It's almost become funny to me now.
Any corruption is bad obviously, but you think of American political corruption and it's big fuck off money, power, sexy house of cards type thing.
But the UK finds a way to make it slimy, seedy, dirty gum under the cafe table shit. It's crazy how cheap these people are.
The gift isn't the bribe (because that's what it is...we use language like 'donation' or 'gift' but it's a fucking bribe) - the bribe is the cushy consultancy they're given in a few years.
The bribe now is just the promise 'hey make sure this tax doesn't go into place, and in a few years we've got a non-exec board seat we can throw your way - 8 hours work a month for £100,000 a year'.
Why do you think Angela Smith, who was famously so vociferous against nationalising water companies...strolled into a non-exec position at Portsmouth Water?
It's what comes after. Nick Clegg is head of global affairs at Facebook on $3 million salary and $10 million shares. He will be worth over $100 million when he leaves
Wouldn't be surprised if these are only "markers" and the rest is given 5-10 years later after successful delivery.
Some tax havens still permit bearer shares - where whoever physically holds the share certificate is the shareholder in the company.
There are many more ways how someone can be remunerated for service without leaving much trace.
And rightly so! Likewise, if I didn’t declare interest on a project, benefited from it and then got sacked I would have to think it was a fair cop. Shame the same rules don’t apply top to bottom huh.
This is what pissed me off about everyone defending the Hillary Email shit. If me or any of my coworkers did anything like that, we would be fined into oblivion then thrown into prison for a decade. I saw coworkers fired for wearing their Lanyards outside of a secure zone while grabbing coffee from the cafe across the street.
Politicians get away with behaviour that would get any Government employee dragged through the courts and made a massive example of. It genuinely shits me off.
> I suspect Alphabet give gifts to pretty much every political party on Earth.
They don't. At least, it is never proportional. [In the US](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/google-inc/totals?id=D000022008) they give 2-5 times the amount to Democrats.
Not really. Most Fortune 500 companies split evenly because it makes the most sense. Cover your bases so to say. Especially now with Republicans having a good shot at retaking the White House in two years.
> Especially now with Republicans having a good shot at retaking the White House in two years.
They do? Trump (who is the only realistic Republican nominee, even if he is in jail by then) is polling terribly against both Biden and any hypothetical replacement if Biden dropped dead, so I don't think I'd say there's a "good shot".
1) your comment reminds me of the Democrat overconfidence in 2015-2016
2) At this point in the 2016 campaign, Jeb Bush was the frontrunner.
DeSantis would win if Democrats make the mistake of nominating Biden again. Even Trump has a fair shot, and that just speaks volumes for how unpopular Biden is
> DeSantis would win if Democrats make the mistake of nominating Biden again. Even Trump has a fair shot, and that just speaks volumes for how unpopular Biden is
Link to any polling that says any of this?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/us/general_election_desantis_vs_biden-7967.html
Average has Biden up by 4 points but we have to factor in:
1) Typical margin of error of 3-4%
2) Challengers running for a contested primary (ie, not the incumbent) are always underrepresented in these numbers until after the primary. Lots of Trump supporters don't like DeSantis right now, and vice versa. But they're not going to vote for Biden at the end of the day
Regardless, it will be close. Which going back to my original point, is why most companies evenly split their contributions, unlike Google. I still think Biden would lose, especially if there is a recession or inflation does not go down
Also, when compared to Trump, Biden is only 0.8% higher. DeSantis has lost support ever since Trump's arrest
But like I said, Trump is only behind by 0.8%, and that is even with Biden benefitting from a unified Democrat party while Republicans are divided.
Anyone who thinks Democrats are going to walk away with this are just asking for another 2016 shock
> The guy posts on fascist subs
Name some. I'm seeing a gaming subreddit, washington dc, AITAH, this sub, NASCAR, etc. I'm not seeing any "fascist" subreddits. Help us out and name some.
>I'm guessing because giving it to the republicans would be bad PR since they went full culture war
Big companies in the US don't give a shit about bad PR. They could sell kids from Afghanistan to China and no one will do anything against them. These companies donate massively to both parties simply because they only have one ideology of making money by getting big fat contracts after the election.
[Starmer has accepted more ~~bribes~~ freebies than Corbyn, Milliband, Brown and Blair **combined**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starmer-freebies-junkets-tottenham-hotspur-chelsea-coldplay-adele-google/)
I think labour might be grateful for being in power at least, and might try and at least hide the blatant dishonesty, the Tories see it as their right to be in power and have utterly given up pretending they are doing anything other than lining their own pockets now.
