If only Mrs. Phillip Green's wife would pay her taxes in the UK

[EggFriedRice]

I have read about Mrs.Phillip Green's wife who lives in Monaco, she is also the owner of Topshop in the UK and has been paid the biggest ever dividend in UK history, over £1 billion pounds, now what I fail to understand is why does she not live in the UK where her businesse's are located? why does she choose to live as a tax exile? Does this not lead many people to believe that she is deliberately trying to avoid paying UK tax? Yes of course we are not stupid, I have destroyed my Topshop card & will never buy another item from Topshop again, I think that Mr. & Mrs. Green are hypocrites, end of

granted - I think you may have an excessively high view of the ethics of gamekeepers ;)

There is still the central point that "person who is good at saving money" = "good person to give advice on saving money"

It's not like he was given any executive power - you don't HAVE to take that advice.

granted.

So he donates to charity, so do a hell of a lot of other people who aren't evading their responsibilities. Actually it's ordinary people and poor people who donate more as a proportion of their income. The parable of the widow's mite is still applicable today.

Just want to bump this topic so it is in peoples minds when they are out shopping.

Granted I am absolutely serious about Arcadia being cheap.

It is cheap compared to other high street stores (Ted Baker/Whistles/Hobbs/Reiss) and is better quality than many of the other cheap shops (River Island/New Look/primark) The reason it is so cheap is because of the volume it sells, something achievable only because it has hundreds of stores.

If you want a high street full of independent shops selling quality items (as opposed to "ladies boutiques" selling cheap nylon dresses from china) then the reality is you will be paying a great deal more for a dress than £60.

Independents have no chance against larger retailers and are pretty much always going to be more expensive and so they get outcompeted

nancydrew - I suppose it's all relative - compared to Ted Baker/Whistles/Hobbs/Reiss (well, actually, I'm so plebeian I've never even heard of Reiss, much less been in there and eyed up the fashion, but I assume it's similar), then yes, the Arcadia stuff is 'cheap' - but that's only because the shops you named are unbelievably expensive.

Compared to where I shop, then they're fairly pricey.

byrel - that's just not true - go to France/Spain etc.

Lots of v reasonably pricedindependent shops - bought some lovely linen itms on my last holiday in Spain from small independent shop - always try to bear stuff there as it's so much cheaper and nicer than stuff here.

Where do you shop then? I am assuming not actually the sort of places that make up your idea of a "lovely" high street with "little, individual unique owner run shops"?

And that is the problem: everyone likes the idea of a great bakery and butcher, perhaps a little cheese shop and a cafe on the corner selling delicious homemade cakes, a florist and a little boutique selling indivdual cotton dresses but very few people will actually pay for that vision of loveliness.

granted - and you could have probably bought those things cheaper in a spanish hypermarket somewhere.

There was a programme on recently highlighting some well known UK stores including TopShop that use cheap foreign labour to manufacturer some of their clothes here in the UK, the factories were somewhere in the Midlands, the workers were paid £2 an hour, some of the workers were illegal immigrants, some did not want to be interviewed. Now you would expect to see this sort of thing in places like India, but not on our doorstep, shocking to see Topshop clothes being made by exploiting under-paid workers. Philip Green was approached by the programme and became quite angry, he refused to talk to the interviewer and appeared embarrassed by being put on the spot. If he had nothing to hide surely he could have said something to support his empire. I personally find Topshop clothes rubbish quality & seriously over-priced.

Yes EFR, the Arcadia group were involved. It was shown on Dispatches on C4.

There's an article about it here

Thanks for the article wubbly.

My sis works in retail/manufacturing and they have enormous difficulties with the companies whom they work subcontracting out work or the subcontractors, subcontracting in breach of contract (either because they are contractually prohibited from subcontracting at all or because they subcontract outside the designated business terms)

It is an industry wide scandal and very difficult to control.

Interested to know where thse who boycott/will be boycotting Arcadia do shop?

I may not be remembering this accurately, but I'm sure the programme showed the clothes made in these sweatshops loaded up into unmarked white vans. They then drove around the corner and loaded up into offical company trucks. This went on for hours until the full order was loaded up.

Surely someone at the retailer must have an idea of what was going on? Otherwise, why not just send a named truck to collect the order from the premises?

I didn't see program so have no idea about the details.

Although both the journalist and Arcadia state that it was a problem with subcontractors subcontracting.

Who knows? I tend to be quite cynical and assume, like you, that companies must have an idea although my sis (who has lots of experience in the industry and with getting ETI accreditation) always says she would be astonished if the companies were aware.

nancydrew - I do usually shop in 'little independent shops', yes. Will buy stuff from Primark on occasion, buy kids' stuff from M&S, Tsco or George at Asda (my favourite for kids' clothes - decent quality and ridiculously cheap). Most of my stuff really does come from little independent shops, markets, holidays etc - I really, really object to branding and would never dream of paying more for clothes because they had some poncy label in.

Certainly much cheaper than Arcadia stuff, and no worse quality.

Maybe you should try it? You might be surprised...

Granted What makes you think I don't shop in independent stores? Like you, I actually do most of my shopping in independent stores although I don't usually live in the UK so probably have more opportunity not to buy brands than most

But I certainly don't find them cheaper than the likes of Arcadia. Far from it.