Saw someone elsewhere assert that Britain is “one of the least corrupt countries in the world”, and couldn’t let that go unchallenged, so here’s what I said:
Only because of this one weird loophole, which I will explain below:
For the last decade, the previous government has been awarding public contracts for infrastructure, etc, to what are essentially shell companies run by their mates. These companies then do the bare minimum for as long as possible, which if you drive round the UK, is why you see all those road “improvement” works which do nothing and take forever and never seem to have anyone working. It took two years to replace a roundabout with a set of traffic lights near my apartment, for example. Other examples: large amounts of “PPE equipment” during Covid which turned out to be useless junk.
Obviously they aren’t actually spending anything but a trivial amount going through the motions, so what happens to the rest of the money, which let’s remember, was raised by taxes.
Well, it gets donated back to the ruling party as “political donations”, and then if the pretend contractor does a good enough job of this, they get an knighthood, or even a seat in the House of Lords for “services rendered”.
Now you might think that this sounds corrupt, and you would be right. It sounds deeply corrupt, but apparently it’s not because a lot of the global agencies which work out corruption indices are based in, checks notes, London, and are probably in on the scam, and get to define what “corruption” means, and define it to mean, “not this”.
Et voila! You have a country with one of the biggest wealth gaps in Europe funnelling vast amounts of public money to populist spaffers in government, all legal, laundered and sanitised.
The whole of UK society is like this. It’s how it works, and once you see it you either join in, or walk away in disgust.
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Luke
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Luke • •@Luke Exactly that! Here in Portugal, things seem corrupt because there's a lot of, "oh, you want this service. My friend works there. Let me have a word and you can jump the queue".
Which is "corrupt", but "Imma just create a shell company in the British Virgin Islands and you can award it an M25 widening scheme which I won't actually bother delivering, and instead I'll donate 80% of it back to 'charitable causes', as run by your good self, and we'll see what's what. Golf later?" isn't.
Charles ☭ is now tooting from queer.party
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈 reshared this.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Charles ☭ is now tooting from queer.party • •reshared this
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Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •BashStKid
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Ah, but white-collar crime isn’t really crime, is it?
If we had to suddenly examine the UK for building a worldwide money laundering and reinvestment scheme, the SFO would be very busy … if that’s too much, they could check out every closed-shortlist ‘competitive tender process’ … although that would also take a while …
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Jzero
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Alexander Dyas
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Alexander Dyas • •@Alexander Dyas truth in advertising; I have an offshore account in a crown dependency and they absolutely send details of my balance and interest to HMRC and Finanças (Portuguese tax authority) every year. I pay income tax on them.
Maybe they have different rules if your balance is beyond a certain amount.
Mx Verda reshared this.
Alexander Dyas
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Jersey for instance has a personal tax rate of 20% max for residents, and 0% for corporations based there [0]. My understanding is that all you need to do is register a company there and your business doesn’t pay tax on that money.
As far as I am aware the same is true of places like the Cayman Islands.
The Spider’s Web is a great documentary about this
[1][0] investopedia.com/ask/answers/0…
[1] youtu.be/np_ylvc8Zj8?si=8fuTPG…
Why Is the United Kingdom's Jersey Considered a Tax Haven?
Thom Tracy (Investopedia)cracc_baby
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to cracc_baby • •Mx Verda reshared this.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • •Andrew Ginty
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •.
Mx Verda
in reply to Andrew Ginty • • •Mike Spooner
in reply to Andrew Ginty • • •504BatteryDr
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Multiply that by every capitalist country in the world, which is most of them nowadays.
The US is equally as corrupt in this regard.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •It's worth bearing in mind that London is often referred to as the laundromat of the world for dirty money.
It's also nicknamed Londongrad because of all the oligarchs hiding their stolen billions in luxury houses that sit empty.
People don't realise how corrupt the UK is because the British (let's be honest mainly English) know how to spin, minimise, evade & manipulate like no others. Even the British public has zero clue just how corrupt it is.
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Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •"mainly English" ?
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow You may have noticed all the posh, English psychopaths who have been in power since forever.
Besides have you seen the inequality in this country?
Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •@sentient_water
There's also the vast majority of English people who are not entitled, nor are they from rich lineages, and they get pretty fucking sick of being blamed for everything and tarred with the same brush as the Etonian establishment.
Also, there are Scottish and Welsh amongst the elite, not just "English."
Mx Verda
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •#NotAllBrits lol
Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •I'm from the North East, and one of the poorest towns in the North East. You don't have to lecture me about inequality.
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •Sarah Brown likes this.
Anna Kennard
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •archive.rai-see.org/uk-is-most…
UK is most corrupt country in the world, says mafia expert Roberto Saviano | Regional Anti-Corruption Initiative
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Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Jim Heartney
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Jim Heartney • •clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛
in reply to Jim Heartney • • •@Jim Heartney @Sarah Brown Key word "generally". The roundabout is better a lot of the time, and many traffic light crossings would benefit from being turned into roundabouts, but it's not a strictly better solution in every single case.
