While it is perverse that millionaires and skilled workers who earn more than £31,000 are both taxed the same rate (40%), it is even more perverse that the highest proportion in tax is paid by those on the lowest income. The bottom 10% have (on average) 53% of their income absorbed in tax. For the top 10%, it is only 33%. Thatcher's shifting of the tax burden from the rich paid off.
Of course it is a shame that David Blunkett did not resign for the right reasons. It would have been nice if he had a moment of self-awareness and he could no longer continue faced with the facts, namely that he was a very poor Home Secretary whose authoritarianism, incompetence, arrogance and ignorance make Michael Howard look like a woolly liberal.
It says a lot about today's political climate that these flaws are obviously not seen as drawbacks to high public office, whereas dubious moral behaviour is. Yet even here there are different standards. Blunkett has to go on account of a tiny deception. His master, Blair, deceives Parliament and the people on stupendous scale and remains. All of which shows what a farce capitalist democracy actually is.
After Iraqi insurgents killed 18 American and four Iraqi soldiers in Mosul in December Bush claimed that those who died had been on "a vital mission for peace." In reality, they died to ensure his re-election and for US imperialism. Moreover, given that the US invaded Iraqi and started this unnecessary, immoral war which has killed a hundred thousand on the basis of lies, Bush is yet again saying that "war is peace." Orwell's estate should start suing the Bush Junta for plagiarising 1984!
Senior army commanders have expressed fears that the increasingly vocal anti-Iraq war movement is discouraging thousands of young men from considering a career in the armed forces. The source of the problem is, apparently, high-profile campaigns against the war, often led by bereaved parents and supported by celebrities and political figures. There is an acute recruitment crisis in Scotland and it is spreading to the north of England and Wales. The problem is also evident in the Territorial Army which has bolstered the regular Army's ranks in Iraq.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the recruitment problem is due to the fear of being sent to kill or be killed in an unnecessary war based on lies from corrupt politicians acting on behalf of an unelected US President beholden to US multinational corporations? Or, perhaps, it has something to do with not wanting to be bullied, humiliated and raped at Deepcut and other barracks? Or, perhaps, the desire not to be turned into an unquestioning killing machine? No, obviously not.
Perhaps we can solve the problem. Let's conscript every politician and media hack who supported the war. Let all those who supported the war and who happily sent others to fight it join them. If that happened the world would be a far more peaceful place and, perhaps, the army would find other things to complain about.
The number of weeks before the first hearings were held on Janet Jackson's boob at the Superbowl.
The number of months before the Bush Junta allowed the 9/11 Commission to be set up (and only after public protests from the victims' families)
The percentage that the top 10% of British income earners gave to charity out of their household expenditure.
The percentage that the poorest 10% of British income earners gave to charity out of their household expenditure.
The number of millions that Vodafone announced it would be to the tsunami appeal.
The number of hours it will take the company to make substantially more than £1 million in profits. As well as being less than an hour's profit, £1 million is also less than they gave their new boss as his annual bonus.