DAVID Torrance is right to highlight the double standards at play on the part of some of those rushing to make political capital out of the focus on David Cameron’s tax affairs (“Beware the dangers of taking the moral high ground on tax”, The Herald, April 11). Particularly when all seem to agree that the Prime Minister has done nothing to breach any laws. Yet increasingly the noise around this issue seems to be as much about the politics of envy as any real concerns about tax evasion.
Of course some of those rushing to throw stones arguably reside in a somewhat shaky moral glasshouses themselves. Nicola Sturgeon was quick off the mark to express her concerns about the Prime Minister’s financial affairs, yet has been less fussy about some who lend their support to the cause of nationalism. From a rich donor with infamously intolerant attitudes, to a list of parliamentary representatives or candidates mired in various scandals and investigations, some of a financial nature, through to their biggest celebrity supporter who has lived outside Scotland for decades so avoiding paying tax here. Some of that of course is about personal choice rather than legal correctness, but it does suggest some of the moral indignation of late might be based more on a desire for political effect than genuine concerns over what is actually right or wrong.
Keith Howell,
White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire.
ONE does not need to be a fan of this Prime Minister to wonder, knowing how low his income is (cf bankers, footballers, pop stars, business executives, BBC presenters, quangocrats, and many others) and that he paid 38 per cent of it in tax (cf Jeremy Corbyn’s 27 per cent) whether his self-satisfied holier-than-thou critics are now happy?
John Birkett,
12 Horseleys Park,
St Andrews.
WITH some dismay I note that Jeremy Corbyn, too disorganised to file his tax return in time, has branded David Cameron's strategy over the political scrutiny of his tax affairs a "masterclass in the art of distraction" (“Cameron accused as he bids to curb offshore tax evasion”, The Herald, April 12). This from the Labour leader who treats us weekly at Prime Minister's Question Time to a masterclass in division, dissent, disinformation and disappointment.
And no disillusionment at Dennis Skinner's usual masterclass in dodgy unparliamentary language (“An erupting Beast of Bolsover is sent out to cool down after ‘dodgy Dave’ jibe”, The Herald, April 12).
R Russell Smith,
96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.
OUR Old Etonian Prime Minister received £300,000 from his father and the following year he received £200,000 from his mother. Much of this money was built up by registering a company in the Cayman Islands, avoiding paying the tax which the rest of us pay on our savings and which helps to fund public services – which David Cameron has been cutting, saying there isn’t the money to pay for them.
Sir Alan Duncan, a millionaire Tory MP – public school and Oxford, of course – has derided Labour party objectors to this tax avoidance racket as “low achievers” because they aren’t rich like him. Where do you and your family stand on this? Will you be leaving each of your children £500,000 each, built up in foreign tax havens to avoid paying tax in Britain? Or are you what the Conservatives call a low achiever?
Phil Tate,
95 Craiglockhart Road, Edinburgh.
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