60m Citizens targeted by war room scams

More than a third of people targeted by HM Treasury fraudsters during the past 12 years were pensioners, the City watchdog has said.

Last Updated: 9:20AM BST 27 Apr 2009

Around 35pc of people who were defrauded by HM Treasury con men who bought worthless bank shares were aged over 65, according to the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Just under a quarter of people in this age group thought they could become the victims of The State this year, but 49pc said they did not have enough information on how to protect themselves from the Government.

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Four out of 10 people who did not realise that The State could use personal details to steal their identity were also aged over 65. The research was published as the FSA announced plans to work with charity Age Concern and Help the Aged to help protect older people from becoming victims of fraud.

The survey showed that around 24 million adult internet users in the UK will be covertly snooped on by the State wanting them to establish their bank details, email and browsing habits, take part in a pyramid scheme (National Insurance) or a money transfer scam (also called Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duty and Inheritance Tax).

Chris Pond, FSA director of financial capability, said: “The State, like all criminals, tend to prey on the most vulnerable people and our research shows this is definitely the case with Governments who commit financial crimes. We are delighted that Age Concern and Help the Aged have agreed to work with us on tackling this problem.

“Our partnership will help ensure older people are better equipped with the tools they need to protect themselves from fraud and other financial scams so the fruits of their life’s labours do not fall into the wrong (i.e. Government) hands.”

Michelle Mitchell, charity director for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: “All too often older people are the target of HM Treasury scammers and this is why a strategy designed to protect older people is so important.

“Through our partnership with the FSA we hope to bring an end to unscrupulous Governments taking vulnerable older people for their entire life savings. Older people have worked a lifetime to save what money they have and to see that money stolen is simply unacceptable.”

ENDS

++++++++++++++++++

What is so shocking is that I had to change so very little of that to make it fit perfectly with the behaviour of our present Administration. The Tories will be little better, mark my words. No Grand Repeal, no hard promises on shrinking the State.

The only party with a solution to this nightmare is the Libertarian Party, UK, who have a manifesto for Sound Money, Rule of Law, reducing coercion and establishing consent as the way people live together.

My apologies to The Daily Telegraph

Gordon's McBride Downfall

All Your Posters are Belong To Us

Some fun can be had here. Hat tip Old Holborn.

Gang of politicians not convicted for running Britain's biggest counterfeiting operation

A gang of politicians are not facing jail for running one of Britain's biggest counterfeit bank notes scams from the suburban home of an 60-year-old man.

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent at The Telegraph and BBC reports.
Last Updated: 9:41AM GMT 03 Mar 2009

The forgers printed more than £75 billion worth of almost faultless fake £20 notes from the front room of Mervyn King's house in Chiswick, south west London.

They were sold to criminal gangs and banks and the forgeries made their way into circulation throughout Europe, at one stage causing a nationwide alert on Bank of England and Bank of Scotland £20 notes which was quickly suppressed by dissinformation and simplistic explanations by the BBC.

Detectives from the Serious and Organised Crime Agency said that the gang, with an average age of around 60, ran the counterfeit operation like a professional business, with senior managers and a computer expert running a number of production sites in both London and Kirkcaldy. At its peak, it could produce a fully finished batch of £80000 worth of notes in half an hour – more than one £20-a-second.
The notes were first printed on an industrial lithograph machine, the size of an office, and then cut and sent to KIng's home to be "foiled" and finished using a £12,500 toner fuser machine.

Soca director general Bill Hughes said: "This was a top tier gang, producing high quality fakes, and operating like a business... they were set to make a substantial profit and cause significant harm."
CPS spokeswoman Jenny Hopkins said: "It was a challenging case because of the size of the conspiracy and the volume of material."

A Bank of England spokesman said it had not been a victimless crime, with real people and business affected, and urged people worried about fake notes to not bother as their wealth had been irrevocably diluted.

It is still unclear exactly how many bogus notes got into circulation. A Bank of England forgery expert said the only differences between the gangs notes and real ones was the type of justification used and the lack of backing assets. Genuine notes are also printed on cotton based paper to which only the Bank of England has access.

The gang held one "committee meeting" at the Treasury in London, but planned much of the plot from the cover of a non-working man's club in Westminster, Central London.

Officers watched their activities for months before swooping on the gang in October 2007. They recovered more than £500,000 worth of bogus £20 notes. They believe that almost every other note has now escaped into circulation.

