right values following the 2024 election. They are a research organisation challenging structural racism in Britain.

The Runnymede Trust accept donations to support their work.

[mariacallous]

I’ve been thinking about a famously orange-skinned former presenter of trashy TV programmes, who lives on a luxurious coastal estate. He has a history of racist and Islamophobic remarks, of blaming asylum seekers for bringing disease into the country and ranting about the “supercilious metropolitan elite”. He swept into a rightwing political party and refashioned it in his image, presenting himself as the antidote to politics-as-usual, whipping up culture wars and using the platform to boost his planet-sized ego.

I am, of course, describing the British former politician Robert Kilroy-Silk.

After he was sacked from his presenting job by the BBC for a crudely racist rant in the Sunday Express in 2004, he joined Ukip (the forerunner of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK), energising it and captivating the media with his culture war polemics against the EU, immigrants and “the political establishment”. His unnatural hue inspired the viral video Mr Tangerine Man. But when Ukip could no longer contain his ego, he broke away and started his own political party in 2005, Veritas (widely dubbed Vanitas), which quickly crashed and burned. Thank goodness there are no such characters on the world stage today!

I could just as well have been thinking of Silvio Berlusconi, the satsuma-tinged TV presenter and culture warrior, who, like a certain other politician, went to extreme lengths to hide his baldness. He became the demagogic, rightwing Italian prime minister, seeking (successfully) to return to power after being ejected from office, despite a long series of sexual and financial scandals and criminal charges. Like Donald Trump’s, his loyal supporters somehow managed to overlook his moral repulsiveness, childish attention-seeking and love-in with Vladimir Putin, and saw him as the saviour who would make Italy great again.

Of course, there are differences between these people, but every time one of these characters emerges, we are nonplussed by them. We react as if we’re dealing with something new, and appear to have little idea how to respond. But there are patterns to the emergence of extreme-right demagogues: patterns that repeat themselves with remarkable fidelity. By learning and understanding them, we can better defend ourselves.

I’ve spent part of my summer reading Arno Mayer, the great historian who died in 2023. His book Dynamics of Counterrevolution in Europe, 1870-1956, published in 1971, could have been written about any of the rightwing populists we face today: Trump, Farage, Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Narendra Modi, the leaders of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the National Rally in France, the Brothers of Italy and – lately – Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson.

Mayer’s descriptions of the demagogues of his period are uncannily familiar. These leaders created the impression “that they seek fundamental changes in government, society, and community”. But in reality, because they relied on the patronage of “incumbent elites” to gain power (think, today, of media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, Elon Musk and Paul Marshall, and various billionaire funders), they sought no major changes “in class structure and property relations”. In fact, they ensured these were shored up. “They need to revile incumbent elites and institutions without foreclosing cooperation with them.” So their project “is far more militant in rhetoric, style and conduct than in political, social and economic substance”.

For this reason, Mayer explains how rightwing populists expose and overstate the cracks in a crisis-torn society, but fail to “account for them in any coherent and systematic way”. They direct popular anger away from genuine elites and towards fictional conspiracies and minorities. They variously blame these minorities (whether it be Jews, Muslims, asylum seekers, immigrants, Black and Brown people) for the sense of inadequacy and powerlessness felt by their supporters; helping “humiliated individuals to salvage their self-esteem by attributing their predicament to a plot” and giving them immediate targets on which to vent their frustrations and hatreds.

The fake firebrands often, Mayer remarks,also issued “rampant broadsides against science” (think of the climate science denial to which almost all today’s rightwing demagogues subscribe), and against innovation, modernism and cosmopolitanism. They combined “the glorification of traditional attitudes and behaviour patterns with the charge that these are being corrupted, subverted, and defiled by conspiratorial agents and influences”. Hello JD Vance and Ron DeSantis.

The demagogues of Mayer’s period adopted a purposely “ambiguous position”, when people who might have been inspired by their claims committed acts of violence – both inflaming the attacks and distancing themselves from them. This might trigger memories of Donald Trump during the January 6 assault on the Capitol, Modi during anti-Muslim pogroms and the video Farage made after the Southport murders, which is seen by many people as bearing some responsibility for last month’s racist riots.

