Something to celebrate here:
A mother and son behind a Fitzrovia Thai restaurant have been locked in a £6m court fight over who owns the business.
Thai Metro, on Charlotte Street, named Britain’s most loved takeaway in 2017, was at the centre of a bitter row between chef Ekk Somboonsam, 51, and his 77-year-old mother Wanda Walker over the multi-million-pound family business and their properties.
Mr Somboonsam moved to the UK as a five-year-old. The business in Fitzrovia opened its doors in 2000, which he claimed to have founded.
The success of the business allowed the family to open a second restaurant and build a multi-million-pound property portfolio.
Family fights are not something to celebrate. Observe with a certain amusement perhaps.
The court heard Mrs Walker moved to London from Thailand in 1973, working as a cleaner and then setting up her own janitorial business.
She then moved into catering, providing Thai food at outdoor music festivals, including Glastonbury, and running a restaurant in Lewisham, the judge was told.
The Thai Metro restaurant was set up 23 years ago and went on to become a major success, scooping the “Britain’s Most-Loved Takeaway” award due to its five-star ratings and “unprecedented return rate”.
Bird arrives here from an impoverished shithole (Thailand was in 1973) and ends up, therough hard work and entreprenurialism, a multi-millionairess.
And folk say there’s no social mobility in our society.
Not paying much tax helps too. Not that I’m saying this particular take away was a cash business which under declared income, but it’s likely tax evasion is prevalent in such a business.
On the subject of social mobility if meritocracy is to mean anything it means that people can fall as well as rise, but that doesn’t happen as the elites have become very good at protecting their thick off spring, as we are witnessing in some of the college and university pro the terrorist Hamas demonstrations.
Michael Young’s book the rise of the Meritocracy was meant to be a warning and he even forecast the rise in populism. This is a great essay:
You can also listen to it being read out here:
https://engelsbergideas.com/podcast/ei-weekly/ei-weekly-listen-adrian-wooldridge-on-meritocracy/
Taxation is theft
Tax evasion stops that – like fighting off a thief
Quite right to be celebrated. I enjoy any story of someone starting with bugger all and making a go of it.
Not that I’m saying this particular take away was a cash business which under declared income, but it’s likely tax evasion is prevalent in such a business.
Love to see a few citations to back that up.
I don’t know about the Land o’ Wogs, but here in ‘Merica trying serious tax evasion via a take-out business is tantamount to asking for a room reservation at Club Fed. Taxing authorities at all levels (federal, state and local) audit those establishments on a routine basis. Any industry that deals in cash is watched like a hawk.
What BiND said. Its odd, the very same people who decreed that dividing people up by intellectual ability at age 11 was akin to fascism or something are now quite happy that the same division, only far worse, has been implemented, mainly at their say so.
Worse because the 11 plus only took off 25-30%, leaving the majority, and because only 10% went to university anyway, once you got out into the big wide world of work it was quite possible to leave your 11 plus failings behind and work you way up through dint of hard work and some evening classes, and end up in the managerial classes anyway, as there were so few degree holders most roles would be open to non-degree holders, if they were good enough. Now the age 18 educational apartheid is far more thoroughly enforced – no degree no job is virtually 100% now for any job above a certain level, regardless of whether you have plenty of experience or whether the person with a degree has any relevant experience or knowledge at all.
So 50% of the population are condemned to the minimum wage job class, regardless of their intelligence, or drive and ambition, and those with a degree are the only ones considered for preferment. And even the degree holders aren’t happy, because there’s too many of them and not enough ‘good’ jobs to go around. So they all feel like they’ve been sold a pup too.
Great work Tony!
What BiND said, plus…
There wouldn’t be an uprising against the meritocracy if it was actually a meritocracy. If the people in charge were those who had got there by the process of being good at observing and thinking critically then the West wouldn’t be in the mess that it’s in and there wouldn’t be quite so much to rise up against.
Instead we have the thick-as-porcine-excrement grandchildren of the people who might actually have got somewhere by merit. The current generation of “elite” only go beyond Zone 2 to get to the airport, have probably never met anybody from outside their bubble, and are sufficiently insulated from the results of their decisions that they never have a Damascene moment, failing upwards, leaving disaster in their wake until retiring on full pension at 52, all the while believing that they are the canine spheroids. That is the gap that’s important: the gap between the elite’s opinion of themselves and their deficiencies which are glaringly obvious to everyone outside their bubble.
‘Tis a UK comment not a US one. Incentives matter.
I understand UK authorities look for outliers rather than audit everyone. So declare in an expected range and you are left alone pretty much forever. And what does an audit do unless they check takings by observation before the visit? Till rolls take a lot of time to check vs the benefit, so they don’t get checked.
Hence the legal requirement to give a receipt WHETHER YOU WANT ONE OR NOT in some places. Romania did that due to exactly the kind of accounting I am talking about.
“I understand UK authorities look for outliers rather than audit everyone. So declare in an expected range and you are left alone pretty much forever. ”
I have acquaintances in the hospitality trade and can confirm that skimming cash off the top is endemic in that business (and indeed many others). After all its quite common even these days to find takeaway food outlets that only take cash, no cards. I doubt all of that is getting declared.
“Quite right to be celebrated. I enjoy any story of someone starting with bugger all and making a go of it.”
@TBH, not quite everyone. Hilary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren, for example.
Andre again,
When I did a project in Rome in the mid ‘90s it was a legal requirement to take a receipt.
What Jim said
When my parents bought another hotel, seller told my father
“I’ve never declared fruit manchine, pool table etc takings in the Pub to Inland Revenue”
We continued
“@TBH, not quite everyone. Hilary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren, for example.”
In the case of Hilary, she went to an expensive liberal arts college, so has come from a level of privilege. Warren, on the other hand, seems to be from legit working class origins. I dislike both of them intensely as politicians, so I’m agreement there.
The kinds of people I’m talking about are my parents, both from single parent working class families, started with about $200 and my Dad’s car and now are minted. Good for them.