UK

Labour plots ‘devastating’ inheritance tax raid

Charlotte Gifford
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Labour is considering scrapping two exemptions – agricultural and business property relief - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe

Labour is planning a “devastating” multi-billion pound inheritance tax raid which could affect farmers and family business.

The party is considering scrapping two exemptions – agricultural and business property relief – that currently allow farms and businesses to be passed down at death without their families paying the divisive 40pc charge.

It is part of a plan to scrap a number of tax reliefs in a “loophole” closing exercise which the party believes could raise as much as £4bn, according to the Times.


It is unclear whether Labour is considering scrapping the relief in its entirety or reforming the exemption so it can no longer be used by investors who own agricultural land but are not full-time farmers.

Under the current rules, agricultural property can be 100pc exempt from death duties. Business property relief also protects family firms being passed down the generations, but also exempts some Alternative Investment Market (Aim) shares from inheritance tax – providing a tax planning tool for those with spare cash to invest.

It in part explains why wealthier individuals on average pay a lower effective rate of inheritance tax on their estates compared to middle-class families who typically have the majority of their wealth tied up in family homes which are not protected by the same tax breaks.

Experts warned scrapping the reliefs in their entirety would lead to the sale or break up of family farms and businesses in order to pay inheritance tax bills.

It comes amid rumours the Conservatives are considering abolishing inheritance tax altogether, or increasing allowances, in an effort to secure victory at the next general election as struggles against Labour in the polls.

The Telegraph, alongside more than 50 Conservative MPs, is campaigning for the duty to be scrapped.

Agricultural Property Relief, which allows farmers and investors to pass on land without paying the death duties, saves around £1bn from the taxman every year, according to data from HM Revenue and Customs.

Meanwhile Business Relief lets families claim tax relief when inheriting business assets or shares in a company.

Entrepreneurs, farmers and investors ringfenced £3.2bn from death duties through the exemption in 2020-21, the latest year for which full data is available – making it one of the most valuable inheritance tax reliefs.

Sean McCann of financial advice firm NFU Mutual said: “Removing Agricultural Property Relief could be devastating for the UK’s traditional family farms. Financial returns from agriculture can be lower than many other businesses. Agricultural

Property Relief enables farmers to invest in their long-term future with the knowledge their farm is sustainable for the next generation.

“Similarly, removing Business Property Relief would be a significant disincentive to business owners, and is likely to mean that in many cases the next generation would need to borrow significant sums to pay the tax, rather than to invest in future growth and jobs.”

It is understood that Labour is also considering removing business asset disposal relief, which allows individuals who own more than 5pc of a company to pay less tax when they sell their stake.

Reports suggest Labour will not announce the tax rises until shortly before the election campaign but will use them to fund pre-election giveaways.

Rachael Griffin of investment firm Quilter said that the idea of scrapping agricultural and business property reliefs have been “tabled by a number of think tanks” in recent years, saying it was “likely the Conservatives will be mulling over the possibility too”.

Cutting Business Property Relief would impact investors with shares in unlisted companies, preventing them from claiming 100pc inheritance tax relief on their investments and leading to an exodus from Aim shares, she added.

Those in favour of removing these exemptions argue that it will impact the wealthy whose estates are more likely to contain farmland, businesses and large investments.

But the now-disbanded Office of Tax Simplification acknowledged in its 2018 report on inheritance tax that both Agricultural and Business Property Relief play an important role in ensuring farms and businesses are able to survive as they are passed down the generations.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for INHERITANCE 

Mikhail Bakunin Archive

ABOLISH INHERITANCE

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On the Question of the Right of Inheritance

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1871/inheritance.html

Report of the Committee on the Question of Inheritance

The Anarchist Library

https://theanarchistlibrary.org › library › mikhail-baku...

We intend that both capital and land—in a word all the raw materials of labor—should cease being transferable through the right of inheritance, becoming forever ...

UK households could pay £3,500 more in tax by next election, warns IFS

Rishi Sunak government to preside over the biggest tax rises since records began

Angela Barnes
·Reporter
Thu, 28 September 2023 

 Photo: Justin Tallis via AP.

A tax rise equivalent to around £3,500 more per household is expected by the next general election, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

It said the potential tax hike would amount to around 37% of national income, up from around 33% in 2019 and noted the UK government would be raising upwards of £100bn more in tax revenues each year as a result.

The IFS also highlighted that since comparable records began in the 1950s, no parliament has presided over a bigger increase in taxes.

The group noted that only during and in the immediate aftermath of the two world wars have government revenues grown by as much as they have in the period since 2019.

However, the government could decide to announce tax cuts in the run-up to the next election, which would of course alter the IFS projections.