But there is one major difference. In Mayer’s era, the development of what he called “crisis strata” of disillusioned, angry men to whom the demagogues appealed was a result of devastating war or state collapse.The rabble-rousers were able to appeal both to angry working-class men and to anxious elites by invoking the spectre of leftwing revolution. None of these conditions pertain today in countries like our own. So how does the current batch of populists succeed? I think they are responding to a crisis caused by a different force: 45 years of neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism simultaneously promises the world and snatches it away. It tells us that if you work hard enough, you too can be an alpha. But it also creates the conditions which ensure that, no matter how hard you work, you are likely to remain subordinate and exploited. It has enabled the formation of a new rentier class, that owns the essential assets and ruthlessly exploits younger and poorer people. Young men step into a world of promises – to find all the golden doors are locked, and someone else has the key.

It is in the vast gap between the promises of neoliberalism and their fulfilment that frustration, humiliation and a desire for vengeance grow: the same emotions that followed military defeat or state collapse in Mayer’s time. These impulses are then exploited by conflict entrepreneurs. Today, some of these entrepreneurs stand for office; others, using opportunities that weren’t available in previous eras, monetise the anger, making a fortune through their social media outlets.

Understanding the tradition these demagogues follow, which long predates the rise of fascism in the 20th century, should help us to develop a more effective response to them. We begin to see this in Kamala Harris’s intelligent campaign, which, in contrast to Joe Biden’s, is starting to land heavy blows on Trump and Vance,drawing attention to their creepy intrusions on people’s private lives and their attacks on fundamental freedoms. If we want to anticipate and stop rightwing authoritarian rule, we should seek to comprehend its eerie consistencies.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

‘You are killing us’: Mariana survivors face ill health, lost culture and a long wait for justice

When a dam burst eight years ago in a Brazilian mining town, the toxic mud swept downriver, crushing all before it. Affected communities are still fighting in the courts – and mourning a way of life that has disappeared for ever

Marino D’Ângelo Júnior regularly takes antidepressants and medication to help him sleep. A former resident of Paracatu, a district of the city of Mariana in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, the 54-year-old says he has lost his sense of self since 60m cubic metres of mining waste flattened his town, forcing him to live in a rented property near the centre of an environmental disaster that shocked the world eight years ago.

D’Ângelo is one of the survivors of the collapse of the Fundão tailings dam near Mariana. Almost a decade on, the people affected by Brazil’s worst environmental tragedy still await justice as they live under the shadow of the toxic mud that swept away life as they knew it.

“The collapse of a dam isn’t what you see on TV – the river of mud destroying things,” says D’Ângelo. “A dam failure entails an infinity of invisible ruptures. The rupture of connections, family links, communities, histories, dreams.”

D’Ângelo used to own a herd of 60 dairy cows before the incident but he began to sell them off as he found himself unable to work properly, which led to him being “forced into poverty”. A member of the Commission for People Affected by the Fundão Dam, D’Ângelo holds the mining companies responsible for the disaster and the subsequent neglect of the affected populations who still struggle with losing their livelihoods and way of life.

The dam – which was managed by Samarco, a joint venture between the Brazilian mining company Vale and the Anglo-Australian company BHP – collapsed on 5 November 2015, and caused mining waste to flow nearly 700km (430 miles) down the Rio Doce into the Atlantic Ocean, devastating everything in its path.

The torrent of toxic sludge buried villages, killed 19 people and left thousands more homeless. Nearly a decade later, hundreds of thousands of people continue to suffer the effects daily, in the contaminated soil unfit for agriculture, the diseased fish they catch in the polluted river, and the breakdown of their communities and cultural traditions.

No one has yet been held accountable for the socio-environmental disaster. BHP, Vale, Samarco and eight other defendants stand accused of environmental crimes in a Brazilian court case that has been dragging on for seven years. They are due to face a judge for questioning this month.

Separately, about 700,000 people are suing BHP in a UK court, seeking £36bn in reparations in English legal history’s most significant group claim. BHP denies liability.

Continue reading.

[rhythmelia]

Support a Translator of Color (1 day left of Crowd Justice fundraising!)

