African Union postpones meeting on funding for Horn of Africa crisis| Liz Ford
August 5, 2011 No Comment
Decision to delay talks on financial aid for famine victims could hinder efforts to help millions of people suffering in the region The African Union’s decision to postpone a pledging conference for east Africa has been described as a “serious blow” to relief efforts. Save the Children said on Friday the decision would hinder efforts to help millions of children suffering in the region. The AU had been due to meet on Monday to discuss members’ financial response to the crisis that is now affecting more than 12 million people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. But in a statement on Thursday the AU said the meeting had been re-scheduled for 25 August. The statement gave no specific reasons why the conference has been delayed, but it is understood the postponement would allow members more time to mobilise resources. Erastus Mwencha, the deputy chairman of the African Union commission, reportedly said some member countries felt they hadn’t been given enough notice of the conference. “There is no point of us rushing into a conference only again to come up again regretting [sic],” he was reported as saying. “Many African countries wanted to delay because they felt it was too short notice for them to be able to do something meaningful. We need some time for planning, and I think that request is well-founded.” Last month, the AU announced it was to give $300,000 to the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, to assist Somalis living in camps in Somalia and in neighbouring countries. The Daily Nation newspaper in Kenya reported an anonymous AU commissioner as saying the organisation was facing serious financial problems as a result of the uprisings in north Africa. Five countries, including Egypt and Libya, contribute around 75% of AU’s budget. Libya has suspended its contributions. This week, the UN declared that three further regions of Somalia were in a state of famine and expected it to spread across the south of the country over the next six weeks. The UN said more than $1bn in aid was still needed to address the crisis. Tens of thousands of people had already died in Somalia, which, after failed rains and two decades of conflict, is at the epicentre of the crisis. Humanitarian relief efforts in the south of Somalia and the capital, Mogadishu, are being hampered by al-Shabaab, the Islamist group that is refusing access to international aid agencies. On Friday, Andris Piebalgs, EU commissioner for development, pledged an extra €175m ($248m) in development assistance for Somaliland, Puntland and central Somalia, which are more stable. Rachel Palmer, working for Save the Children at Dadaab refugee camp complex in northern Kenya, where thousands of Somalis are arriving daily, said: “Children are dying from starvation every day, yet world leaders are failing to make good on their promises. Young children are arriving at our feeding centres in shocking conditions – they haven’t eaten or drunk anything for days. “Yet we can pull them back from the brink. We can save their lives – but there are many more we need to reach. The British public and government have been overwhelming in their generosity, now governments around the world have to turn words into action or more children will die.” Famine African Union Africa Aid Liz Ford guardian.co.uk
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Publisher keen for paper’s controversial former investigations editor, Mazher Mahmood, not to join rival title ‘Fake sheikh’ Mazher Mahmood, the News of the World’s controversial investigations editor, is in talks with the Sunday Times about relaunching his career, after 20 years at the Sunday tabloid where he claimed to have “saved children from paedos and nailed 250 evil crooks”. News International is determined not to lose Mahmood to the competition and has encouraged talks with the Sunday broadsheet. Mahmood, who specialised in undercover stings, often dressed as a sheikh, has not been tainted by the phone-hacking scandal, but nonetheless a move to the Sunday Times would be an eye-catching signing for the upmarket paper. “Mahzer is the News of the World. He is the brand. He has had some spectacular stings like the cricket match fixing, Fergie and Sophie-Rhys Jones, but he specialises in fairly low-rent villains that hardly fit in with the tone and culture of the Sunday Times,” said one former colleague. Talks will no doubt centre on how he will operate within, or alongside, the paper’s core investigations unit and whether his team goes with him. Mahmood worked secretly and was rarely in the office but had a team of journalists, technical staff and bodyguards with him on his operations. Mahmood’ scalps included Sarah Ferguson, who agreed to take $40,000 from the ‘sheik’ to arrange access to Prince Andrew. The fact that Mahmood had also snared other royals including Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Princess Michael of Kent using the same disguise didn’t set alarm bells ringing for Ferguson, who subsequently said she was “devastated” by