Ben Zaranko, senior research economist at IFS, said: ‘It is inconceivable that this parliament will turn out to be anything other than a tax-raising one – and it looks nailed on to be the biggest tax-raising parliament since at least the Second World War. This is not, for the most part, a direct consequence of the pandemic.

“Rather, it reflects decisions to increase government spending, in part driven by demographic change, pressures on the health service, and some unwinding of austerity. It is likely that this parliament will mark a decisive and permanent shift to a higher-tax economy.”

Meanwhile, Mark Franks, director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, said demographic change combined with slow economic growth is creating an almost inevitable increase in tax revenues as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).

“There will be strong pressure in coming parliaments to raise taxes further to meet growing demand for public services such as healthcare. Future governments must not only have a credible and robust strategy for the economy and the public finances, but should also be forthright and transparent about the difficult trade-offs they will face.’

The next UK general election is scheduled to be held no later than 28 January 2025.
What did Jeremy Hunt previously say on tax rises?

During his last budget speech in March, chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the government would put a cap on the amount workers can accumulate in pensions savings over their lifetime before having to pay extra tax.

He also said the tax-free yearly allowance for the pension pot would rise from £40,000 to £60,000 – having been frozen for nine years.

Hunt also froze fuel duty – the 5p cut was kept for another year until April 2024.

Meanwhile, it was announced that alcohol taxes would rise in line with inflation from August, with new reliefs for beer, cider and wine sold in pubs, while tax on tobacco would increase by 2% above inflation, and 6% above inflation for hand-rolling tobacco.

Sunak set to preside over biggest tax-raising parliament on record, say experts

Dominic McGrath, PA Political Staff
Thu, 28 September 2023 


The current Parliament will have presided over the biggest set of tax rises since at least the Second World War, experts have said.

By the time of the next general election, taxes will likely have risen to around 37% of national income, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

The widely respected think tank said that the spike was equivalent to around £3,500 more per household, even if in reality it will not be shared equally.

Since comparable records began in the 1950s, no parliament has seen a bigger increase in taxes.

Tory MPs have long complained about the unwillingness of Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to contemplate tax cuts, with backbench complaints about current levels of tax.

The pair have instead stressed the need for fiscal responsibility amid still-high inflation.

But Mr Hunt is likely to face pressure to announce tax cuts, if not in the upcoming autumn statement, then at least before the next nationwide poll.

Ben Zaranko, a senior research economist at the IFS, said the pandemic could not be blamed for rising tax levels and predicted that a high-tax approach was here to stay regardless of who wins the next general election.

“It is inconceivable that this Parliament will turn out to be anything other than a tax-raising one – and it looks nailed on to be the biggest tax-raising parliament since at least the Second World War,” he said.

“This is not, for the most part, a direct consequence of the pandemic. Rather, it reflects decisions to increase Government spending, in part driven by demographic change, pressures on the health service, and some unwinding of austerity.

“It is likely that this Parliament will mark a decisive and permanent shift to a higher-tax economy.”

This was echoed by Mark Franks, the director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation.

He said: “There will be strong pressure in coming parliaments to raise taxes further to meet growing demand for public services such as healthcare.

“Future governments must not only have a credible and robust strategy for the economy and the public finances, but should also be forthright and transparent about the difficult trade-offs they will face.”

Opposition parties seized on the findings, as Labour said that the Tories had “clobbered” the public.

Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said: “Successive Tory government have overseen 13 years of low growth and stagnant wages. Their response in the face of this bankrupt legacy is always to load their failure onto working people. And what are we getting back? Crumbling public services.

“Brits are working hard but getting clobbered with 25 Tory tax rises and a continuing Conservative premium on their household budgets.”

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said: “This Conservative Government crashed the economy and is making the public pay the price. This is the same party which promised not to raise people’s taxes and is now taxing families through the nose.

“Despite this, ministers have given tax cuts to the big banks, failed to close loopholes in the windfall tax on oil and gas giants and wasted eye watering sums on dodgy PPE contracts.”

A Treasury spokesperson said: “Despite needing to take the difficult decisions to restore public finances in the face of the dual shocks of the pandemic and Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the latest data shows our tax burden will remain lower than any major European economy.

“Driving down inflation is the most effective tax cut we can deliver right now, which is why we are sticking to our plan to halve it, rather than making it worse by borrowing money to fund tax cuts.

“We have also taken 3 million people out of paying tax altogether since 2010 through raising personal thresholds, and the Chancellor has said he wants to lower the tax burden further – but has been clear that sound money must come first.”

UK

FCA changes rules for insurers of leasehold buildings after Grenfell

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Fri, 29 September 2023 



Insurers will be forced to act in the best interests of people who own flats in apartment blocks and other leaseholders under new rules from the City watchdog.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that from the start of the new year, insurance firms will have to treat leaseholders as customers when designing products.

