New Labour: Taxpayers Are Scum, MPs Are VIPs
Remember when Tony Blair wanted to foist some hobbled-together, leaky old database on the public, which would contain all the details of the nation’s children? He knew that it would be accessible by all the paedophiles, weirdos and criminals under the sun, but he thought that was quite OK for the general public.
He just made sure that MPs and celebrities were excluded from the need to have their children’s details made viewable by all and sundry.
One law for the rich: one law for the poor who pay for the protection of the rich.
Now, after Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC - a grand title for a bunch of useless toerags) lost the details of half the people of New Britain, including all their financial data, because they were too thight-fisted and stupid to send the data securely, we learn that this will never happen if you are rich and famous.
MPs and VIPs are exempt from having to put their information on a system which loses data faster than it can be collected.
So, how was this arrived at? Was it just on the basis that 29 million taxpayers (the ones who pay for MPs to sponge off the state) do not matter compared with politicians and the rich and famous?
TimesOnline has this:
Mark Wallace, campaigns director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Its shocking that HMRC and Treasury ministers have been going round encouraging the public to use a system that they know is not secure. Revenue and Customs have lost the confidence of British taxpayers and they are failing spectacularly to win it back.
“It is essential for democracy that MPs have to use the same systems as their voters. A double standard is unacceptable.”
Mike Warburton, of accountants Grant Thornton, said his firm had previously raised concerns about the security of online filing system. Those doubts had now resurfaced because of the disclosure that MPs were not permitted to use it.
“Either the Revenue have a system that can guarantee confidentiality for all or they should defer plans to force online filing. It is extraordinary that MPs and others enjoy higher security,” he said.
Gordon Brown’s New Labour government really cannot help itself from proving that it is simply a bunch of halfwits trying to turn Britain into a banana republic.
The Telegraph:
The security of the online computer system used by more than three million people to file tax returns is in doubt after HM Revenue and Customs admitted it was not secure enough to be used by MPs, celebrities and the Royal Family.
Thousands of “high profile” people have been secretly barred from using the online tax return system amid concerns that their confidential details would be put at risk.
This provoked anger from consumer groups and accountants who said the same levels of security should be offered to all taxpayers regardless of their perceived fame.
HMRC was responsible for losing 25 million child benefit records and the latest admission will concern millions of people entrusting the online system with their confidential financial records.
BBC News says:
Concerns about data security have been raised after it emerged celebrities, Royals and MPs are blocked from submitting income tax returns online.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) admitted “high profile” individuals must submit forms by post because they are judged to require extra protection.
But critics said equal treatment should apply to all 3m self-assessment users.
Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers’ Alliance said: “This is a completely unacceptable double standard.”
So, do you have to file your tax returns online? That means you are just expendable scum.
Do you have special tax arrangements? That means you are another variety of scum, probably a rich MP. For the moment, anyway.
British Politicians: More Money Than Sense
It used to be that British people could sneer with superiority over the seedy and distasteful moneygrubbing politics of America and other banana republics, safe in the knowledge that in this country things were more sedate and more honest.
After the last seedy ten years of Tony Blair and New Labour, that is no longer the case. If anything, it seems to be getting worse under the big man with the erratic “moral compass”, Gordon Brown.
We now have the unedifying show of whether Peter Hain and his staff lied about the odd hundred grand of cash that sloshed through their campaign account or whether the whole sorry episode was just caused because they are incredibly stupid and incompetent people who should not be entrusted with the running of a whelk stall.
Either way, they should not be involved in politics. It should not be an arena for either criminals or idiots, despite the fact that it now seems we are governed only by both.
There is a story about it at The Guardian here, if you can stop yourself from vomiting over your computer as you read about our wonderful rulers.
What a bunch of unadulterated scum they all are.
We Will All Pay For Data Loss Scandal
Banks are full of money and people who are good at sums, or so the perception of them goes. It may be nearer to the truth that they are tottering forever on the edge of financial collapse and that they are run by people whose main talents are imitating sheep or lemmings and who could manage to lose money even if they lived under a perpetual avalanche of cash coated with very sticky glue.
One thing banks do not like, however, is having to pay for boring things like making people’s accounts secure when the government is responsible for making them totally insecure in the first place.
This from ComputerWorld sums it up:
Banks in the U.K. could end up spending upwards of $500 million to deal with the aftermath from the recent loss of computer disks containing bank account and other personal data belonging to about 25 million people, according to analyst firm Gartner Inc.
The amount is the total that banks might have to spend to close and reopen millions of bank accounts and reissue debit cards to affected customers, Gartner analyst Avivah Litan said in an alert released last week.
Herein lies the problem. The banks are already telling the government that they are not going to foot the bill. They prefer spending any spare cash on champagne parties and stratospheric bonuses for their own, not ensuring the data safety of their scummy customers.
So, by fair means or foul, the government will end up paying for its own scandalous and dimwitted error, which is as it should be.
But wait! The government does not have any money of its own, so it cannot possibly pay. Oh, dear! Where will all these squillions of squids come from to keep the poor banks afloat?
Oh, it’s OK. The government will just sponge or steal it from the poor taxpayer like it always does, so that way neither the government nor the banks loses out, just the poor schmucks whose data the government put in jeopardy in the first place because it is so useless and incompetent.
Hurrah!
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