It depends on the traffic volumes and the space available to build a roundabout that fits the traffic volumes. This could be one of the cases where the roundabout was rationally a mistake.
Or it could be an irrational fear or annoyance with roundabouts, or the mentioned corruption.
Oli
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •Sensitive content
Traffic lights allow for pedestrian phases
Because roundabouts are so efficient for traffic flow, crossing a road at a busy roundabout is very difficult
(Not disagreeing that the UK fails to recognise political "donations", " gifts", directorships, and post-politics employment as corruption)
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Sarah Brown
in reply to Oli • •like this
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Oli
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sensitive content
Jim Heartney
in reply to clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 • • •Sensitive content
Daniel Barlow
in reply to Jim Heartney • • •Jim Heartney
in reply to Jim Heartney • • •Roundabouts are generally safer for pedestrians.
iihs.org/topics/roundabouts#:~….
Roundabouts
IIHS-HLDI crash testing and highway safetyclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛 likes this.
Pete
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Alex Leathard
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Donald Roy
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Donald Roy
in reply to Donald Roy • • •Donald Roy
in reply to Donald Roy • • •Amoshias
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •America works the same way! There's very little bribery, because the Supreme Court has chosen to define bribery as "handing an official a cartoon bag with a dollar sign on it full of money, and then they immediately carry out an official act."
Wait five minutes before the official act? Bag doesn't have a dollar sign on it? Not bribery!
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Unknown parent • •Resuna
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •maya_b 🇨🇦
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to maya_b 🇨🇦 • •maya_b 🇨🇦
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •autoevolution.com/news/scottis…
Scottish Conservative Baroness Puts Lavish Yacht for Sale for $11 Million
autoevolutionSarah Brown
in reply to maya_b 🇨🇦 • •@maya_b That is to "sailboats" as the Bugatti Veyron is to "cars".
Most are more like this: yachtworld.com/yacht/2010-jean…
maya_b 🇨🇦
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Luke
Unknown parent • • •Captain Jack Sparrow
Unknown parent • • •@Uraael @sentient_water
Ah, so you hate all "the English"
Captain Jack Sparrow
Unknown parent • • •@partnumber2 @sentient_water
Did they really. So there was no inequality in civilisation, before the British "invented" it...
OK lol
*The* Paul Brown
Unknown parent • • •"... And then they call themselves 'The British'."
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
Unknown parent • • •@Uraael @Captain_Jack_Sparrow "I don't like pizza"
Jack: "Why do you hate ALL Italians?!!"
Angela Glansbury 🚽
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Miguel Arroz
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown likes this.
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in reply to Miguel Arroz • •Mx Verda reshared this.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 You completely avoided what you said to me.
Great debating style. By the way I noticed your toots on the genocide going on in Palestine. Well looky who got that shit started.
"Gardner Thompson, a British historian, traces the arc of this seminal development in Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism And The Creation Of Israel, published by Saqi Books in London. A specialist in British colonial policy in Africa, he argues that the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine was precipitated by Zionist colonization and fostered by Britain."
Then there's India, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland & of course the indigenous people of America. The British have a reputation for genocide, exploitation & subjugation of billions of people throughout history.
But please tell us why you're their biggest fanboy?
Curioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Curioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg) • •Cdnpup
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Rupert 🇪🇺🏴☠️😾🔭📷🍺🍪🌍🔥
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Alex Leathard
Unknown parent • • •@omegaprobe Essentially, yes; that’s my understanding.
But it’s only ever _partially_ repaid because no government claws back 100% of its spending back through taxation.
Someone, somewhere, in the pyramid that trickles down from central government spending, saves in a way that limits what government can reclaim.
Plus, the humans running governments place different value on different types of value exchange, e.g. capital gains vs VAT.
platanoutre
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to platanoutre • •@platanoutre Ah, but the UK goes a bit further. If you merely pocket the funds, there will be no more for you.
You have to return them as "political donations".
It's money laundering on a national scale.
Kit Rhett Aultman
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •AndyDearden
Unknown parent • • •Mx Verda
Unknown parent • • •You gotta accept where you’re actually starting from if you want to make a realistic plan to change it.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •MacCruiskeen
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@OddOpinions5 So you pluck 1% from ... somewhere, and then call it "waste", rather than what it is, blatant theft from the British people.
Even if it's as small as you assert, that is 12 billion pounds stolen by these wankers, from ordinary people, for their own enrichment.
A truly staggering amount of money, and that's after you tried to minimise it.
Found the Tory.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Cdnpup • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@Omega @Alex Leathard I think it's just the in-thing, pavlovian response from certain corners of the Internet when some people see the phrase, "tax payers' money", and feel an irresistible urge to well actually all over everything.