the revelations. If Mahmood signs a deal with the Sunday Times he will be one of a handful of former News of the World journalists who are expected to stay at News International. Rank-and-file journalists say they feel they are being frozen out by the publisher despite promises by former chief executive Rebekah Brooks that staff would be redeployed within the group. Last week it emerged that the jobs on offer include posts include a Fox TV job in Siberia and oil reporting jobs in Murdoch’s Dow Jones financial wire service, neither of which are obvious career moves for News of the World journalists. “I don’t think there is the slightest chance of getting a job at NI. The most obvious place to go is the Sun but they don’t want to risk of the paper being drawn into the phone-hacking scandal and no matter how slim the risk is, having one of their staff arrested, even as a witness, is something they don’t want. They want to de-link from the News of the World totally,” said one journalist. Another said: “The 90-day consultation period is up on 8 October. It feels like a prison sentence. Most people are looking around elsewhere but it’s difficult with such a cloud hanging over the paper you’ve been working for.” •
Continue reading …NoW publisher sued for £100,000 over alleged breach of anonymity agreement
August 5, 2011 No Comment
Paper’s former publisher rejects claim, saying it cannot be sued over information provided to police in an ongoing investigation News Group Newspapers, former publisher of the defunct News of the World, is being sued for £100,000 by a prison warden’s brother who claims that a senior executive at the newspaper confirmed to police he was the source of leaked stories about the Soham killer Ian Huntley. John Capewell, the brother of a prison officer who worked at high security lock-up HMP Frankland in Durham where Huntley is incarcerated, is suing the newspaper publisher for allegedly breaching an anonymity agreement. Capewell, 47, has launched legal action against NGN claiming it broke the deal because Tom Crone, the former senior lawyer at NoW, confirmed that Capewell was the source of the stories, in a phone call to police officers investigating leaks from the prison in 2008. Lawyers representing Capewell believe the case is important because a newspaper has a duty to protect the identity of its sources. “It is Mr Capewell’s case that they [NGN] betrayed the trust of a confidential source who was seeking to exercise his freedom of speech to provide information of public interest,” said his legal representatives. “In doing so, Mr Capewell alleges that they have caused him to suffer the indignity and intrusion of a criminal trial, caused his reputation to be smeared and caused him to lose his job. Mr Capewell says that his life has been ruined.” NGN has applied to have the claim struck out, on the grounds that it cannot be sued over information provided to assist the police in an ongoing investigation. The paper also says police officers had already determined that Capewell was the source of information about HMS Frankland before officers approached Crone. Capewell had already been arrested by the time the News of the World was approached by the police. Capewell, 47, approached NoW in 2008 offering “anonymous information” about the prison in return for a sum of money, alleged to be £40,000 , although the publisher is not thought to have paid for the information. Capewell offered Chris Tate, a former senior reporter at the tabloid, information about “preferential treatment” being given to Huntley and, separately, claims of an alleged “sexual relationship” between a female warden and an inmate convicted of murder and several serious sexual offences involving minors. Capewell also gave the reporter details about an alleged plot by Muslim inmates to decapitate a prison warden. The NoW did not publish any of Capewell’s claims. However stablemate the Sun allegedly printed a story about Huntley based on the information just days after his first meeting with Tate. The Daily Mail published a similar story three weeks later. In September 2008 police launched an investigation into the source of the leaks from HMP Frankland after a dog walker found confidential prison documents bearing Capewell’s fingerprints – including the contract between Capewell and Tate –
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Another 140,000 homes plunged into fuel poverty as E.ON becomes fourth utility company to raise charges E.ON has become the fourth big utility company to announce a jump in energy prices, raising the cost of gas by 18.1% and electricity by 11.4%. The rises, effective from 13 September, are roughly in line with price increases announced in the past two months by Scottish and Southern Energy and Scottish Power. However British Gas has raised its electricity and gas prices by 16% and 18% respectively, just eight months after lifting prices by 7%. This means only nPower and EDF have yet to announce price rises, which could be lower following a continued easing in the cost of wholesale gas and oil prices. Energy prices generally track those of oil, but the price of