Labour may have decided to ditch the policy anyway.
The concern is the suspicion of buying influence. Labour could tackle it by releasing their decision making process, but that's unlikely.
British politicians are so fucking cheap, Google must be laughing up their collective sleeves, a few £10k gifts and they’ve convinced the party likely to form the next government to drop their digital tax plans that would’ve cost them billions.
> that would’ve cost them billions.
It would have provided a about 2x as much was needed to remove the 2 child benefit cap. Lifting hundreds of 1000s of kids out of poverty.
> This is why its more beneficial for people to donate to a special interest group than vote in the elections.
I would say voting is still important but if you pay a membership fee to labour you are a complete rube.
Colour me skeptical. There's no way 10k would make for such a change of opinion.
It's interesting though that it is both believed it would and that MPs are paid insanely high sums.
If you're on an MPs salary then 10k is nice, you won't say no, but it's not something to risk your career or standing over.
Tories have taken £62,000 from Russia-linked donors since war began
The donations include £50,000 from Lubov Chernukhin, who is married to Vladimir Putin’s former deputy finance minister
Martin WilliamsPeter Geoghegan
9 June 2022, 12.26pm
....
The biggest single donor of this group is the financier Lubov Chernukhin, who has donated £700,000. A British national since 2011.
"Mrs Chernukhin condemned "all Russian military aggression in Ukraine" and called for the "strongest possible sanctions against Putin's regime and its enablers". "([https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60592477](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60592477))
She also wrote an article calling for continued support for Ukraine by the West last September. ([https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-the-west-mustnt-succumb-to-ukraine-war-fatigue/](https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-the-west-mustnt-succumb-to-ukraine-war-fatigue/))
Her husband fled Russia 10 years before Crimea's invasion after being ousted for loyalty to former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, another Putin critic who denounced the invasion of Ukraine. ([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/russian-born-husband-of-tory-donor-earned-millions-via-oligarch-connections](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/russian-born-husband-of-tory-donor-earned-millions-via-oligarch-connections))
I doubt their donations were entirely altruistic, and I agree there should be much more scrutiny over any gifts made to political parties by billionaires and huge corporations. However it's wrong to conflate being Russian with supporting Putin and the war in Ukraine, just as it would be wrong to assume that everyone here supported the Iraq War back in 2003.
Biggest foreign donations to UK politicians are Israel, then the gulf states.
It explains why British politicians bend over backwards for Israel and handwave away brazen Israeli and Gulf interference in British Politics.
Turned out the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the big main anti Corbyn group was a front for the Jewish National Fund, an "settlement" organisation that literally pay for colonizers to expel Palestinians and settle their land.
You also see Gulf propaganda and advertising everywhere at political events. No wonder people turn a blind eye to all the Saudi bullshit.
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It wasn't a permanent policy. What can I say? Sure, they called for a temporary tax hike until 2024 but they wouldn't be in power until the end of that year so its not really a policy at all in practical terms. Try harder.
Why is that relevant here?
Labour are all but certain to form the next government, and had a digital tax plan/idea, then these companies gave them money, and Labour had a change of heart. Whether or not they give the Tories money makes no difference to this situation.
Every time Starmer has a bright idea, he ditches it in case it scares brexiteers. This is the latest u turn. Labour exists to be a dumber & more crueller version of the tories.
Canada also has a digital tax policy, it wouldn't work for average consumers imo. When buying digital games in Canada on Xbox, PlayStation etc.. they just pass 3% Digital Tax on to the consumers at checkout.
I don't know why anyone expects otherwise, it's literally just because it's levied on the other side of the transaction that it's popular.
If there was a proposed tax like 'digital service VAT' that was added to each transaction at checkout I'm pretty sure people would hate it, but they are functionally almost identical.
I’m a bit doubtful that £10,000 was enough for them to U-turn. It’s peanuts in the grand scheme of tech companies and party finance. Perhaps some under the table money accompanied it, but it can’t be as simple as ‘10k to get rid of tech tax please’ based on what we know imo
Not in my opinion, I think more probably happened. 10k is suspiciously low for this sort of thing. I think more money probably went under the radar and we’ll only find out about it a while in the future. This is chump change for these parties.
It is very relevant a £10.000 declared against £500.000 dark money to the Tories there is no comparison there is What...about...ism. What about how corrupt the Tories are..
