To think that David Cameron should resign?

[deeedeee]

Presiding over a government that is trying to spin doctors and teachers into militants ,

Supporting a chancellor that has failed to reduce the deficit by his own standards and has delivered two hated and u turning budgets in a row, over the death of the British Steel Industry, is attacking renewable energy in times of climate change, is taking support from the ill and disabled is and NOW he has admitted benefiting from TAX AVOIDANCE????!!!!
This is all wrong. How many more years of this?

Better than the awful years of Labour rule where they ran this country into the ground

I quite agree!

And AliceInUnderpants ODFOD

It's OK apparently the proud tory voters are making our argument for us. And I didn't vote for Blair either! He was Thatcher lite!

Well, Cameron has been caught lying about his tax affairs.

That's pretty significant. Yes, he should resign.

The next leader of the Conservatives is not necessarily going to be Gideon or Boris. Theresa May has her eye on it, too.

When the MP scandal emerged in 2009 barely anyone wasn't implicated regardless of party. Only a very small minority were put in a position where they had to resign.

I imagine there are a fair few MPs of all parties twitching uncomfortably right now.

Most people do want to keep most of what they earn, and outside of mumsnet I imagine the reaction to the late DC's father won't be one of horror but of understanding, to a point - I think most people with some knowledge of how the tax system works have tried to minimise the amount they pay to it.

Traditionally, teachers have never voted conservative. They haven't lost votes in that sense - don't know about doctors.

I'm not sure how I feel about this government. I hate a lot that they've done but I worked in public services during the Blair and Brown years and saw firsthand the waste and the money flung around and considering it all with hindsight it was frightening. I would never want to go back to that or to the culture of welfare dependency (and I know it is a testy subject on here) where the best career move for a working class woman was to have several children: again, firsthand, I have known many young women with a partner working in a low paid job who have had multiple children and are 'earning' an equivalent to my salary in tax credits and in child benefit. I don't think it has been a case of 'having the children for money' - generally speaking though, that conversation even if only an inner dialogue about can we afford a third/fourth flies out of the window and of course, because the ever benevolent welfare state will take over. These families tend to be far from the pitiful images of children huddling around food banks: on the contrary they are thriving and income wise are doing well thank you very much.

With that being said I did not condone the treatment of the junior doctors and while I'm not anti-outsing the LAs for schools there do need to be some sort of nationally agreed Ts and Cs for teachers. I am also against the cuts to disabled people but then it's a hugely sensitive subject and 'disabled' covers such a broad spectrum I don't know whether it might be worth bringing in a totally new system; I don't know what though.

In any case, I won't vote for Labour (and some of you may be interested to know that the lovely caring warm Labour Party have someone extremely high up in it who completely ignored my correspondence re not being paid minimum wage - this was before it went up to £7.20 - perhaps they don't care that much about the poor as they'd like us to believe) this lot I'm not totally convinced know what they are doing - sorry DC - so who the bloody hell DO I vote for!?

Answers on a postcard ...

But Cameron lied about it.

I don't get why he would resign. He held some units in a trust, which he sold before he was elected PM. He made a little bit of profit and put it on his tax return.

I wonder how many freelancers on MN give themselves a wage which keeps them in the lower tax bracket then pay themselves dividends from their company so they pay less tax?

I wonder how many labour, lib dem or SNP MPs will publish their tax returns? I won't hold my breath when none of them do it.

I wonder if Blair, mandleson and some of the other labour grandees were whiter than white when they were in office? Erm no I don't think so...

herecome

A majority of people didn't vote Tory. But FPTP waved them through.

Intelligence has nothing to do with voting habits (my degree's an Oxford one). It's to do with empathy and compassion. I hated Blair as much as the next person but I wouldn't vote for the Nasty Party if they were the last ones standing.

The point is, he (or rather this late father, I think) will be doing exactly what most people do - maximising their finances for personal gain.

Independent schools operate as charities despite existing for a small and extremely privileged elite: why - because of tax breaks. When I had new flooring put down in my apartment towards the tail end of 2015, I paid for the flooring and underlay happily enough (national company by the way) and then was told the £220 I needed to pay for the fitting needed to be paid in cash. People sign homes over to their children or place savings in their children's names and open ISAs. People just don't want to be paying tax. People like Charlotte church who try, literally, to sound like the voice of an angel by saying they'd happily pay 70% tax just sound like the voice of an idiot.

I don't think most people care hugely that DC's late father legally minimised the tax he paid because most people do.

be careful what you wish for.

Everyone wanted rid of gove. Now we have nicky morgan!!!

I voted lib dem when the choice was between tory and Blair, they were slightly better IMO then

A certain other prime minister, didn't resign over weapons of mass destruction (or the fact there weren't any), which was far worse in my eyes. They all can't be trusted and are in it for themselves

The Lib Dems presented themselves as slightly left of Labour in those days bacony. I just vote for whoever's most likely to boot the Tories out.