a barrel of oil has fallen from $118 to $108 in the past few days. Wholesale prices for gas and electricity are down by a third compared to their peak in 2008, according to comparison website TheEnergyShop.com , while the price of a barrel of oil is down 24%. Graham Bartlett , managing director of E.ON Energy Solutions, said in a message to customers: “About half the price we charge for energy is governed by the price we have to pay for it in the world market. And, this year, wholesale prices throughout the industry have soared. According to Ofgem, they’re up by some 30% since last winter.” He admitted that wholesale prices were higher in 2008 than now, but said the trend has been steadily upward and made much worse by events in Japan, Libya and Egypt. “At the same time, our costs for using the infrastructure that gets the energy to your home have gone up too. Of course each bill also includes an element of profit. But it’s nothing like as much as you might think. For every £1,000 our domestic customers paid in 2010, we made £5.” E.ON said it was offering its customers help to counter the price rises, such as advice on insulation and the installation of solar panels for £99. But this will be cold comfort to the 140,000 homes that will be plunged into fuel poverty, where people are paying at least 10% of their income towards heating their home, according to comparison site Energyhelpline . It calculates that dual-fuel customers face paying an extra £170 a year following the increases. Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus , pointed out that although wholesale prices are now about one third lower than in 2008, consumer prices have reached an all-time high. “Yet another price rise will leave the average energy bill £1,250 a year. Many consumers worry how they will afford to keep their homes warm this winter given other price rises and flat or falling incomes. They need to know whether these increases are warranted. Customers will feel they didn’t get the benefit when wholesale costs were low,” he said. He continued: “Ofgem has said it is prepared to refer the energy market to the Competition Commission if necessary. That is welcome but the regulator must be prepared to act if it can’t say for certain whether prices are fair. It is even more important these questions are answered with £200bn of investment needed in cleaner power plants and other low carbon programmes set to push bills up further. If consumers are to stomach such price rises, they need to know they are fair.” TheEnergyShop.com recommends that energy users on a standard deal with no exit penalties switch to a three-year fixed deal from EDF . Joe Malinowski, founder of the website, said: “The fact that E.ON’s new prices are lower than those of the other three suppliers to have announced price changes is no reason to accept them. They are still at a massive premium to current fixed deals, which is where the real value lies. “Customers switching to a fixed price deal to 2014 can save themselves £120-£130 a year – over £300 during the fix. We urge customers to do this now while the opportunity still exists.” Energy bills Household bills Consumer affairs Family finances Utilities Jill Insley guardian.co.uk
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• Tripoli denies Khamis Gaddafi has been killed • Libyan rebels’ attempt to take Zlitan stalls • Syria: ’109 killed’ in Hama yesterday • Hillary Clinton says 2,000 have died since uprising began • Live coverage throughout the day 12.24pm: The Tripoli government has described rebel reports that Khamis Gaddafi, the dictator’s son, is dead, as a “dirty trick”. 12.22pm: Breaking: Tripoli has denied Khamis Gaddafi was killed last night. 12.19pm: Nato has said its airstrikes last night in Zlitan, Libya , hit an ammunition depot and military police facility. The rebels say Nato hit a government operations centre and killed Khamis Gaddafi, the Libyan leader’s son. Two of Muammar Gaddafi’s other sons, Mutassim and al-Saadi, also head military brigades. The Associated Press notes of Khamis: In February, eight days before the Libyan uprising began, Khamis Gaddafi was given a VIP tour of the Air Force Academy in Colorado during a US tour. After he returned home, he led forces loyal to his father in an assault on the rebel-held city of Zawiya, where civilian protests against his father were crushed. 12.16pm: Another powerful component of Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship appears to have crumbled, following the formal dissolution of Egypt ‘s national federation of trade unions, reports Jack Shenker from Cairo. 12.04pm: Reuters has a quote from a Libyan rebel spokesman on the rebels’ claims Khamis Gaddafi has been killed: We have information that in Zlitan, a leadership building was attacked by Nato and 32 Gaddafi men were killed, among them his son, Khamis. Arab media reported in March that Khamis had died in a kamikaze crash by a disaffected Libyan air force pilot. Libyan state television showed footage at the time of a man resembling Khamis, which it said disproved reports of his death. 