Fresh post for the tags! As I've shared extensively in updates on this post since 2023.06.24, my friend Yilin Wang (yilinwriter on twitter) has had their translation work stolen and used uncredited by the British Museum in a major exhibit on The Hidden Century in Chinese history that featured major feminist revolutionary Qiu Jin, and when called out on that behavior, the museum chose to remove Qiu Jin's poetry and Yilin's translation, silencing both of them. Instead of, yanno, naming the translator and giving appropriate credit and payment. ....yup.

So! Here's the Crowd Justice:

Case updates can be found at that fundraiser (especially as the muskrat has made twitter into an epic trashfire at the moment) but some key points, in Yilin's words:

I need to raise at least £15,000 by July 10th to enable me to instruct expert lawyers in London to initiate a claim of infringement of my copyright and moral rights. I will be working with lawyers in the UK to bring a claim against the British Museum for its infringement of my copyright and moral rights in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court (IPEC), which is a specialist court and part of the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice in London. ......

Please contribute and share if you can - each and every small contribution is very much appreciated! Let’s hold the British Museum accountable together!  I realise that this is a lot of money at any time, and especially in the current economic circumstances, but the cost and difficulty of taking legal action is a huge barrier when it comes to access to justice. My hope is that if I am able to generate enough support to take this point of principle forward, it will give the British Museum and all similar institutions the maximum possible incentive to avoid similar conduct in the future, because they will see that there is collective power in communities who feel disrespected and insulted. .....

Why This Case Matters This case matters to me not only because I believe both my work and Qiu Jin's work should receive the credit and respect they deserve, but because it affects the copyright and moral rights of all translators, writers, and creatives. 

The British Museum has not issued an appropriate apology or taken proper responsibility for its actions, so if it is not held accountable, then this is a cycle that stands to be repeated.

Yilin was able to make the minimum to retain a lawyer, and is now working towards the stretch goal. Here's part of the statement from the lawyer on the crowd justice page:

Accordingly, it is not giving anything away to say that we sincerely hope that the British Museum come to recognise the shortcomings in their conduct so far, and move to make amends rather than fight Yilin all the way. We will make Yilin’s funds go as far as we can, but there is a real prospect of the case being drawn out beyond the funding she has available, so it continues to be the case that every pound she raises towards her stretch targets puts her in the strongest possible position - a position that the British Museum has extensive visibility of - to hold out for what she deserves with help of expert legal assistance.

Currently it's at £16,722 pledged towards the stretch target of £20,000 from 573 pledges in small amount donations. Help Yilin be able to keep going if the British Museum continues to behave badly and try to fight until Yilin's out of funds. Please consider reblogging and/or donating a small amount if you can - about 1 day left to July 10! (I'm in UTC-7 and it's the 8th for me but I'm not sure what timezone the fundraiser site is in, since it says 1 day left there)

tagging @copperbadge, @vaspider and @prismatic-bell on the off chance they might be interested in signal boosting? No pressure though!

[psychuan]

swear to god if i have to see that dumbass post defending Ed Sheeran cross my dash again i'm gonna lose it

YES the article is bullshit re: the homeless spikes but guess what? Ed Sheeran's a landlord! a BIG landlord! he's a fucking landlord with over £50mil in property that expanded over the course of the pandemic so as much as he complains about this headline he is literally one of the cunts making the housing problem worse so, y'know, maybe ACTUALLY fuck ed sheeran?

fucking BEGGING people to stop defending poor widdle multimillionaire landlord ed sheeran because sure while he's not putting anti-homeless architecture outside his house, he's reinforcing the anti-homeless social architecture of the UK

[mmbaaccountants]

What investors need to look in a crypto tax advisor

Taxes, and crypto taxes, are complex to understand. They are considered confusing aspects to get into blockchain and crypto assets. With the huge demand, crypto are also arose in mainstream financial conversation.

As the virtual platform of every mobile trading, not to mention trading brokerages, it permits crypto trading and transactions to ease investors to gain exposure to crypto that is increased dramatically.

There are many things investors need to consider while choosing Tax assist London.

