Newspaper Watch

Jesu Christe and Good God Almighty. How on earth does this man get regarded as an expert on the economy? Will Hutton:

And there is Bruce Wasserstein, the larger-than-life, extravagantly rich current CEO, who now lives in London to escape even the US\’s minimal taxes.

He\’s a US citizen. Thus he pays US taxes. The US is unique in this regard, that you do not escape their minimal taxes (which, in NYC at least, are not minimal, they\’re higher than the UK…when you add Federal to State and City income taxes they\’re over 50%) by moving abroad. You still cough up to Uncle Sam what you would if you lived in the US (barring some minor adjustments fo amounts under $100,000 or so, which certainly aren\’t going to bother someone like Wasserstein).

Not knowing that simple and basic fact really rather makes anything else Hutton has to say on the subject a little suspect, doesn\’t it?

Just seen the front page today:

"Will We Have Room for Them All?"

or some such.

The UK population will increase by a third, to 81million, in the lifetime of children born today, experts predict.

So a small competitionette: what should the headline have been?

"Immigrants support house prices"?

The Times:

Christoph Blocher of the Swiss People’s Party led his party to victory after a campaign with a trident anti-immigrant tone

So, is that political triangulation or simply a three pronged strategy?

Carol Sarler:

When I finish writing this, I shall pour a glass of something red; it will shortly be read by a nice chap at The Times who will have recently returned from a fag break.

Amazing:

More than 100,000 million letters and parcels have already been left undelivered by to the present walkout, but officials at the Communication Workers Union are planning a fresh wave of strikes that threaten to cause constant disruption beyond Christmas.

100,000 million? You mean some 2,000 for every adult in the Kingdom? Impressive, I must say.

On one day, sorting office staff will strike, a union official disclosed. The next day it will be the turn of delivery staff, with drivers walking out the following day and technical and support staff on other days.

So they\’ll cripple the service indefinitely uty only lose one day\’s pay each week each. Clever, in a sense, maximum disruption at the least short term cost to the workers. But I have to admit, I\’m really not sure what they hope to achieve in the long term. The monopoly over delivery has gone hasn\’t it? They\’ll just be building up their own competitors.

Woman who is mugged of old, insured, mobile phone earns the price of 5 mobile phones writing about it.

I think this is actually quite a cute way of doing the research but your mileage may vary.

The beatroot can reveal that in their zeal to prove how ruinous recent immigration by new EU members – meaning Poles – has been to the very fabric of the United Kingdom, the Daily Mail (London) will go to any lengths – including giving people money to break the law.

Who is actually training journalists about the subjects they write upon? Anyone?

He is expected to make an audacious raid into Labour\’s natural territory by promising a clampdown on so-called "non-doms" – non-domiciled workers who live in the UK but are not registered to pay tax…

That\’s not what a non-dom is. We make two distinctions in UK tax law, between residents and those who are domiciled. Roughly speaking where you are resident is a year by year thing, domicile is a life-long thing (although it is possible to change it). I\’m reasonably sure that we\’ve got this distinction (which I\’m not sure that anyone else really has, at least not in quite the same form) because until the last decade or so it brought more tax money in that it lost. Because you could run off to Monaco or wherever and lose your residency, meaning that you didn\’t pay income tax in the UK, but your domicile was much more difficult to shake off and that left (I think I\’ve got this right) your estate still to be taxed by the UK.

Still, that quote isn\’t what non-doms are. Non-doms are registered to pay tax. They pay income tax on their UK earnings, just like everyone else. However, they do not pay income tax on their non-UK earnings. That\’s the difference: if you\’re UK domiciled you pay income tax on worldwide earnings. If non-dom, only on UK.

Perhaps this system needs to be changed, perhaps not, I don\’t think it really matters all that much either way. But reporting on it and not understanding what it is is really pretty sad.

This headline:

Tories must do or die in Blackpool

It\’s a party conference they\’re having, not a rerun of Zulu. They\’re going there to talk to fellow minded people, get drunk with them and if the past is any guide, screw a few of them (both physically and metaphorically).

A tad over the top, don\’t you think?

It\’s back. Yes, today the 2007 Labour Party Conference begins in earnest.

Have we had a 2007 Labour Party Conferrence before then?

This is why those journalists get paid the major bucks folks. Commenting upon Usmanov and the way in which his attempt to close down a few blogs has led to the story gaining new wind, Kevin Maguire tells us:

But in brief Usmanov hired fanatstically expensive London law firm Schillings to gag our former man in the Ukraine, Craig Murray, who wrote some very disobliging things about a businessman as touchy as he is rich.

It\’s those multiple layers of editors and fact checkers that make the major media outlets so useful, nay, invaluable.