Might be something to do with the crypto bros and their broken down Fiats. Not sure.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@OddOpinions5 No. Using shell companies to skim billions off of infrastructure projects and donating it back to the people who awarded it isn't "waste". It's blatant, shameless theft.
And yours is the sort of attitude which allows it to continue, while those responsible then stand up in parliament and rant about "benefits fraud" and "illegal immigrants stealing our money".
Alex Leathard
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Grant
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •There's a reason there's Londongrad.
UK is probably one of the most corrupt countries in the western world. This came to the fore around brexit. There's so much corruption lingering on of 'jolly fine chaps' doing what 'jolly fine chaps' do, i.e. have a word with a friend, or a friend of a friend and whoopee, more cash. Think Greensill. If it were in e.g. France, Cameron would be in jail. Instead, he's been made a Lord.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Grant • •@Grant That last Prime Minister of Portugal resigned because his chief of staff had been alleged to have a financial interest in the award of a lithium mining contract. This caused the government to collapse.
Can you seriously imagine a Tory Prime Minister resigning because one of his staff was financially involved with a company being awarded a national contract, let alone it causing fresh elections? The idea that there was even anything wrong with it would be ridiculous to them.
Yet Portugal is "corrupt" and the UK is not, apparently.
Grant
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Here's one...
Despite this... he still became PM and either way, there were zero consequences:
EDIT:
Replaced link to FT article, which is behind a paywall (shame.. FT's good). Found this instead:
itv.com/news/2022-07-26/hes-hi…
Sarah Brown
in reply to Grant • •Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •Once again you are conflating the actions of the British establishment with the entire British people.
Please tell us where you are from, so I can blame you for the evils historically comitted by your successive governments.
Captain Jack Sparrow
Unknown parent • • •I agree, England has a high level of ignorance and a dominant RW press, unfortunately
However generally less than 50% vote tory, even in 2019 when the tories won a landslide. I think that was 47% of the English vote.
Most ppl vote for a more progressive parties.
It's a free fediverse though, if you want to carry on hating an entire nation because of the evils committed by their elite, (and I'm not denying they happen) that is up to you. Goodbye.
CassandraVert
Unknown parent • • •The Arab Spring was essentially a GINI protest.
Yet at the time, the US' GINI index was worse than Egypt's.
And it's only gotten worse since then.
Captain Jack Sparrow
Unknown parent • • •OK. let's draw a line through this insane and pointless argument and agree that the English establishment have a lot to answer for, but they are not solely to blame for all the wrong in the world.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 No you're doing the conflating, not me.
I certainly never blame millions of people for the actions of a handful of monsters.
I'm not telling you where I'm from you mentalist. Besides would it matter?
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 You've been the ONLY person here generalising.
Stop trying to act like the rational, reasonable one now.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @essjayjay Man makes sweeping generalisations about someone they've never met then acts as if that's true.
Not certain but pretty sure that's a straw man argument.
Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •@sentient_water @partnumber2
Am I their biggest fanboy? That's news to me, I just ask that people distinguish between the British governments and establishment, and British (or English) commoners, who are also frequently downtrodden by their own elite.
I think you have a chip on your shoulder, old boy.
Also, I am entitled to my own opinions about the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza. If you don't like that, then feel free to fuck off.
Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •@sentient_water @partnumber2
and you talking about "the British" as if it is one complete unit is not generalising?
Goodbye.
Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •pls go away, I left twitter because of trolls like you
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 Nope that's you. Refer to the first thing I posted. I explicitly excluded the Scottish & Welsh & majority of the English from my point.
But your thin skinned defensiveness suggests you're heavily invested in the English being seen as noble distributors of civilisation.
Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •oh, please fuck off.
I am neither in denial or in defense of any of the many evils committed by the British empire, and have never said anything in their defense.
My only point is that not "all English" are in support of their establishment, nor should they be held in the same contempt.
Sorry if that is too difficult for you to comprehend.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •If you can't see that the fanboy comment was a joke based on your own statement then you're either not paying or not being a good faith actor.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 Don't call me old boy you Bellend.
We might get along if you weren't a pedantic, petty prick but hey ho.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Captain Jack Sparrow
in reply to Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water • • •goodbye, go and attempt to bully someone else.
or perhaps get a life.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 Passive aggressive much? Yes I probably should get a life but it's pretty difficult being physically disabled & autistic & traumatized but thanks for highlighting that.
Really "nice" of you.
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water
in reply to Captain Jack Sparrow • • •@Captain_Jack_Sparrow @partnumber2 This is what you responded to. Where I'm very clearly not making a generalisation. You replied to this. This is what you've been basing your whole tirade on.
'People don't realise how corrupt the UK is because the British (let's be honest mainly English) know how to spin, minimise, evade & manipulate like no others. Even the British public has zero clue just how corrupt it is."
You engaged with me. You started insulting me. You wouldn't drop it. But please tell everyone how I'm the bully.