Active crypto experience

Based on important things, the important question must ask by investors to ask in conversation with a tax professional, on which how much experience they have. The experience of the Uk Crypto tax advisor and other relevant question that is crucial to ask early in conversation on how much experience they have.

Many of the pitfalls and issues that will trip up taxpayers are understandable truly if everyone is a role for handling their own. The private key management, security, and minting of NFT (Non-fungible tokens) are at stake, and crypto assets mining can understand fully if an individual has a question about participating in past activities.  

Comfortable with ambiguity

Tax preparation and related thoughts are going in a straightforward and transparent way and need some deftness and ambiguity comfort. The tax code is written with various exceptions,  so you must be aware of and comfortable dealing with it.  

[skippyv20]

Hi Skippy, just to let everyone know that I felt it necessary to deactivate my account last night. The reason is that 3 of the Twitter accounts I follow and have posted information from on Tumblr are being prosecuted by the UK Thought Police and are due to go to Court.

People who follow or reblog from them are also allegedly under surveillance which would therefor include myself.

It really is ridiculous here so I have deactivated all of my Social Media accounts. I won't stop blogging but need time to regroup and doubly ensure that I won't end up in Court. The sentences are ridiculous and it seems that the current PM is coming down really hard now on Social Media.

Here is the advice I have been given if you are a UK Blogger.

Ensure you use a VPN

Make sure you have an anonymous email address if possible for example Proton do one

Delete all Social Media accounts if there has been anyone challenging what you say or any hint that anyone is working to report you to the Police . There are literally groups on Social Media especially Facebook and Twitter now of Leftists have been reporting bloggers or Social Media accounts to the Police such as the 3 I have mentioned and their followers.

Reset your phone and wipe it completely

Start again if you wish but take extra care and be vigilant that anything you post will not be used against you at this time

Read and digest the Human Rights Act Sections 9, 10 and 14 as this will inform you about your Rights in Law albeit they are using current updates to some Laws regarding Hate Speech Online etc (I will post about that in my new blog)

The advice below is not Professional Legal Advice just advice given to anyone anxious about possible visits from Police for prosecution

If the police do visit DO NOT allow them into your house as they can then search your premises and confiscate your phone, computer etc. If you don't allow entry they will have to provide a warrant to search your property and take away your communication devices

If they take you to a Police Station for questioning DO NOT SAY ANYTHING EVER AT ANYTIME THAN NO COMMENT OR NOT GUILTY - the onus is then on the Police to provide proof that you have used hate speech or incited anyone to riot etc

Get an independent lawyer or advice as the Duty Solicitor would advise you most likely to plead guilty for obvious reasons

Opt for a High Court case by pleading not guilty - this will cause more hassle and they may drop the charges due to insufficient evidence

Apparantly no one as yet has pleaded not guilty and/or opted for a High Court hearing as most are unaware of their legal rights and have been advised to plead guilty

I am writing this from memory so please feel free to chip in or correct any mistakes

I have asked Skippy to post this ask for me. My 1,500 followers will most likely know who I am and when I restart with a new blog I will get the message out to you all

Please know I am not giving up - I am a member of the UK Free Speech Union and they are working in a Legal Capacity to protect the Free Speech of UK Citizens as is Elon Musk and the Reform Party UK

Of course I will be praying for everyone on Skippy's Prayer list as always and will be back

Love you all

This is so shocking that the UK is at this point! Prayers for all!🙏🏻❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Business can't stop its illegal, fantastically lucrative gossiping

Seven years ago, I called Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows “the perfect anthem for our times.”

Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/11/11/leonard-cohen-wrote-the-perfect-anthem-for-our-times/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/16/compulsive-cheaters/#rigged

That was just after Cohen died, and while the world seems to want to settle on Hallelujah as his totemic song, Everybody Knows keeps inserting itself into the discourse, in the most toxic, hope-draining way possible. Whenever some awful scandal involving the great and the good breaches, we’re told that “everybody knew” already, so let’s move on.

