*Bob*

I blame Thicke entirely.. because he has horrible eyes. I don't think Zep have got much chance of getting away without paying-up. Jimmy Page has already made it worse by saying he never heard the Taurus track until a few years ago, but they were on tour supporting Taurus around the time they released their original four-chord-patterned thing. Same instrument, same pattern, the timeframe fits, they were in the right place, professor Plum with the candlestick in the library..

AFAIK The dude who wrote the 'original' had piped-up about it sounding a bit you know, inspired by, (especially since Zep supported them on tour!) but didn't feel sufficiently slighted to take it to court. He probably took the reasonable position that while they nicked the four chords, they'd gone on to make it their own - and then some. Unfortunately he's dead now - and his estate (and publishing) is now in the hands of someone who SMELLS MONEY AND LOTS OF IT

I think you?re right Loz, they?ll have to pay up. Thicke (the one with the horrible eyes that the record company makes him hide behind sunglasses) nicked the feel and groove from a classic track and added some unpleasant lightly rapey lyrics, making for a giant smash-n-grab hit that was instantly (and best) forgotten. The Zep took a commonplace chord sequence and expanded it into an iconic 8-minute prog opus in three movements which will be played, basically forever. Of the two, I feel more sorry for Zep. But it's still going to cost them, not that they're short of dough.

There's only hypocrisy if someone says 'you shouldn't do this, this is wrong' in public - but then does it in private. This doesn't apply to the majority of people, say, paying cash and avoiding VAT. They don't parade around denouncing who do it. Doesn't mean it's 'right', but it's not hypocrisy. Whilst there are exceptions (accepted, RRR) let's face it, the vast majority of people will chisel away their own little bit of 'getting away with it' - according the means at their disposal - and they forge their own justifications. If you're a super-rich corporation, you hire some very big clever expensive accountants to funnel your money through ThingyLand and limit your taxation. If you are moderately well-off, you hire one decent accountant to tell you all the things you can get away with without going over the line. If you have no money, you pay cash with a wink. It may (legally) be the worst of the three but it's all you've got. The interesting thing is that the justification for those on the bottom often comes from looking at those above, perceiving them to be 'getting away with it' and thinking 'well, screw them, I'm going to get my bit'. Cameron's ?30k just recruited a whole new generation of vat-avoiders.

The Lords doesn't count - that sort of behaviour is virtually a requirement for entry. http://www.smh.com.au/world/sleaze-lord-house-of-sleaze--back-to-business-as-usual-20150731-gioke0.html

LM - yeah, that's what I meant, a good summation. I still think he needs a kicking though, he shouldn't get off just because 'that how things are', because if he does, that's how things will always be - only probably worse. Unfortunately, I think Otta - and ???? are right - some important points about the nature of politics, power and hypocrisy relating to those two - has descended into high-street-solicitor-level detail which in truth - only a small amount of leftie shouters will really give a shit about. Sometimes I long for the days when a Tory political scandal meant spanking, riding crops, and an orange wedged in the mouth.

I'll just imagine all the things that got said last time - and make an adjustment for inflation.

I haven't read all three pages on this important and pressing issue, but I feel certain the arrival of a Sweaty Betty does not signify the end of cohesive local community.

I'm probably explaining it (my point) badly. Basically I don't care about the money, I care about the motivation. That's what sucks.

You're not getting my point I don't think - I know you get the tax and you understand it - but that's not *the* point - the point is not the money itself, not the legality of having it. The point is HE KNEW that it would look bad if he (and his family) name was associated with offshore tax havens. His decision was to sell the shares, legally, all above board, but keep quiet about the whole thing hoping no-one would ever know. He kept quiet and kept the money, not because it was legal, or his by right, or anything like that: he did it because BOTH keeping quiet and keeping the money suited his political purposes - and that's all there was to it. If he could turn the clock back he would have done it differently - but with the same thing in mind: what would best suit his political purposes.

Totally, 'baggers. I'd rather he was a playboy billionaire freely waving wads of money from outside number ten - than a sneaky little hypocrite grasping his measly ?30k on the sly.

I don't think he should resign. I don't want to rake over his intimate financial details or trample on his dead father's grave. I am not mad with rage or envy. But I cannot accept accept being a hypocrite is 'by the by'. That's the worst bit - that's what he deserves a shoeing for.

