Oh Dear Polly, Oh Dear

She\’s really not got this markets thing, has she?

A story headlined "Homeowners looking to sell" said "Non-dom foreigners living in the UK are preparing to sell their homes", quoting Knight Frank estate agency saying it "could lead to an exodus". But further on, another agent, Chesterton, reports "a record few months" in Knightsbridge.

Umm, if there are a few months of record purchases, this really rather has to mean that there are a few months of record sales. A rise in the number of people selling their homes is in fact entirely consistent with a rise in the number of people, umm, selling their homes so as to leave the country.

A press release from Greek shipowners threatening to depart was printed without a hint of verification.

We\’ve actually had an historical verification: the shipping industry moved from New York to London decades ago because, umm, the Americans changed their tax treatment of the industry and those who own it.

Those looking to the FT for sober evaluation of financial fact would do well to bear in mind the last two disreputable weeks of specious and polemical reporting, which has been overtly Tory propaganda.

As opposed to The Guardian which is what?

None of this solves the £25bn in tax avoidance identified by tax expert Richard Murphy this month in Missing Billions.

Now you\’re really losing it Polly: Our Richard? Tax Expert?

Labour gains a small sum from this, but it has angered the City without heartening any of the 90% basic rate taxpayers,

Jesu C….the 90% of the taxpayers who are basic rate payers not people who are paying a 90% basic rate of tax (although in Polly\’s dreams of course…) but even that\’s wrong.

Using figures buried in an HM Revenue & Customs document, the accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young has calculated that the number of higher-rate taxpayers has risen by 20 per cent since 2002-03, to 3.7 million. At the same time, the number of basic-rate taxpayers has increased by more than 5 per cent, to 23 million.

But much, much more importantly, "Labour" hasn\’t gained a small sum from this. The Treasury has. I know Polly\’s certain that "L\’etat c\’est moi" but that\’s really taking it too far.