Tax is for the little people

Monday, September 22, 2008

Tax is for the little people

In a pointed protest against Gordon Brown's increasingly rapacious tax regime, Ian Cheshire, the chief executive of Kingfisher – the company which owns the B&Q do-it-yourself retail chain – is considering moving his headquarters offshore.

This, we are told, is the latest potential blow to the Government's under-fire tax policies, with Kingfisher the latest in a string of blue-chip names, which includes WPP and RSA Insurance.

One's sympathies for Mr Cheshire, however, are very slightly tempered by the recollection of a letter he signed recently, with others, urging the prime minister to ramp up green taxes and other costs to enable him and his other corporate colleagues "to grasp the business opportunities created by moving to a low climate risk economy."

One really does get a tad weary of wealthy men like Mr Cheshire, whose salary and stock options touch £1.3 million this year, reaching down and seeking to load massive costs on ordinary people, for his personal enrichment and that of his company and then, when it comes to his own dues, running a mile and squealing about excessive taxation.

The likes of Cheshire, of course, are quite entitled to complain about tax imposts but I do wish he and the rest of his claque would take a leaf out of their own books, and appreciate that we, no more than they, are not particularly enthusiastic about excessive taxation.

But then, we are not like them. Theirs is the gilded life – tax is only for the little people.

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Sunday, September 21, 2008

Ukraine, Russia and the EU

A few thoughts on the subject over on BrugesGroupBlog. The EU is ready to resume negotiations with Russia about that partnership in October if troops move out of Georgia proper (something that still has not happened). Judging by Prime Minister Fillon's comments, the French Presidency will want to resume negotiations even if those troops stay as they have done so far.

Publish and be damned!

The EU is, next month, to unveil plans to let drug firms use the media to publish promotion information about prescription-only medicines directly to patients. 

This at least, is the claim of The Observer which is also retailing claims that the NHS's £11bn annual bill for drugs could soar if this is allowed.

Opponents argue the controversial proposals would come close to contravening the longstanding ban on companies advertising branded drugs and the idea that patients should have easy access to information about the medicines fed to them by their doctors is one that fills their trade union the British Medical Association with horror.

It is joined by the Consumers Association and Royal College of Physicians, the three being among nine "leading organisations" that have written a joint letter to the EU commission urging it to abandon its plan.

They fear that if this is allowed, patients will start demanding specific drugs they have seen promoted and reduce doctors' ability to prescribe cheaper alternatives. That happened in America, or so we are told, after it relaxed its rules in 1997 to permit such material.

"If we increase the demand for branded medicines the NHS drugs bill could go sky-high, putting its finite resources under threat," said Pete Moorey, the public affairs manager at Which?, the Consumers Association magazine.

For once, however, we must side with the EU on this. This sort of information is already on the internet, for those that wish to look at it, and there is no good reason why the medical Mafia doctors should have a monopoly of information. 

The pharmaceutical industry makes a good case for liberalisation, with which it is hard to disagree. The only pity really is that the EU is proposing it as well.

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