You would have thought if it were a conscience issue close to his heart (*strokes chin*) - he might have mentioned it. Must have slipped his mind I guess. I bet he's thinking back now to that bit of advice he had to sell the shares pronto and stay schtumm about Panama tax havens etc etc - and imagining all the political goodwill that a puny ?30k would have generated - if only he'd have made a thing of outing the information at the time and perhaps even donating the cash to a worthy cause or some such pithy gesture. Why, he'd be a HERO! Anyway this is moot. Cameron is not a great reforming Prime Minister of conscience. He's not Gladstone, he's not even Blair. He's a very capable PR man - which is, unfortunately, what you have to be these days to become Prime Minister.

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > One could just as easily argue that Cameron's > disgust with that his father did is what has > spurned him to make clamping down on avoidance a > priority for his government. Ha ha! One could argue that. But one would know it to be nonsense. "I'm disgusted with these shares I've inherited. So disgusted, I shall sell them for an amount which falls within the tax-free dividend allowance literally just before I become Prime Minister - and hope to god no-one finds out".

LondonMix Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As for judging people by the actions / deeds of > their parents, I think that's a terrible idea. I > actually can't imagine anything worse for a > society. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't. I hope no-one would judge me in such a manner. But then I'm not heading-up a government whose policy is to clamp down on tax avoidance despite me having directly benefited from a fortune made from helping people avoid tax - and kept quiet about it - until someone found out. That's the difference.

miga Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's this I take issue with really...there are and > have been many counter-examples without huge > privilege in positions of power. You're right - a full 15% of prime ministers didn't have a private education. Of course, more than 50% of those 15% went to selective grammars (like I did). Most of these schools have now been colonised by privileged people who want to save on school fees, can afford to move into the area, can prep their kids to pass - and as such they are no longer 'open to all' regardless of social or economic status in the same way that they used to be. If this constitutes a good hit-rate for the non-privileged getting to the very top, then it's a sorry state of affairs.

My Dad left me these rings, necklaces and bracelets. He was a burglar, but hey - that wasn't my fault. Now I live very comfortably in a big house and think poor people need kicking.

Privilege and success is not a 1 for 1 but if you can't look at the current cabinet, or any other cabinet from over the last, say, 300 years - and see a definitive correlation, you need to look harder! Corbyn will never be PM.

How much money there is - or how it has been passed on - is a red herring. Skipping IHT by way of gifting is hardly divine knowledge available only to the Illuminati these days. Half an hour of googling will tell you all you need to know. It's harder to set-up an XBox. The issue SURELY is how the money (or at least some of it) was made in the first place. Cam's father made money from helping other people evade tax - and these ill-gotten gains went on to directly benefit someone who sits as head of a government who pontificates on everybody else playing by the taxation rules. Besides passing cash on while bypassing IHT (as I say, 'whatever') - a massive chunk of it also paid for his son's very privileged education. Would his son have made it to PM had he been Dave from Harris Peckham? Like Bollocks would he! Anyone who can't see how this generally might have an Air Of Stink to millions of people up and down the land must have a serious lack of braincells, regardless of whether Dave himself didn't actually do anything wrong guv'. The current hoo-hah is ridiculous. It's like someone inheriting a load of dosh from their father who made his money from helping others to rob banks - and everyone arguing about whether the son should have paid IHT on the inheritance or not.

I don't know about anyone else (who's self-employed) but every time I read another story like this I ram another eight things through expenses I might have previously have been in two minds about.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > IMO it's ethically equivalent to the plumber who > asks to be paid cash, or the IT contractor who > avoids tax by paying himself dividends. Almost > everyone who can, does - so to blame the > individuals seems rather pointless. Only your plumber doesn't use his ill-gotten gains to send his son to Eton, then on to Oxford - ushered through on a velvet cushion into a world fettered with access, contacts, privilege.. all the way up to the highest seat in the land where he sees fit to lecture others about fairness, equality and (all together now) 'all being in it together'. 'Does' Cameron benefit from his father's dubious dealings is moot point - he already 'has'.

move house

get one of these they're brilliant

That sort of stuff would never make it onto the carousel in Esso.

Exactly. Just can't be done. Your average nuts and bolts rocker is befuddled by compound duple. Sure, you can throw in the occasional one now and again to keep them on their toes and mix it up a bit, but you have to get back to hitting things four times every bar (at around 110bpm) before their brain melts. Same goes for dance music - only faster.