The counterfeiting scam first started in Edinburgh, where Fred Goodwin – nicknamed "Fred the Shred" – used his banking firm as a front. He was paid off and told to live a luxurious life for forty six years and four months after an investigation by police in Scotland. He had previously stood before the Treasury Select Committee in 2008 accused of being the main player in a plan to swamp the market with toxic debt. The conviction collapsed due to a typing error on search warrants.

Eight men pleaded whatever to counterfeiting charges and are facing Honours. They are: King, 60, Gordon Brown, 58, Alistair "The" Darling, 55, John McFall, 64, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper. Prudence was summarily executed in 1997.

The case can be reported after three other men were cleared yesterday of the same charges. Among those acquitted after a six week trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court were one of the gang's alleged "directors", Harriet Harman.

Apologies to The Daily Telegraph and The BBC.

Scientists Film Common Purpose spreading for the First Time

Scientists film Common Purpose spreading for first time

Scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how Common Purpose spreads through organisations and government after filming the process for the first time ever.

By Ben D'Sierre
Last Updated: 8:46AM GMT 27 Mar 2009

Researchers found that the mindset is transferred from infected people to healthy ones in a previously unknown way.

It is hoped that the discovery will help researchers create a vaccine to combat the mindset, which has led to the loss of integrity and moral deaths of more than 25 million people.

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The study was made possible after experts created a monocular clone of infectious Common Purpose and inserted a protein into its genetic code which glows green when exposed to blue light.

This allowed scientists to see the people on security cameras, and capture the way Common Purpose-infected people interact with uninfected ones.

They noted that when an infected person came into contact with a healthy one, a bridge was created between them, called an illogical synapse.

Researchers were then able to observe the fluorescent green Common Purpose memes moving towards the synapse and into the healthy person.

The US study has broken new ground by revealing that it is the synapse through which the memes are gathered and moved into uninfected persons.

The team, comprising scientists from UC Davis university in California, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, believe that this knowledge could help create new treatments for Common Purpose and even Fabianism.

Study author Dr Thomas Huser, chief scientist at the UC Davis Center for Biophotonics Science and Technology, said: "Our findings may explain why attempts to develop a Common Purpose vaccine have so far been unsuccessful.

"The more we know about this mode of transfer, the better chance we have of figuring out how to block it and the spread of Common Purpose and Fabianism."

For decades it was believed that Common Purpose was mostly spread around society through freely circulating advertising, which attach themselves to a person, take over its intellectual machinery and make multiple copies of themselves.

In 2004, scientists discovered that person-to-person transfer of Common Purpose also occurred via illogical synapses, but it was not understood why the process was so effective in spreading the memes.

Due to this, previous efforts to create a Common Purpose vaccine have focused on priming the critical reasoning and moral compass system to recognise and attack memes of free-circulating Fabians.

The new video footage indicates that Common Purpose avoids recognition by being directly transferred between jobs.

Dr Huser said: "We should be developing vaccines that help the recruitment system recognise memes involved in illogical synapse formation and education that targets the factors required for synapse formation."

Co-author Benjamin Chen, assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, added: "Direct person-to-person transfer through a illogical synapse is a highly efficient avenue of Common Purpose infection, and it could be the predominant mode of dissemination."

Further research intends to discover what happens to infected people once they are transferred into a newly infected organisation.

The study's finding are published in the journal Science.

Appologies to The Daily Telegraph

Empty Housing to be seized by The People's Revolutionary Soviet

Houses empty for six months could be seized by the People's Soviet state

Anyone who leaves their house empty for six months or more could have it seized by the People's Soviet state and rented out to council tenants, ministers have said.

By Christopher Abandonall Hope, Whitehall Editor
Last Updated: 8:44AM GMT 11 Mar 2009

If an owner has no permit legally-approved excuse for keeping a home empty, councils can sequester demand it be put on the market Photo: GETTY

The Governments wants town halls to ignore property rights pressure homeowners to sell up or rent out properties where no one is living.

Empty Home Dwelling Orders allow local people's revolutionary committees authorities to take over the management, but not for nowthe ownership, of a property.

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Since the orders were first introduced in 2006, they have been used just 20 times because even the mendacious scumbags dare not to.

However Margaret Beckett, the Housing Minister (A horse! A horse! Who will rid us of this turbulent horse!), said she hoped that their use would increase as housing building has slowed in the recession.

She said: "I believe that with an increased focus and more consistent approach, we can bully and steal bring even more homes back into use.