11.58am: Turkey intercepted an arms shipment from Iran to Syria two and a half months ago, Turkish newspaper Today’s Zaman is reporting. 11.53am: A resident of Hama, Syria , has told the Associated Press news agency that tanks started bombing the city at 4am this morning. “If people get wounded, it is almost impossible to take them to hospital,” the resident, who did not want his name used, said by telephone. He added that the city was also bombed at sunset last night as people were breaking their dawn-to-dusk fast, which Muslims observe during the holy month of Ramadan. The US has imposed sanctions on a prominent pro-Assad businessman and his firm: Muhammad Hamsho and Hamsho International Group. 11.47am: This video from CBS news shows scenes from the attacks on Hama over the last few days, with tanks in the city and people being hit by gunfire. It also revisits comments from the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who visited Hama last month, comments particularly relevant given Syrian state TV’s apparent claims that troops are in Hama to respond to armed rebellion . Ford said: The Syrian government is saying there are armed groups in Hama. I went there. I didn’t see a single gun. The most dangerous weapon I saw was a slingshot. 11.38am: The Nato airstrike reported to have killed Khamis Gaddafi was on a government operations centre in Zlitan, Libyan rebel spokesman Mohammad al-Rajali has said. Nato said there had been bombing around Zlitan yesterday but a spokesman in Brussels could not verify the report. 11.31am: Syrian state TV has broadcast new images from inside Hama, the BBC is reporting. The pictures reportedly show rubble-strewn streets and wrecked buildings. State TV is claiming Syrian troops were responding to an armed rebellion in the city. This does not tally with what residents and activists have been saying. The government has made such claims before about attacks on other parts of Syria, such as Jisr al-Shughour, in the north-west. The BBC reports : The Syrian TV report showed pictures of armed men hiding behind cars … The report showed deserted streets with flimsy barricades and piles of rubble. Later, the reporter went into buildings that appeared to have been destroyed in an explosion. 11.22am: Jack Shenker writes from Cairo, where it is quiet this morning as the first Friday prayers of Ramadan ring out across the city. But all eyes will be on Tahrir Square this afternoon, he says, as some protesters plan to return to the square despite their violent eviction by soldiers on Monday. Tahrir is currently packed out with central security trucks and troops, who have been effectively conducting their own “sit-in” for the past few days to prevent demonstrators re-taking the plaza, where they gathered daily during the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February. The authorities are clearly taking no chances, but things could come to a head at sundown, when there is a planned iftar (breakfast – ending the day’s fasting) in the square. Meanwhile Vodafone Egypt’s year keeps going from bad to worse. After they and other mobile companies shut down their networks at the height of the anti-Mubarak uprising back in January, they’ve made a steady series of PR blunders since; a video by their advertising agency appearing to credit Vodafone with the revolution caused a big backlash in Egypt, and at Mubarak’s trial this week, lawyers for the families of those killed during the unrest implicated Vodafone and other communications firms in their case. Now Vodafone has launched a new advertising campaign based around the Twitter hashtag #VodafoneShokran (Vodafone Thank You). Unsurprisingly it’s somewhat backfired, with the hashtag now flooded with anti-Vodafone messages such as “‘#VodafoneShokran – Thanks for claiming you inspired the revolution when in fact you caused the death of martyrs by cutting off communication”. As part of the campaign Vodafone vowed to retweet all messages with the #VodafoneShokran hash tag, but strangely they’ve been reluctant to see through on that promise. You can see a selection of the tweets (in English and Arabic) here . 11.21am: A Swiss reporter has been telling al-Jazeera about his visit to Hama, Syria , where he saw the bodies of people shot in the head – “targeted shootings”, he said. Another reporter across the border from the southern Syrian town of Deraa, in Jordan, said people there feel sure the Assad regime is going to fall soon. They are preparing for massive demonstrations there today after Friday prayers, the first such prayers since the beginning of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. 11.14am: Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, has been speaking today about the situation in Syria. He said of Bashar al-Assad, his Syrian counterpart: He needs to urgently carry out reforms … or face a sad fate … The situation is changing and our direction is changing too. Russia, along with China, is seen as being a block on any more serious action being taken against Syria by the UN security council. Like the UK, the US and France, Russia and China have a veto on the council. 