This current has been running through our society for decades now. Remember when the Snowden leaks hit and a yawning chorus of nihilists told us that they knew already and so should anyone else with the smallest iota of sophistication? Back then Jay Rosen coined a rejoinder to this counsel of despair: “Don’t savvy me”:

https://twitter.com/jayrosen_nyu/status/344825874362810369

Everybody knows. It’s what we heard after the Panama Papers. Swissleaks. Luxleaks. The Paradise Papers. Everybody knows! It’s what the nothing-to-see-here crowd said about Propublica’s explosive IRSLeaks, back in 2021:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest

The leaks revealed the tax-dodges of the richest and most powerful people in America, which were jaw-dropping in their audacity and shamelessness. Sure, maybe you suspected that the 400 richest people in America paid less tax than you — but did you really guess that the means by which they did this was through taking massive deductions on their elite hobbies?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/13/taxes-are-for-the-little-people/#leona-helmsley-2022

Maybe “everybody knows” that the game is rigged, but did you know how? Like, did you know that REITs — a tax shelter for mom-and-pop investors who buy an income property for their retirement — have become a primary vehicle for gutting unions at hotels, slashing wages and imposing brutal, dangerous working conditions?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/01/reit-modernization-act/#reit-makes-might

The leaks are cumulative. By combining data from one leak with another, we can build out a far more detailed picture of the conspiracy — and it is a conspiracy — among the utlrawealthy and their Renfields in the law, real-estate and accounting trades to duck their responsibilities and mound ever-more treasure on their hoards.

Take the Jersey Offshore leaks (2020), comprising the internal memos of La Hougue, a fantastically crooked firm of fixers on the Isle of Jersey, one of the lawless tax-crime jurisdictions that the UK pretends it has no control over. La Hougue has a playbook, 11 tactics for lying about your taxes. The remarkable thing about these 11 tactics is how flimsy they are, how easy it is to penetrate their lies. When Parliament says it can’t possibly do anything about the criminal havens in the Channel, remember the Jersey Offshore leaks and remind yourself that not even Parliament is that credulous. They know. Everybody knows:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/20/la-hougue/#complexity

Why do working people think the Democrats are just another party for the ultra-rich? Maybe it’s Pelosi’s relentless opposition to meaningful curbs on insider trading. Or maybe it’s the kinds of politicians that the Democratic Machine likes to rally behind — like Tali Farhadian Weinstein, who raised millions in 2021, in large-money donations from Democratic finance-sector donors in her bid to become the DA of Manhattan. Farhadian Weinstein and her husband have more than $100m in annual income, and yet, paid no federal tax in 2013, 2015 and 2017. In 2014, they paid $6,584:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/17/quis-custodiet-irs/#trumps-taxes

Propublica isn’t done with the IRS Files. Today, they published a long investigation into ultra-rich corporate executives who buy and sell their competitors’ stock for massive profits with suspiciously precise timing. The data comes from 1099-B filings, which brokerages file with the IRS with each trade, but which the IRS doesn’t share with the SEC:

https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-irs-files-trading-competitors-stock

Here are some examples:

Ohio billionaire August Troendle, CEO of Medpace, repeatedly bought and sold shares of $Syneos — his company’s archrival, timing the transactions with a management shakeup that dropped the stock by 16% in one day, and an SEC investigation that crushed Syneos’s stock by 25%. His precision timing made him at least $2.3m in profit.

Isaac Larian, CEO of Bratz-maker MGA, made $28m trading shares in Mattel, MGA’s nemesis and frequent litigant — during a period when Mattel stock crashed by 57% (!). Larian boasts that “I made a LOT more money shorting Mattel stock than they did running a $4.5 billion toy company.”

Larian’s trades also involved some very precise timing. Sometimes, he took positions just before his own company announced its upcoming products, and others positions immediately preceded major disclosures from Mattel. Larian’s subordinates told Propublica that he is “is a boss with an endless appetite for information about his company and its competitors, constantly grilling subordinates on minutiae about the industry.”

Larian couldn’t explain the timing of these trades. His lawyer told Propublica that it was “false and defamatory” to suggest that he “possessed material, nonpublic information that Larian knew was obtained in breach of a duty.”