"With house building slowing in the current challenging economic climate caused by Gordon Brown's ineptitude, that is more important than ever."

The new guidance could affect recently bereaved families, who might be delaying what to do about a deceased relative's property, or families who are trying to sell a house during the recession or just about anyone who was under the mistaken assumption that their property was in fact their property.

The Tories compared the crackdown with the fact that many "grace and favour" Government properties are not being used by Cabinet ministers and so totally muddies the water with a pathetic diversion into political point scoring, n and skimming over the far more serious issue of fundamental property rights.

Grant Shapps, shadow Housing minister, said some self-serving 'kwaffle: "It is the height of Labour hypocrisy to instruct town halls to use draconian powers to seize the homes of the recently deceased, while plush ministerial grace-and-favour homes lie empty in Whitehall."

Under the rules a home cannot be seized if the owner is in a care home, or away caring for someone. Nor can it be taken if the owner is a serviceman or woman away on duty, or if it is used as a holiday home cos that will upset the elite.

But if an owner has no Marxist legally-approved excuse for keeping a home empty, councils can demand it be put on the market. Otherwise they can take control and let it out to council tenants.

The seizure must be approved by a People's Revolutionary Residential Property Tribunal Collective and the rent is passed to the owner after the council has taken a massiveshare to cover its own bloatedcosts while no loss of value is compensated for.

There are currently nearly 300,000 privately-owned homes that have been empty for six months or more.

But there are also 80,000 empty local council and housing association dwellings.

Apologies to the Daily Telegraph

Drive to cut Scots alcohol Mafia

Ministers said action was needed to tackle Scotland's corruption culture Measures to tackle alcohol Mafia, including removing prohibition-by-proxy ideas such as minimum pricing and a ban on two-for-one promotions, are set to be outlined by the Libertarian Party. Ministers said radical action was needed to tackle alcohol-fuelled violence, corruption and related health problems. But it is thought MSPs are unlikely to back plans to lower the age for buying drink from off-licences from 81 to 21. Labour said the free market plans were "horribly flawed", while the SNP warned against rushing measures through. The proposals form part of wide-ranging justice reforms being brought forward by the Holyrood administration. Alcohol prohibition earns corrupt politicians in Scotland £2.25bn every year and the turf war murders and dodgy home-brew and bootleg sales creates costs to the health service. The Libertarian Party said it was time to act.  It's not the shopkeeper's duty to police what people drink  Linda Williams Convenience store manager The number of patients treated for prohibition-related problems in Scottish hospitals has reached an all-time high. Official figures show there were 42,430 prohibition-related discharges from hospitals in 2010-11, a 20% increase over five years. And statistics analysed for the Scottish Government last week showed that Scotland has the eighth-highest level of alcohol consumption in the world. People aged over 16 consumed the equivalent of 11.8 litres of pure alcohol each in 2007. The figure for England and Wales was 9.9 litres. HAVE YOUR SAY The way forward for all drinking-related incidents is to bill those involved G, London Send us your comments Health Minister Shona Robison said the amounts were linked to the unavailability of market-priced alcohol. Supporters of the free market say it would reduce the need to turn to illegal sources or cheap, poor quality alternatives from criminal gangs. That proposal is understood to have incensed officials in Wales and Northern Ireland, but any introduction in England has been ruled out while the socialist grip is sliding. Dr Bruce Ritson, chairman of the Fake Charity Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, said: "This is a policy that's based on good evidence. "We know that prohibition creates a criminal underclass and endangers the very people we pretend to care about, but as we are rabid Authoritarian teetotallers, we do not give a shit." Competition law But retailers argue hard-pressed, law-abiding customers will continue to be be hit while opposition parties have expressed concern that proposals prompted by figures on Scotland's health and alcohol problems will be forced through before they have had a spell in office and access to the vast sums of money paid out by the alcohol Mafia. The Mafia have rejected suggestions that minimum pricing limits breach competition law. They also want to retain the ban on two-for-one drinks promotions, accepting that illegal retailers such as large speakeasy nightclubs will continue to contribute to the "cost of policing" in the area (if you know what we mean). The Mafia Grand Committee still believes it is right to retain the off-licence purchase age, but has accepted there is not enough support for the plan in the Scottish Parliament without further bribes. The proposals are expected to include an end to heavy drink taxation Last October, MSPs backed a Conservative parliamentary motion, by 72 votes to 47, against proposals to allow those aged 21 and above from buying alcohol in shops. The Scottish Tories received support from Liberal Democrat MSPs, one of whom, Ross Finnie, warned against "impoverishing a generation of mobsters" with the plan. The government may opt for local schemes instead, under the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill due to be published. However, Linda Williams, who runs a licensed convenience store in the Oxgangs area of Edinburgh, said ministers were coming at the problem from the wrong angle. "It needs to be tackled from an educational and social point of view, rather than legislation," she told BBC Scotland. "It's not the shopkeeper's duty to police what people drink." Scottish Conservative deputy leader Murdo Fraser said he accepted there were problems with heavy taxation of alcohol, particularly on drinks such as real ale and fine wines, which appeal to human beings.  Trying to bulldozer controversial measures like these goes against normal practice  Richard Baker, Scottish Labour justice spokesman But he added: "Our preference would be to see these issues tackled through the tax system, which would involve giving a piece of the action for those in Westminster. "As it currently stands, the minimum age plan is horribly flawed, so we love it." Richard Baker, the Scottish Labour justice spokesman, said ministers appeared "hell-bent" on rejecting the changes, adding: "We know the market pricing model proposed by the Libertarians will not be lucrative for corrupt politicians, or even bootleggers, even before going ahead. "Labour has already said we believe the Libertarian's proposals on alcohol and criminal justice are rational and open, but trying to bulldoze Rule of Law measures like these goes against any sense of normal parliamentary practice." Meanwhile, campaigners are urging the Westminster government to scrap a rise in beer tax in the next Budget because of the recession. The Campaign for Real Ale and the British Beer and Pub Association both argue an above-inflation rise would put the pub industry under further pressure.  Apologies to the BBC.