11.13am: Al-Jazeera is reporting scepticism about the reported death of Khamis Gaddafi in Libya . Their reporter compared the Libyan government’s loud response to the death of Saif al-Arab Gaddafi in April with its silence today. 11.05am: My colleague Nour Ali (a pseudonym) sends these YouTube videos of protests in Syria yesterday. A sit-in protest in Medan, Damascus . The crowd are chanting: “Bashar step down … We want to fast and to celebrate.” The funeral of Khaled Alfakhani became a demonstration at Abd Alkareem Alrfaee mosque in Kafrsooseh, Damascus. This video shows the scene inside the mosque while security forces surrounded it. This video shows protests at the Shami mosque in the Zahraa neighbourhood of Aleppo, while at a huge demonstration in Idlib the people chant “The people and the army are one hand.” The caption reads: “Men maintain order as demonstrators protest peacefully in Idlib for Ramadan.” The police do not seem to be confronting the protesters. In Deir Ezzor, where tanks are surrounding the city, another demonstration took place . It is impossible to properly verify these videos. 10.43am: Nato has responded to claims by pro-Gaddafi officials yesterday that two children were killed in an airstrike on Zlitan yesterday. An official at Nato operational HQ in Naples said: We did hit a military target at around 6.30 [yesterday] morning and it was a command-and-control site. We always take seriously allegations of civilian casualties and are looking into it, but we have no evidence at this stage that this was caused by an air strike. 10.40am: A resident of the besieged Syrian city of Hama says troops have shelled several neighbourhoods overnight and are preventing food supplies from entering residential areas. The man told the Associated Press the attacks started at dawn and that he saw 20 tanks in the central Assi square. He asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals. The latest shelling comes as Syrians prepare for mass protests after the first Friday prayers in Ramadan. 9.47am: Hello and welcome to Middle East Live. Here are the headlines so far. Libya A rebel spokesman said today that a Nato air attack in Zlitan has killed Muammar Gaddafi’s son Khamis (left), one of the main commanders of the Libyan leader’s military forces. Another 31 people were also killed, the spokesman said. A Nato official at operations headquarters in Naples said he was aware of the report but could not confirm it. There was no immediate comment from the Tripoli government. There have been claims Khamis had been killed before, in March . If confirmed, the death of Khamis would be a severe blow to Gaddafi both in terms of morale and military leadership. Khamis is head of the 32nd brigade, one of the Libyan army’s most professional and loyal units, according to Reuters. Gaddafi’s government announced earlier this year that his son Saif al-Arab Gaddafi (not to be confused with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, in the news yesterday claiming to have made a pact with Islamists ) had been killed. Saif al-Arab had a much lower profile than either of his brothers and no major leadership role. Rebels have been trying for weeks to take Zlitan, 100 miles (160km) east of Tripoli, which would open the coastal road towards the capital. Chris Stephen writes from Misrata that rebel commanders said last night that the attempt to capture Zlitan had stalled. A second offensive on the eastern front, this one against the key oil town of Brega, has also become bogged down well short of its objective, Chris writes. The rebels broke into Zlitan over the weekend, only to find that most of the population did not want to be liberated. Zlitan’s leaders are apparently frightened that if the town is liberated, government artillery will be directed at them, and rebel leaders say a conventional attack on the city will cause civilian casualties. Misrata’s leaders are now negotiating with Zlitan’s elders, trying to encourage a change-of-mind. “It’s not that much of a problem to capture Zlitan,” said rebel fighter Mohammed Elfituri. “The problem is the families won’t let us pass.” These failures will leave some wondering whether the rebels, even with concentrated Nato air support, can take ground against their better-equipped foe. Syria There were reports that 109 people were killed yesterday in Hama as the Syrian government continued its crackdown against protesters in the town. One resident said around 250 people have been killed since Sunday. Activist group Avaaz said many bodies had been shot at close range and in the head. Communications, electricity and water remained cut off yesterday to the city, which is growing short of food and medical supplies. One resident said he had seen gunmen in plainclothes randomly shooting people in the streets. “People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street,” the man told the Associated Press by phone. “I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank.” Families are burying their dead in their gardens, parks or on roadsides rather than risking travelling to a cemetery. Most journalists are barred from Syria and it is very hard to independently verify reports. Hama is a city of 800,000 people around 130 miles (210km) north of Damascus. It had fallen out of government hands and been free of security forces since June as residents turned on the regime and blockaded the streets against tanks. In 1982 president Bashar al-Assad’s father put down a rebellion by members of the Muslim Brotherhood there, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people. My colleagues Ian Black and Nour Ali (a pseudonym) have the full story on yesterday’s developments in Hama here , also reporting that Syria’s democracy movement and western governments have spurned a decree by Assad permitting the formation of opposition parties. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, condemned the Syrian government’s attacks yesterday (see video below) , saying the regime was responsible for the deaths of 2,000 people since the start of the protests. Clinton said: Sometimes you lose sight of the incredible tragedy unfolding on the streets by just looking at the numbers, which are so numbing, but the shooting death of a one-year-old recently by the Syrian regime’s tanks and troops is a very stark example of what is going on. We think to date the government is responsible for the deaths of more than 2,000 people of all ages and the United States has worked very hard to corral and focus international opinion to take steps toward a unified response to the atrocities that are occurring. Jay Carney, a spokesman for the White House, said he felt Bashar al-Assad was “not indispensable and the US has nothing invested in Assad remaining in power”. Carney said the US viewed him as “the cause of instability in Syria” – but stopped short of calling for him to step down. Middle East Egypt Libya Syria Muammar Gaddafi Bashar Al-Assad Paul Owen guardian.co.uk
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Chinese weather authorities issue strongest typhoon warning of the year, with storm due to hit at the weekend Chinese officials have issued the country’s strongest typhoon warning of the year as the powerful typhoon Muifa approaches. China’s Central Meteorological Administration put Muifa about 485 miles south-east of Ningbo in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang on Friday morning with winds of 102mph. It earlier passed Taiwan, causing light rain and moderate winds, but officials on the island warned that sustained falls could cause mudslides. The CMA said the storm was predicted to move north-westerly, gaining intensity as it neared China’s coast and was expected to make landfall between northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu provinces late on Saturday or early on Sunday. The forecast coincided with China’s first “orange alert” of the summer typhoon season. It requires local officials to prepare emergency responses. Administrations in Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu were put on immediate alert, while their counterparts in Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning and Shandong have been told to stand by, pending updates on the storm’s direction. More than 7,000 fishing vessels have been asked to return to ports in south-eastern provinces and residents of coastal areas in Zhejiang have been told to prepare for possible evacuation. China Taiwan Natural disasters and extreme weather guardian.co.uk
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Four others injured in attack at Von Postbreen glacier on remote island of Spitsbergen A British national has reportedly been mauled to death and four other people injured by a polar bear in Norway. The bear was shot after the attack at the Von Postbreen glacier on the remote island of Spitsbergen, according to the Norwegian news agency NTB and other outlets. A spokesman for the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “Our embassy in Oslo is urgently looking into reports of an incident in northern Norway.” More details soon … Norway guardian.co.uk
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Mohammed Sajid Khan, 32, and Shasta Khan, 37 accused of preparing to commit terrorism and holding related information A couple have been charged with preparing for acts of terrorism. Mohammed Sajid Khan, 32, and Shasta Khan, 37, of Oldham, Greater Manchester, are accused of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism. The offences are said to have taken place between 10 August last year and 24 July this year. The pair, of Foster Street, are also charged with three counts of possessing a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. Greater Manchester police said both would appear before City of Westminster magistrates’ court on Friday. UK security and terrorism guardian.co.uk