Next up is Gerald Boelte, founder and chair of the massive oil company LLOG. LLOG partners with other companies for its oil drilling. Companies like Stone Energy. Boelte bought a huge position in Stone the day before the company’s 2015 earnings report, in which they revealed an increase their reserves’ value, pulling in a 65% one day profit. He’d never bought shares in Stone before.

Boetle told Propublica, “I do not and have never traded on any material, non-public information of competitors, business partners or others… Any implication that I was investing based upon advance knowledge is therefore clearly false.”

Jim Sankey is CEO of Invue. He bought $3.2m worth of shares in his rival Checkpoint, while checkpoint was in secret negotiations to be acquired by CCL Industries. Sankey was already thoroughly connected to Checkpoint, having sold a $150m product line to them in 2007. There’s no record that he’d ever traded Checkpoint before. He made $2.3m. Sankey says “he did not know Checkpoint was going to be acquired.” He says that his company was not approached by Checkpoint as a potential acquirer.

Barry Wish was a board member of Ocwen, a company he co-founded. After the Great Financial Crisis, Ocwen bid unsuccessfully to buy $215b worth of Bank of America mortgages. The winning bidder was Nationstar. Three weeks before Nationstar’s winning bid was announced, Wish bought $600k worth of Nationstar shares. After the bid was announced, he sold them for for a $157k profit.

Wish told Propublica that he never traded competitors’ stock: “No, not at all.” Propublica read him the details of the trade from his leaked 1099-B. He said “You might see it, but I don’t have any recollection” and hung up.

Steven Grossman is a cardboard heir — a nepobaby who inherited Southern Container Corp from his grandpa. After he sold the company to Rock-Tenn for $1b in 2013, he stayed on as a senior exec. Over the next 5 years, he traded large blocks of shares in Rock-Tenn’s competitors, companies like Temple-Inland, a company that he made a 37% profit on after its acquisition was announced in 2011, one week after Grossman started buying its shares.

Grossman falsely told Propublica, “I haven’t traded stock since then.” IRS records show that Grossman continued to trade. Grossman also told Propublica that he had no role with Rock-Tenn, despite being on their payroll for five years. When asked about his extremely lucky timing buying and selling Temple-Inland, he said “That was 10 years ago” and hung up.

As Propublica’s Robert Faturechi and Ellis Simani write, Securities regulations have their origins in the crash of 1929, and the subsequent collapse in confidence in markets and capitalism, the sense that the system was rigged for the wealthy and political insiders. That is a pretty good summation of sentiment today:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

It’s not just that corporate executives are corrupt, it’s that they’re lavishly, shamelessly, endlessly, incorrigibly corrupt. Take Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, the sixth- and seventh-largest Class I railroads in the USA, whose merger was just approved by the Surface Transportation Board.

There are plenty of good reasons for the STB to have blocked this merger. The rail industry is already excessively concentrated, and its top execs are so convinced that they’re both too big to fail and too big to jail that they’re rendering entire towns permanently uninhabitable in order to eke out a few more points in profit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/11/dinah-wont-you-blow/#ecp

But there are specific reasons to have blocked this merger, starting with the whistleblower report about CP and KCS executives illegally coming together for a three-day “retreat” at The Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, a notorious site for Republican operatives to collude with the business lobby:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2023-03-16-canadian-pacific-kansas-city-southern-rail-merger/

As Luke Goldstein writes for The American Prospect, both companies spent millions in 2020 and 2022 on campaign contributions to “grease the skids” for the merger — in particular, ensuring that the combined company could transport Alberta tar sands oil (the filthiest, most energy intensive oil in the world) to US ports.

Though the STB was informed of the illegal meeting — in which the two companies behaved as though the merger had already been finalized — STB chair Martin Oberman told Goldstein that the Board did not write to the companies for an explanation before waving through their merger.

Instead, Oberman dismissed the complaint on the grounds that “Railroads have to be able to talk to one another to function.” Typically this takes place over a free phone call, though — not on a three-day executive junket at a hotel where the rooms run $1,500/night.

Oberman knows what happened at that meeting.

Everybody knows.