Quite, LEM!

Yoko, I really don't think that insulting people is a particularly intelligent way to bring them round to your way of thinking.

I agree the voting system in this country is flawed but I am unconvinced that the end result would be different were everybody forced to vote, or if parties were elected in using a system which favoured numbers of votes as the end result rather than individual members of parliament - I actually think UKIP would have a strong hold in that instance to be honest.

Compassion is an admirable quality as is empathy: however in terms of leading the country, rather more is needed. Otherwise I could do it - and trust me that wouldn't end well! :)

Those castigating Cameron for for his unethical and hypocritical approach might want to consider the example set by that grandee of the far Left, Tony Benn. Prior to his death, and through a set of convoluted arrangements, he ensured that his children would pay the absolute minimum in tax upon the inheritance of his £5 million estate. Instead of securing a very healthy £2 million, HMRC received around £50k. So the notion that this sort of behaviour is the sole preserve of wealthy Tories is an absolute fallacy. Bastions of socialism are just as unprincipled when it comes to the crunch.

'I don't get why he would resign. He held some units in a trust, which he sold before he was elected PM. He made a little bit of profit and put it on his tax return.'

I think basically Cameron shouldn't have got on his soap box and said this, when he obviously was not squeaky clean himself -

"Those people who work hard, who pay their taxes, and out of that post-tax income, save up to go and see Jimmy Carr – he's taking that money and stuffing it into something where he doesn’t have to pay taxes. That is not fair. That is not right. It isn't morally right."

Yes he should go. I know he will be replaced by an identikit asshat but he needs to be pushed not leave in his own sweet time on his own terms.

yoko - intelligence has a lot to do with "understanding who you voted for" and you claim proud Tory voters can't.

Comments like "the nasty party" suggest Oxford Brookes. Not exactly an educated comment. Is it acceptable to call Labour and Lib-Dem as the welfare dependency parties (as someone mentioned up-thread) or would that be nasty and offensive?

I went to a much better University. 82-79 :)

Of course it isn't and it extends way beyond the Houses of Parliament.

If Cameron were made to resign over this - over the sins of the father if you like - there would be much uncomfortable twitching and probably demands of further resignations, probably leading to Corbyn sitting on his own on the green benches which I think some labour supporters would rather like

At least no one would care how he was dressed, I suppose.

Above post agreeing with RadicalRooster

Comments like "the nasty party" suggest Oxford Brookes. Not exactly an educated comment. Is it acceptable to call Labour and Lib-Dem as the welfare dependency parties (as someone mentioned up-thread) or would that be nasty and offensive?

Wow, snobbishness and supidity in one short paragraph. The difference being is that the label 'the nasty party' was that it was self applied. Theresa May popularised the expression in a speech at a Tory party conference, during one of their periodic attempts to de-toxify the Tory party.

Joffrey, I agree, there was a thread on here from a small business holder a few days ago who said she felt a 'mug' for paying her way through life when others can squirrel a lot of it away in off shore accounts or whatever. A few others suggested she did the same , if you cant beat them, join them. Maybe this is just the general feeling and just leads to more people doing the same thing.
my dh is PAYE, we are not rich or ever had any reason to not pay our taxes, but it does get to me when you read about how others manage to avoid paying so much.
I cant see much happening to DC before the EU referendum, this latest story will be old news by next week - I am not surprised by it anyway, its been going on for years and years and while people can afford fancy accountants and the loopholes are there, it will just continue I think. I bet a lot of politicans are up to their neck in all sorts anyway and get twitchy when things like this come to light!

I don't like the guy, didn't vote for him, there's something about him that makes my skin crawl. But I do believe in democracy and enough of you lot out there voted for the fool for him to legitimately be our PM. I just hope there's enough of the NHS left at the next general election for it to be saveable.

It was a hedge fund. Money was paid out untaxed and was declared on tax return, paying 40% tax. Had it been an avoidance scheme that would not have happened.
Perhaps we should ALL look at where our pension contributions are earning their dough. Yes, you guessed, offshore hedge funds.

I am not and never have been a tory supporter but I do think the reporting of this has been very poor and the call for his head absolutely ridiculous.

What his father did has no bearing on him.

LikeDylan Exactly - I thought that was a pretty famous quote from Theresa May! 'You know what some people call us - the Nasty Party'.

He held some units in a trust, which he sold before he was elected PM

Sounds like get rid of the evidence quick nifty forward planning to me - selling in January 2010 in case he was elected PM in May 2010.

Would he have sold otherwise I wonder.......and is there more that he 'got rid of' that we don't know about at all?

I've no doubt that once he's no longer PM he'll be once again be taking advantage of the tax avoidance measures that are not at the moment against his principles.

Not saying he's the only less than honest PM in the history of British politics but that isn't any kind of excuse so I don't understand why some people keep spouting it as some kind of defence.

He's tried to play us and been caught out. He never could can't now be believed.