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Tories’ Liberal Democrat partners in coalition would fight for measures to offset effect of 5p cut David Cameron and George Osborne could cut the 50p tax rate as soon as next April, it has been reported. Within the year, the prime minister and chancellor may move to cut 5p off tax for high earners, although the Liberal Democrat partners in the coalition will fight for measures that offset the effect of the cut at a time of when most people are having to tighten their belts. A succession of newspaper stories quoting often unnamed Conservative and government sources culminated when the Independent said a Treasury analysis suggests the 50p rate – introduced by Labour in 2009 – was generating only marginal returns for the exchequer. The paper said the difference between the 50p tax and a 45p tax might only be £750m a year. Rightwing Tories want the government to go further and reduce the rate to 40p, as it was until 2009. The Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, has previously claimed wanting such a cut was living “in cloud-cuckoo land”, and the Independent report confirms that Lib Dems remain wary of the political consequences of sanctioning the move. According to the paper, Treasury projections suggest that up to 70% of the expected £2.4bn revenue generated from the 50p rate would still be collected at the 45p rate. At 50p, the incentive increases to retire earlier, emigrate, contribute more to a pension or invest in tax avoidance schemes, the report said. The Treasury is still waiting for the details of an assessment by HM Revenue and Customs into the amount actually raised in the first year to April 2011. A senior Conservative source said: “The decision is not about whether to do it, it’s about when to do it. One option is 2012, depending on the state of the economy, or 2013 at the latest. We want it to have come into effect by the time of the next election.” The source added that the move was likely to be sold as part of a “tax simplification package”. Another source, close to Osborne, is said to have sought to dampen the speculation. “We have no plans and no timetable,” he said. “We don’t like the tax, but we are not going to decide anything until we have seen the numbers.” Senior Liberal Democrat sources told the paper that any attempt to cut the tax burden of the very wealthy would be opposed by the party. “At a time when we are asking everyone to make sacrifices, this sends out totally the wrong signal,” one said. “The 50p rate was never our policy and we are not wedded to it – but any cut must be offset by other measures.” Tax and spending George Osborne David Cameron Conservatives Liberal-Conservative coalition Tax Income tax James Meikle guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Tories’ Liberal Democrat partners in coalition would fight for measures to offset effect of 5p cut David Cameron and George Osborne could cut the 50p tax rate as soon as next April, it has been reported. Within the year, the prime minister and chancellor may move to cut 5p off tax for high earners, although the Liberal Democrat partners in the coalition will fight for measures that offset the effect of the cut at a time of when most people are having to tighten their belts. A succession of newspaper stories quoting often unnamed Conservative and government sources culminated when the Independent said a Treasury analysis suggests the 50p rate – introduced by Labour in 2009 – was generating only marginal returns for the exchequer. The paper said the difference between the 50p tax and a 45p tax might only be £750m a year. Rightwing Tories want the government to go further and reduce the rate to 40p, as it was until 2009. The Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, has previously claimed wanting such a cut was living “in cloud-cuckoo land”, and the Independent report confirms that Lib Dems remain wary of the political consequences of sanctioning the move. According to the paper, Treasury projections suggest that up to 70% of the expected £2.4bn revenue generated from the 50p rate would still be collected at the 45p rate. At 50p, the incentive increases to retire earlier, emigrate, contribute more to a pension or invest in tax avoidance schemes, the report said. The Treasury is still waiting for the details of an assessment by HM Revenue and Customs into the amount actually raised in the first year to April 2011. A senior Conservative source said: “The decision is not about whether to do it, it’s about when to do it. One option is 2012, depending on the state of the economy, or 2013 at the latest. We want it to have come into effect by the time of the next election.” The source added that the move was likely to be sold as part of a “tax simplification package”. Another source, close to Osborne, is said to have sought to dampen the speculation. “We have no plans and no timetable,” he said. “We don’t like the tax, but we are not going to decide anything until we have seen the numbers.” Senior Liberal Democrat sources told the paper that any attempt to cut the tax burden of the very wealthy would be opposed by the party. “At a time when we are asking everyone to make sacrifices, this sends out totally the wrong signal,” one said. “The 50p rate was never our policy and we are not wedded to it – but any cut must be offset by other measures.” Tax and spending George Osborne David Cameron Conservatives Liberal-Conservative coalition Tax Income tax James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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