It comes as no surprise to learn that before FTX imploded and destroyed the savings of its depositors, it paid out $3b to its top executives, including the criminal Sam Bankman-Fried:

https://gizmodo.com/sbf-ftx-crypto-sam-bankman-fried-1850232043

It comes as no surprise that Silicon Valley Bank paid out bonuses to its execs and employees hours before it collapsed:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-employees-received-bonuses-hours-before-takeover.html

Everybody knows.

It’s comforting to think that the tax code loopholes that the ultrawealthy exploit are an epiphenomenon of complexity, an unavoidable consequence of the technical requirements of a big regulation that spans 300m+ people. But the truth is, the loopholes in the US tax code were inserted by politicians who got massive campaign contributions from donors who directly benefited from those loopholes. Senator Ron Johnson got $20m from the owners of Uline (Dick and Liz Uihlein) and roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, then he blocked the Trump tax bill until his fellow lawmakers inserted a loophole that produced $215m for the Uihleins and Hendricks, in just the first year:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/11/the-canada-variant/#shitty-man-of-history-theory It’s not even surprising that a sitting US Senator amended a bill to give hundreds of millions of dollars to billionaires who gave him tens of millions of dollars.

Everybody knows. It’s weirdly comforting to think that everyday people vote for demagogue wreckers because Facebook hired a legion of evil sorcerers to fashion a mind-control ray out of Big Data and AI, but Facebook lies about everything, and everyone who ever claimed to have a mind-control ray was a liar.

Maybe people vote for demagogue wreckers because they believe the system is rotten, and maybe they believe the system is rotten because the system is rotten. Maybe the self-described evil sorcerers of Big Tech aren’t “hacking our dopamine loops” — maybe they’re just helping opportunists target people who are justifiably angry:

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

The problem with this explanation is that it requires “progressive” parties to actually do stuff to demonstrate that they are on the side of people, not the side of paperclip-maximizing immortal colony organisms and the corporate executives who pretend to run them:

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1184004730722217984

I try to have hope — that is, I try to believe that if we can only make changes to our material circumstances, however small they may seem, that we might attain a new vantagepoint that reveals more possible changes within our grasp:

https://gen.medium.com/hope-not-optimism-943e88291b

Some days, it’s hard to have hope. Some days, it’s so obvious that everybody knows, all that I can muster is fury. Fury is not a full substitute for hope, but it’ll do. It’s a far superior alternative to the fatalism that “everybody knows” and thus nothing can be done.

Some fights you win, and other fights, you just fight, because surrender isn’t an option. Everybody knows, right? If everybody knows, then everybody might just decide to do something about it.

Next Monday (Mar 20), I’m doing a remote talk for the Ostrom Workshop’s Beyond the Web Speaker Series.

[Image ID: A smoke-filled room lit by candles. Around a large formal table sit various 19th century gentlemen-type people. One of them stands and reads from a memo. The shadow he casts is in the shape of a dollar-sign.]

[thoughtlessarse]

The videos are shocking: buildings burning, horrifying violence and women weeping as they plead for help. They are - the people sharing them say - proof of a “Hindu genocide” happening in Bangladesh in the wake of the sudden fall of the country’s long-time leader, Sheikh Hasina. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who uses the name Tommy Robinson – a British far-right activist who has been criticised for making inflammatory posts during the UK riots – has got involved, sharing videos along with dark warnings. But we found that many of the videos and claims shared online are false. False claim of Hindu temple attack Bangladesh has been in the headlines for weeks: student-led protests which left more than 400 dead culminated with the government falling and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing to India on 5 August. Celebrations escalated into violent unrest, with rioters targeting members of her ruling Awami League party which is made up of both Hindu and Muslim members. And while reports on the ground have found violence and looting impacted Hindu people and properties, far-right influencers in neighbouring India shared false videos and information that gave a misleading view of the events. They claimed to show communal violence against Hindus purportedly carried out by “Islamist radicals” with a violent agenda. One viral post claimed to show a temple set on fire by “Islamists in Bangladesh”. However, BBC Verify has determined that this building, identified as the Navagraha Temple in Chittagong, was undamaged by the incident which actually occurred at a nearby Awami League party office.