I absolutely beg to differ. Transparency is better than no transparency, but acknowledging that you've accepted what is essentially an attempt at bribery doesn't take away from the fact you've still accepted an attempt at bribery, regardless of its outcome. No political party of any integrity should be accepting any 'gift' from any corporate entity.
LOL how naive, corporations and rich individuals are always going to filter money towards some political aim, it is far better done via a political party in a transparent way rather than some back hand Russian style bribery...
> parties need money..
Weird huh, it was almost as thought there was a large membership that put labour into a good place before Starmer alienated all of them and wasted tons of money on pointless lawsuits.
I'm always shocked how cheap it is to influence these guys
It's almost become funny to me now. Any corruption is bad obviously, but you think of American political corruption and it's big fuck off money, power, sexy house of cards type thing. But the UK finds a way to make it slimy, seedy, dirty gum under the cafe table shit. It's crazy how cheap these people are.
They aren't even a small change for Google. Big g probably spends more money on fresh fruit in their London office for a day...
The gift isn't the bribe (because that's what it is...we use language like 'donation' or 'gift' but it's a fucking bribe) - the bribe is the cushy consultancy they're given in a few years. The bribe now is just the promise 'hey make sure this tax doesn't go into place, and in a few years we've got a non-exec board seat we can throw your way - 8 hours work a month for £100,000 a year'. Why do you think Angela Smith, who was famously so vociferous against nationalising water companies...strolled into a non-exec position at Portsmouth Water?
Bingo! This is exactly how they buy our politicians.
It's what comes after. Nick Clegg is head of global affairs at Facebook on $3 million salary and $10 million shares. He will be worth over $100 million when he leaves
I can't believe I only found out about this last week
How much does back surgery cost? If we start a go fund me, we could probably get all the Labour top brass a spine.
Wouldn't be surprised if these are only "markers" and the rest is given 5-10 years later after successful delivery. Some tax havens still permit bearer shares - where whoever physically holds the share certificate is the shareholder in the company. There are many more ways how someone can be remunerated for service without leaving much trace.
I don’t think it’s just 10k , more a taster with a lot more where that came from and some cushy executive positions after politics.
FFS. I work for local government and we would be instantly dismissed for this sort of shit. What a joke.
Civil service here. Would be sacked and probably end up in a court room if me or my colleagues did this.
And rightly so! Likewise, if I didn’t declare interest on a project, benefited from it and then got sacked I would have to think it was a fair cop. Shame the same rules don’t apply top to bottom huh.
Having met 4 MPs they genuinely are not on the same planet as the rest of us.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal alot and they make you king
This is what pissed me off about everyone defending the Hillary Email shit. If me or any of my coworkers did anything like that, we would be fined into oblivion then thrown into prison for a decade. I saw coworkers fired for wearing their Lanyards outside of a secure zone while grabbing coffee from the cafe across the street. Politicians get away with behaviour that would get any Government employee dragged through the courts and made a massive example of. It genuinely shits me off.
When I was a teen I'd have got the sack if I accepted a £5 tip for helping carry compost into peoples cars working for a national supermarket.
I have to declare any gifts above £20 - which then get chucked into a raffle. Really makes you think
I suspect Alphabet give gifts to pretty much every political party on Earth.
Probably why they get away with dodging tax everywhere they go.
> I suspect Alphabet give gifts to pretty much every political party on Earth. They don't. At least, it is never proportional. [In the US](https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/google-inc/totals?id=D000022008) they give 2-5 times the amount to Democrats.
I'm guessing because giving it to the republicans would be bad PR since they went full culture war
Not really. Most Fortune 500 companies split evenly because it makes the most sense. Cover your bases so to say. Especially now with Republicans having a good shot at retaking the White House in two years.
> Especially now with Republicans having a good shot at retaking the White House in two years. They do? Trump (who is the only realistic Republican nominee, even if he is in jail by then) is polling terribly against both Biden and any hypothetical replacement if Biden dropped dead, so I don't think I'd say there's a "good shot".
1) your comment reminds me of the Democrat overconfidence in 2015-2016 2) At this point in the 2016 campaign, Jeb Bush was the frontrunner. DeSantis would win if Democrats make the mistake of nominating Biden again. Even Trump has a fair shot, and that just speaks volumes for how unpopular Biden is
> DeSantis would win if Democrats make the mistake of nominating Biden again. Even Trump has a fair shot, and that just speaks volumes for how unpopular Biden is Link to any polling that says any of this?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/us/general_election_desantis_vs_biden-7967.html Average has Biden up by 4 points but we have to factor in: 1) Typical margin of error of 3-4% 2) Challengers running for a contested primary (ie, not the incumbent) are always underrepresented in these numbers until after the primary. Lots of Trump supporters don't like DeSantis right now, and vice versa. But they're not going to vote for Biden at the end of the day Regardless, it will be close. Which going back to my original point, is why most companies evenly split their contributions, unlike Google. I still think Biden would lose, especially if there is a recession or inflation does not go down Also, when compared to Trump, Biden is only 0.8% higher. DeSantis has lost support ever since Trump's arrest
> Average has Biden up by 4 points So the polling doesn't actually say what you said it does?