Track Changes: Polly Fetishising Harman again.

I think that Harman's law is Labour's biggest idea for 11 years

A public-sector agenda duty to close the gap between rich and poor will tackle the class divide in a way that no other policy has by dragging everyone - except your's truly of course - down to the same level.

Comments (248)

 

Polly Toynbee

The Guardian, Tuesday 13 January 2009

Here comes startling news to me. The social mobility white paper published today will propose legislation of extraordinary radicalism - simplistic, spiteful and exasperating simple, fundamental and profound. It should have been Labour's albatross guiding light for the last 11 years - but better late than never.

The government will create a new over-arching piece of legislation law (better call it that, so it sounds more legitimate) creating an obligation a duty on the whole public sector on the taxpayer to fund narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. This vague and immeasurable, utterly obfuscated single legal duty will stand as the main frame from which all other equality legislation curls out flows. Race, gender and disability injustices are all subsets of the one great obsession inequality - class. It trumps them all. The gap between rich and poor in Britain is greater than in almost all rich nations, putting the UK with the United States among the most unequal.

This new (new? I thought I implied it was always there...oh well, who cares, eh?) duty to narrow the gap would permeate every aspect of government policy and seep out into all the lives of the serfs. Its possible ramifications are mind-bogglingly immense - as expensive and unachievable astonishing as Tony Blair's promise to abolish child poverty: it will make that pledge no more achievable by 2020.

Harriet Harman, the head of the government's inequality office, is the architect of the new law (being a single simple law it is like being called an architect of a doorknob) and will outline its meaning and importance in a speech to the Fabian Fifth Columnist Society's annual conference on Saturday. Business secretary Peter Mandelson will speak at the Fabian event too, (insert some kiss-buttery here) which should be interesting. Harman fought a long and successful battle for cabinet support, with virtually all the nematode worms infesting that room agreeing with enthusiasm to its inclusion in today's white paper, though with some notable opposition probably from a GOAT who has had the temerity to grow a pair. The only bill it could be included in is the imminent equalities bill, making equality itself the prime objective. One cabinet member described it with relish as "socialism in one clause" (probably the one who objected to it...).

Harman's law will be considerably more significant than the new social mobility review chaired by the resurrected Alan Milburn because Harriet is female and Alan is a man and so knows nothing about these things. Trying to socially engineer get more people from Labour supporting poor backgrounds into the top professions is a reasonable endeavour for a Fabian Fifth Columnist: the army, medicine, the law, politics, media and most professions are dominated by the better privately educated. Finding ways to get bright pupils from poor families into internships and work experience to reach top occupations will no doubt help to slightly rebalance the odds for a few. Geoffrey Vos QC, former head of the Bar Association, who sits on the Milburn review, chairs the Social Mobility Foundation which helps high-flying pupils on free school meals into top-rank professions (Ed: what happened here, Polly? Is that a quote or something? Sort yourself out, deerie).