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[eaglesnick]

“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”

Benjamin Disraeli

When the nation overwhelmingly voted the Conservative government out of office they did not expect to be electing Tony Blaire as Prime Minister, but that is exactly what they have done. Sir Keir Starmer may be fronting the new Labour government but it is Tony Blair who is Prime Minister behind the scenes.

The signs were there a year ago for all to see. The Financial Times reported that Starmer had told them:

“Labour should stop trashing Tony Blair - a hate figure for many on the Labour left - especially after pushing the UK into the Iraq war. ‘We have to be proud of that record in government and not be arm’s length about it.’ “ (FT: 07/06/23)

In December the same year we have this headline:

“The moment Keir Starmer revealed himself to be a hardcore Blairite”. (Independent: 12/12/23)

The Blairite government of 1997- 2008 did some good things. Sure Start and adequate funding for the NHS are the most frequently cited examples of good Labour policies. But his list of failures is greater.

He tore up the principle of free university education at the point of delivery and introduced tuition fees. Thanks to Blaire:

Almost 1.8m people owe £50,000 or more in student debt” (BBC News:  02/07/24)

That is a collective student debt of £90,000,000,000.

Blair’s legacy of economic mismanagement goes further and has affected all of us. In 1997, when Blair was elected to office, average income was £15,000 a year, while the average house price was £65,000. When Blair left office in 2007, the average wage had risen to £20,000, but the average house now cost £190,000. In short, under Blair, house prices nearly trebled in price while wages only increased by a third.

The sad fact is, Blair, like governments before and after him, failed to make housing a priority and we are all suffering the price of that policy decision today in the form of a chronic housing shortage, unaffordable rents, and property prices beyond the reach of the vast majority of the population.  

At the same time as house prices were rocketing, the Blair government presided over a massive fall in industrial output. Investment Monitor (24/11/20) reported that manufacturing:

 …”declined in importance with regard to its role within the British economy faster under Blair than under any previous prime minister. The industry accounted for more than 20% of GDP in 1997; by 2007 – when Blair left Number 10 to be replaced by Gordon Brown – this had fallen to 12.4%, and when Labour were voted out of office in 2010 the figure was 10%.

More importantly, when Blair came to power in 1997, income inequality, after years of Thatcherite policies, was at historically high levels, and relative poverty was on the increase. Despite 11 years of a Blairite Labour government ordinary working people saw little change in their economic position, yet under Blaire the rich and wealthy flourished.

“Income inequality changed little...those on relatively low incomes did a little better than those with incomes just above average. However, those right at the top saw their incomes increase very substantially with the result that, on most measures, overall inequality nudged up slightly.”  (Institute for Fiscal Studies: 2013)

In short, under Blairite policies the rich became richer at the expense of ordinary working families.

The Labour Party came into existence to better the lot of working class families. This goal was written down in Clause 4 of the Labour Party Constitution part of which states:

“To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production..."

Implicit in the notion of “common ownership” is the equal distribution of the wealth generated by those commonly owned industries. This was one of the binding principles of the Labour Party up until 1995 when Tony Blaire tore up this socialist, egalitarian ideal and replaced it with a bland statement that amounted to little more than a wish list but no clear indication how those wishes were to be achieved. Gone was the commitment to secure for workers just wages, gone was the commitment to nationalization, and gone was the Labour Party's commitment to socialism.

Twelve years after leaving office, Margaret Thatcher was asked what she considered to be her greatest achievement and is famously reported to have replied: "Tony Blaire and New Labour". What she meant by this is that Tony Blaire had abandoned Labours historical commitment to socialism and greater economic equality, and had instead adopted her philosophy of minimum state protection for workers, the pursuit of corporate profit at any cost, the deregulation of the financial industry and the privatisation of  public assets.

What resulted was the financial crash of 2008, a massive housing shortage as public bodies were no longer allowed to build houses, the gradual erosion of workers pay while the rich became even richer, and national assets such as water and railways being run for private profit rather than providing a decent public service.

Starmer will pursue the same policies as Blaire because he is an unashamed Blairite: This was Sky news headline on 23/05/23:

“Sir Keir Starmer promises his Labour reform will be like Tony Blair's Clause IV 'on steroids'

So next time you look at our new Prime Minister remember who is the puppet master and who the puppet.