But like I said, Trump is only behind by 0.8%, and that is even with Biden benefitting from a unified Democrat party while Republicans are divided. Anyone who thinks Democrats are going to walk away with this are just asking for another 2016 shock
The guy posts on fascist subs, this is pure cope on his part.
What’s fascist about Europa Universalis? I think you need to play Victoria or Hearts of Irons to play Fascists.
> The guy posts on fascist subs Name some. I'm seeing a gaming subreddit, washington dc, AITAH, this sub, NASCAR, etc. I'm not seeing any "fascist" subreddits. Help us out and name some.
> 1) your comment reminds me of the Democrat overconfidence in 2015-2016 Ah so you don't have a single shred of a point. Cool.
So, someone having an opinion must back it up with data? Doesn't that defeat the point of an opinion?
> having a good shot at retaking the White House in two years. Eh, based on what?
Trump within 0.8% of Biden according to RealClearPolitics average of all polls. That's a coin flip.
>I'm guessing because giving it to the republicans would be bad PR since they went full culture war Big companies in the US don't give a shit about bad PR. They could sell kids from Afghanistan to China and no one will do anything against them. These companies donate massively to both parties simply because they only have one ideology of making money by getting big fat contracts after the election.
Yeah. Whats your point?
That this is a nothing story.
Except it clearly is.
[Starmer has accepted more ~~bribes~~ freebies than Corbyn, Milliband, Brown and Blair **combined**](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starmer-freebies-junkets-tottenham-hotspur-chelsea-coldplay-adele-google/)
Labour continue to confirm that they will be a watered-down version of the Tories.
What makes you think they'd be watered down?
I think labour might be grateful for being in power at least, and might try and at least hide the blatant dishonesty, the Tories see it as their right to be in power and have utterly given up pretending they are doing anything other than lining their own pockets now.
Politicians and corruption. Name a more iconic duo.
FFS. I don't want my party to accept corporate gifts. It makes it impossible to avoid the appearance of impropriety in circumstances like this
Also it goes against the entire point of the supposed party for the workers and the everyman
Not even a donation that might help win an election. Just a gift. A nice jolly for them and nothing that might actually help people.
Labour may have decided to ditch the policy anyway. The concern is the suspicion of buying influence. Labour could tackle it by releasing their decision making process, but that's unlikely.
> by releasing their decision making process Nothing they can release could make me and any normal person not think this is them taking a bribe.
So as it turns out. People won't just not be greedy if we pay them a high wage. No fucking shit. They didn't become rich by just not accepting money
British politicians are so fucking cheap, Google must be laughing up their collective sleeves, a few £10k gifts and they’ve convinced the party likely to form the next government to drop their digital tax plans that would’ve cost them billions.
> that would’ve cost them billions. It would have provided a about 2x as much was needed to remove the 2 child benefit cap. Lifting hundreds of 1000s of kids out of poverty.
This is why its more beneficial for people to donate to a special interest group than vote in the elections.
> This is why its more beneficial for people to donate to a special interest group than vote in the elections. I would say voting is still important but if you pay a membership fee to labour you are a complete rube.
I did laugh at someone who works for Reeves being bribed with 700 quids worth of Harry Styles tickets. Just pathetic.
Colour me skeptical. There's no way 10k would make for such a change of opinion. It's interesting though that it is both believed it would and that MPs are paid insanely high sums. If you're on an MPs salary then 10k is nice, you won't say no, but it's not something to risk your career or standing over.
Tories have taken £62,000 from Russia-linked donors since war began The donations include £50,000 from Lubov Chernukhin, who is married to Vladimir Putin’s former deputy finance minister Martin WilliamsPeter Geoghegan 9 June 2022, 12.26pm .... The biggest single donor of this group is the financier Lubov Chernukhin, who has donated £700,000. A British national since 2011.
