British Home Store

Listening to a Parliamentary Committee investigation the sale of British Home Stores from Philip Green to Dominic Chappell, purportedly for a £1.00 , the murky world of finance and business is exposed. As an ordinary man in the street one is amazed at the nefarious routes, the complexity and the extent of the obfuscation that goes on in these deals. 

Before the sale, for a £1.00, a large property was to be sold for £30 million but was actually sold for £45 million and the difference appeared in the account of the person who had paid a £1.00. This is the opening salvo to explain how a man Dominic Chappell, who was in many ways a man of straw, was financially groomed to become the new owner of BHS by Philip Green.

Within weeks of the sale the BHS is put into receivership and thousands of BHS workers have lost their jobs and their pension rights. 

People who had worked for years at BHS were putty in the hands of Philip Green and his cohorts. Shifting large amounts of money around the Monopoly Board, which for the movers and shakers of The City, is their plaything.  Mr Green had over the years awarded large dividends payments to his wife who just happened to be domiciled in Monaco to avoid paying tax on the dividend, whilst not fulfilling his financial responsibilities towards the company and particularly towards the companies pension fund. No one is indictable, no one broke the law, no ones collar felt, it seems everything is normal, in the City.
My mind keeps returning to the reality of Mrs Wright , a 65 year old pensioner who is being charged a levy tax on her third bedroom which became vacant when her son moved away. 

The intensity of the investigation and the surety of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he is doing the country a favour as he roots out these "deviants" (Mrs Wright not Mr Green) who won't face their responsibilities towards the State  seems strangely unfocused when it comes to that segment of our society, 'the money men'.
We return time and time again to the inability of HMRC to pursue the Big City Rollers in their devious ways. The cosy deals between HMRC and Goldman Sachs, where the bank "agreed" to pay a minuscule percentage of what they owed the Exchequer and HMRC caved in and accepted the banks terms. 

I see the French are made of sterner stuff and are taking the same bank to court over unpaid taxes. The French always used the term to define us in our dealings on the international stage, "Perfidious Albion".