David Cameron has to resign.

[PirateSmile]

If there is any evidence he has had even one penny of benefit from his father's dodgy tax arrangement, surely Cameron has to go?
He's saying 'it's a private matter' whilst presumably working on his notes for next month's conference on cracking down on such tax scams. You really couldn't make it up. He will no doubt plead ignorance but that's no defence. He is the PM. He should know he's benefiting from is essentially large scale fraud.
Are we really going to let him get away with this?

So said Marx, but the reality is most societies don't want to operate in a way that limits or abolishes class and wealth differential

This is an example of black and white thinking
A kind of, 'if you don't like it go and live in north Korea' comment

You've got to be a bit thick to think I was advocating communism

International Tax and Trust Law Firm In Providing International Tax and Trust Law Advice SHOCKER!

If governments are stupid enough to make their tax laws so complex that smart lawyers can find loopholes they cannot then blame the people who take advantage of those loopholes

The people who make them are also the people who take advantage of them

Such a lot of cap doffing on mumsnet

You've got to be a bit thick to think I was advocating communism

When you start insulting other posters you lose whatever point you may or may not have had.

I don't want to live in a world where the sins of the parents are revisited upon their children (and their grandchildren too).
There seems to be a really unhealthy attitude in the UK at the moment where we bay for blood not matter how unproven the accusations. We have lost sight of people needing to be proven guilty before we start punishing them.

Most societies limit wealth differential, without doing so we would have a winner take all situation with massive inequality and a very unstable situation

The people at the top are always mindful of the threat of peasants with pitchforks, their well being depends on a stable society where the peasants by and large accept their lot in life, believe the myth of meritocracy and view the wealthy as deserving of their good fortune.

i despise scameron. but you can't blame him for what his dad did

The situation with the Icelandic PM may not be identical to Cameron's position. The point I was raising when bringing him up was that the Icelandic people are asking difficult questions (and for 10% to sign a petition on the matter is a huge amount) whereas people in the UK seem content for Cameron et al to wave off the issue with a brush of the hand and insistence that 'it's a personal matter.'

I wasn't saying you are advocating communism. What you said was however the bare bones of Marx's theory: that in capitalist society the system is made by the ruling class for the benefit of the ruling class.

This is undoubtedly true in my very humble (and actually quite well educated) view. But as I said there hasn't been, in the main, any political or people led pressure to do anything about it.

I just don't understand how this can be news. Super-rich people use off-shore banking to reduce tax burden. It's happened for time immemorial. How is it surprising, or indeed news?

And how on earth can you say one is responsible for ones parents actions? Should we double the prison population then, if children of criminals are culpable too?

suzanne I'd be interested to know which nations limit wealth differential in the way you describe (apart from the obvious).

When you start insulting other posters you lose whatever point you may or may not have had
Did you just make up your own version of Godwin's law or something?

By the same token I rather think the passive aggressive strikethrough renders your arguement somewhat lame

suzanne I'd be interested to know which nations limit wealth differential in the way you describe (apart from the obvious).

Yep me too.

suzanne I'd be interested to know which nations limit wealth differential in the way you describe
There are many ways
Taxation and the welfare state
Regulation around monopolies
Market and trading laws and regulations in general
Minimum wage etc etc

The situation with the Icelandic PM may not be identical to Cameron's position. The point I was raising when bringing him up was that the Icelandic people are asking difficult questions (and for 10% to sign a petition on the matter is a huge amount) whereas people in the UK seem content for Cameron et al to wave off the issue with a brush of the hand and insistence that 'it's a personal matter.'

It is completely different and not comparable whatsoever. I think you can be fairly certain that the British public would be asking those difficult questions had Dave actually been the one avoiding tax.

I don't know what the Icelandic tax laws are so I don't know exactly how serious the Icelandic PM's actions are. However, it was actually him that did it and not his father.

Profits are constrained and wealth is redistributed, the poor and powerless are protected to an extent in most modern societies, surely that's obvious

The Icelandic people have every right to question their prime minister - as would the British if Cameron was doing the same thing - but he's not

Do you have a view on the Milliband brothers and their tax avoidance?

For the PP who accused me of going soft on the Millibands, please take note that I LOATE the Milliabands. They are London-centric career politicians. Ed managed to lose a winnable election simply by being an incompetent fuckwit. He also also almost singlehandedly managed to destroy the Labour Party in the process, all because he thought it was his 'birthright' to be leader. He was a man furthest removed as it's possible to be from the people he purported to represent.
Hope that's clear now

people in the UK seem content for Cameron at al to wave off the issue with a brush of the hand

A) Cameron himself is closing loopholes - seems he can do no right for doing wrong here.

B) it's like blaming someone for receiving stolen goods. Finding out they were legitimately bought. Then still banging on about them receiving stolen goods when it's clear they haven't.

Cameron June 2012 -

"Frankly some of these schemes where people are parking huge amounts of money offshore and taking loans back to minimise their tax rates, it is not morally acceptable,"

SoupDragon Every bit of my criticism of Cameron is predicated on the issue of him having benefited from the scheme. This is completely unknown at the moment, as he's refusing to answer questions about it.

Inkanta So surely you have answered your own question. He doesn't agree with it.

He says he doesn't agree with it. He may be richer because of it. I stress the word may.