Barclays Bank appear to be a bunch of tax-dodging bastards

I’ve just had a bit of a rant on Twitter. Thought it might be worth making a more structured argument here.


Last year Barclays paid £113m in corporation tax on £11.6bn profits: that’s 1% rather than 28%.

The thing that really gets me about such (probably totally legal) criminality is that tax-dodging on such an epic scale is really a form of social robbery. Barclays should have paid £3,164 million (or 3.164 billion if you’re using American billions) in tax.

They have robbed the British treasury of over £3,000,000,000, which means they have collectively robbed the people of Britain of whatever the Government could have spent that money on.

Seriously, that is how much they have stolen from us by exploiting legal loopholes.

Does that bank have a social conscience? Do the people who work there? Do the people who bank there? Do the people or institutions that own shares in it?

If you’re making money off Barclays you’re guilty of complicity in this swindle. I honestly think that.

I don’t know why we don’t get more angry about this. I know it’s not just Barclays. It could be every other large corporation. Why aren’t we angry with all of them?

Business can be conducted differently. Business can create wealth for the good of everyone. It can bring much-needed equity into a sharply-divided society. Paying tax is about good citizenship and the demands of good citizenship apply equally to banks and corporations.

But it’s not going to happen without pressure from people like me and you.

This country is going to lose its free healthcare system. It’s going to lose investment in its infrastructure. The schools and hospitals and roads and rubbish collections and leisure centres and libraries and parks and public transport in your area is going to be cut. Fact. And if you’re a normal member of this society you either don’t know that or you don’t give a shit.

Most people don’t. Who cares about corporate profiteering when you can watch Got to Dance on Sky? TV is the 21st century opium of the proles.

Jesus hated profiteering and took direct action (Mark 11: 15-17). I reckon he'd be up for having a go at Barclays.

Things that make me feel sad / angry (sangry?)

A couple of nights ago I was driving home and as I turned onto the Taff Embankment my car headlights shone very briefly into an alleyway, lighting up the heavily made-up face and bleached blonde hair of a prostitute.

You do occasionally see working girls down my end of town, if you know in which dark corners to look. And when I see them I feel both sad and angry. Sad that there is a trade in sex and people are exploited. Angry that there are some people out there willing to use another human being for their own gratification.

I'm beginning to term the feeling as 'sangry'.

I felt sangry when I found out that Royal Bank of Scotland, who you may remember are one of the bunch of banking bastards who helped precipitate the current financial crisis and are now publicly owned, loaned Kraft 7 billion pounds so Kraft could buy Cadbury's. So, basically British taxpayers own a bank that gave an American firm the money they needed to buy a British firm that will eventually result in job losses among the very tax payers who own the bank.

I feel sad because such roundabout deals seem impossible to stop. I feel angry because there is just something about that that is wrong and part of me feels like it will never end unless we take it to the freakin' streets and start smashing windows in the name of justice.