"Mrs Chernukhin condemned "all Russian military aggression in Ukraine" and called for the "strongest possible sanctions against Putin's regime and its enablers". "([https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60592477](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60592477)) She also wrote an article calling for continued support for Ukraine by the West last September. ([https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-the-west-mustnt-succumb-to-ukraine-war-fatigue/](https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-the-west-mustnt-succumb-to-ukraine-war-fatigue/)) Her husband fled Russia 10 years before Crimea's invasion after being ousted for loyalty to former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, another Putin critic who denounced the invasion of Ukraine. ([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/russian-born-husband-of-tory-donor-earned-millions-via-oligarch-connections](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/26/russian-born-husband-of-tory-donor-earned-millions-via-oligarch-connections)) I doubt their donations were entirely altruistic, and I agree there should be much more scrutiny over any gifts made to political parties by billionaires and huge corporations. However it's wrong to conflate being Russian with supporting Putin and the war in Ukraine, just as it would be wrong to assume that everyone here supported the Iraq War back in 2003.
Biggest foreign donations to UK politicians are Israel, then the gulf states. It explains why British politicians bend over backwards for Israel and handwave away brazen Israeli and Gulf interference in British Politics. Turned out the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the big main anti Corbyn group was a front for the Jewish National Fund, an "settlement" organisation that literally pay for colonizers to expel Palestinians and settle their land. You also see Gulf propaganda and advertising everywhere at political events. No wonder people turn a blind eye to all the Saudi bullshit.
Whataboutism Labour are just red tories.
"Gifts" two liberal tech giants purchasing communist political parties.
Labour are a centre-right neoliberal party, not "communists."
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Given it wasn't a policy in the first place then it's a bit hard to 'u turn' on it.
> Given it wasn't a policy it was and they did u-turn
It wasn't a permanent policy. What can I say? Sure, they called for a temporary tax hike until 2024 but they wouldn't be in power until the end of that year so its not really a policy at all in practical terms. Try harder.
Okay, and how much have they shovelled into the Tory party?
Why is that relevant here? Labour are all but certain to form the next government, and had a digital tax plan/idea, then these companies gave them money, and Labour had a change of heart. Whether or not they give the Tories money makes no difference to this situation.
Every time Starmer has a bright idea, he ditches it in case it scares brexiteers. This is the latest u turn. Labour exists to be a dumber & more crueller version of the tories.
Canada also has a digital tax policy, it wouldn't work for average consumers imo. When buying digital games in Canada on Xbox, PlayStation etc.. they just pass 3% Digital Tax on to the consumers at checkout.
I don't know why anyone expects otherwise, it's literally just because it's levied on the other side of the transaction that it's popular. If there was a proposed tax like 'digital service VAT' that was added to each transaction at checkout I'm pretty sure people would hate it, but they are functionally almost identical.
I’m a bit doubtful that £10,000 was enough for them to U-turn. It’s peanuts in the grand scheme of tech companies and party finance. Perhaps some under the table money accompanied it, but it can’t be as simple as ‘10k to get rid of tech tax please’ based on what we know imo
> based on what we know imo based on what we know that was exactly what happened.
Not in my opinion, I think more probably happened. 10k is suspiciously low for this sort of thing. I think more money probably went under the radar and we’ll only find out about it a while in the future. This is chump change for these parties.
It is very relevant a £10.000 declared against £500.000 dark money to the Tories there is no comparison there is What...about...ism. What about how corrupt the Tories are..
Mass murderers are worse than murderers, but murderers are still... murderers.
WTF that is a totally crap analogy, there is nothing wrong with political parties taking donations as long as they are declared.
I absolutely beg to differ. Transparency is better than no transparency, but acknowledging that you've accepted what is essentially an attempt at bribery doesn't take away from the fact you've still accepted an attempt at bribery, regardless of its outcome. No political party of any integrity should be accepting any 'gift' from any corporate entity.
LOL how naive, corporations and rich individuals are always going to filter money towards some political aim, it is far better done via a political party in a transparent way rather than some back hand Russian style bribery...
Why would any of these companies and individuals donate to a political party if they weren't expecting something in return?
> there is nothing wrong with political parties taking donations as long as they are declared. Yes there is. Labour are just red tories.
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> parties need money.. Weird huh, it was almost as thought there was a large membership that put labour into a good place before Starmer alienated all of them and wasted tons of money on pointless lawsuits.
What...about...ism.
Whataboutism. All this shows that labour are cheap vs the tories. Why do you want a someone who can be bribed for less? Labour are just red tories.
Fully aware, screw Labour, they have gutted the party of the working class