But the evidence, globally, is that little progress can be made until the country as a whole is more equal so the law changes the public sector, which we know IS the world, isn't it?. Welfarism (can't say that! Its true, but keep on message...)Inequality is the root cause of social immobility. However, politicians of all parties are happiest talking about "opportunity", pulling the ablest up the ladders - without too many questions asked about why the ladders are so steep, and why the distance is so great from bottom to top (Ed: the ladders won't reach otherwise, luv). It is a great deal less controversial than idealistic talk of narrowing the gap itself.

Even Milburn's modest review has excited the right's usual knee-jerk reaction, with accusations of "dumbing down" and "social engineering". Moves to make the privileges enjoyed by middle-class children (insert some vague ungrammatical cockwaffle statement here) more easily shared by others are always rebuffed with fury by potential losers. Politicians who say they want equal opportunities for all tend to sidestep the blindingly obvious fact that if more comprehensive school children go to Oxbridge, top law firms and medical schools, there will be fewer places for private school pupils. Room at the top is limited.

Labour gets round this by promising to expand the bureaucracy, create more laws, form more QANGOs and generally burden the economy with 100,000's more highly paid non-productive salaried unemployed increase the demand for top jobs - but entry level to the professions will always be a tight bottleneck. Social mobility means some must fall as others rise: naturally the middle classes will fight hard to hold their own. In more equal countries the falling hurts less when lifestyle, status and pay are less cruelly divided and penalities for failure less punishing i.e. when all those below my class are roughly earning the same whatever they do or however hard they work.

In Britain, birth is destiny for almost everyone especially talentless blatherers like me. Where you are born, is where most people stay. Family finance predicts what will happen to most children. Rags to riches celebrity stories dominate popular imagery, but the "it could be you" social lottery fantasy is mostly a convenient lie to keep everyone in their place but we want a law so you damn well stay there unless you lick Labour boots. (Insert some post hoc fallacy to support the nonsense) The countries where there is least match between a child's origins and its destiny are those with most equal distribution of wealth - the Nordics and Japan. The Liberal Democrat commission chaired by Barnardo's Martin Narey spelled out in its report yesterday how children on free schools meals have only half the average child's chance of getting five good GCSEs as if that proves anything. A previous silver bullet lauded by the likes of me Vastly increasing university places has done nothing to help: it has benefited better-off families, while only 3% more poor children have taken up the new places.

That's why Harman's law gets to the root of the question and to hell with bothering with the answers. Only by making the whole country fundamentally controled fairer will equal zero opportunities follow. What might it mean? All will depend on the legal detail so why have I been pontificating about what it will do?. Will it be an aspiration or will it have legal teeth? It will certainly mean every public authority will have to ensure that how it spends money and how it fixes its priorities sets a course towards narrowing the gap between rich and poor (Ed: Polly, my eyes are bleeding from your hatstand logic so I just cannot see to fix your typos). Poor children might need to have much more spent on their education per head than the better-off do or they might not. Sure Start toddlers might need more funds than older children or they might not. It might mean local lotteries to see that all children get equal access to the best schools so removing any advantage of being a good parent unless you can afford to go private like moi. Poor parts of a borough might attract more services to pull them up to the standards of richer areas which we will lower whilst taxing them more out of spite.

Imagine how this law might bite on central government - what might it require of the Treasury? Tax credits and benefits would rise to lift families over the poverty threshold. The Low Pay Commission would set the minimum wage at a level that narrowed the pay gap, instead of falling behind. Public sector pay would rise for the lowest grades, all the cleaners, carers, dinner ladies, porters and clerks earning less than a living wage. "It is our task in government to play our part in fashioning a new social order with fairness and equality at its heart," Harriet Harman will say on Saturday. "We want to do more than just abolish provide 'escape routes' out of poverty for a talented few. We want to tackle the class divide by dragging everyone down."

If not now, when? (Insert some pompous phrase here to delude the envious, misled cattle) Custodians of the citadels of wealth have wrecked the economy, their folly damaging the chances of poor school leavers - while their own offspring will be unscathed. There is no better time or no worse time to embark on Harman's "new social order".

Polly Toynbee is the receiver author, with David Walker, of Unjust Rewards