They will also be banned from recommending insurance policies based on the level of commission or remuneration they can get.


It comes after a letter from the watchdog in January 2022 which told companies to take leaseholders into consideration, and said that it had seen significant shortcoming from some brokers.

Typical commissions ranged from 30% to 49%, the FCA said, with some as high as 62%.

Later that year a report from the FCA found that insurance premiums had risen significantly for leasehold buildings after the Grenfell fire, which left 72 people dead. The rises were particularly large for high and mid-rise buildings.

The new rules mean that insurers will have to make sure they are providing fair value to leaseholders and give them important information and their policy and its pricing. This should include the details of any commission paid, the FCA said.

“Insurance firms must now act in leaseholders’ best interests and ensure that their policies provide fair value,” said Sheldon Mills, executive director of consumers and competition.

“Our reforms will help to strengthen the insurance market by providing new protections for leaseholders. We will not hesitate to take action if firms breach these rules.”

The FCA has previously said that there are many issues highlighted by the Grenfell fire which are outside its remit.

It cannot take into account issues driven by construction issues or involving companies it does not regulate.

UK
Severn Trent customer water bills to rise by almost 37% by end of decade

PRIVATIZED WATER

Mark Sweney
Fri, 29 September 2023 

Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

Severn Trent is to increase customers’ bills by almost 37% by the end of the decade and has raised £1bn in investment – half from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund – to pay for a multibillion investment plan to improve its water network over the next five years.

The company, which has 4.2 million customers, said the average annual household bill would rise from £379 in 2024-25 to £518 in 2029-30.

It predicted that by 2030 the cost of a bill would be 1.3% of the disposable income of a typical household in the Severn Trent region, compared with 1.2% today, and attempted to soften the blow by announcing a £550m financial support package for struggling customers.


“Severn Trent recognises that while this increase is spread over a long period, today’s announcement comes at a difficult time for some customers,” the company said. “That is why we have included a £550m financial support package as a core part of the plan. This will help 693,000 customers pay their bill each year by 2030.”

The company plans to invest a record £12.9bn on its network over the next five years, including £5bn on projects designed to tackle the water industry’s poor environmental record, which it said would create 7,000 jobs across the Midlands region.

As part of the investment plan, Severn Trent is raising £1bn, with £500m from the Qatar Investment Authority, to “ensure we can deliver this scale investment programme responsibly”.

“We are consistently named in the top category for financial resilience by [water regulator] Ofwat,” the company said. “And this remains a clear priority for us.”

The QIA is a top-five shareholder in Severn Trent, holding a stake of 4.9%. The water company’s biggest shareholders are BlackRock (13%) and Lazard (7.45%).

Earlier this week, Ofwat ordered water companies in England and Wales to return £114m to customers through lower bills next year because progress on leakage and sewage spills had been “too slow”.

In May, water companies in England apologised to customers and announced £10bn in infrastructure upgrades to fix the sewage problems, which will ultimately be paid for by customers.

Millions of households face 37pc jump in water bills

Melissa Lawford
Fri, 29 September 2023

Severn Trent boss, Liv Garfield, promised the cost increase would transform the company’s network and result in fewer leaks 

- Tayfun Salci

Millions of Severn Trent customers will see their water bills surge by more than £100 a year after the company launched a £12.9bn turnaround plan.

The utility giant on Friday confirmed plans to raise bills by 37pc by the end of the decade as it looks to raise cash to invest in reducing sewage spills and fixing pipes across its network.

Severn Trent’s plan will mean 4.2 million customers across the Midlands and Wales will have to pay an extra £139 a year on average by the end of the decade.

The announcement is the first in what is likely to be an industry-wise jump in bills.

All 17 water companies across England and Wales have until midday on Monday to submit their five-year business plans to the regulator Ofwat, which are expected to include increases in bills to cover the costs of environmental works.

Martin Young, senior analyst at Investec, said: “Severn Trent is probably at the bottom end of the range because they started off with a cheaper bill.”

Documents leaked to the Times over the summer showed that some water companies were planning to raise bills by as much as 56pc.

Mr Young said the documents suggested average bills will rise from £441 to £570. However, these figures do not account for inflation.

Mike Keil, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), said: “Water companies have already indicated that there are likely to be some substantial bill rises over the next five years to fund the investment that customers want to see in improving services and protecting the environment.”

Under Severn Trent’s proposals, which will be submitted to water regulator Ofwat on Monday, annual bills will rise from £379 in 2024-25 to £518 by 2029-30.

It announced the planned increase to help fund a £12.9bn investment in its ailing infrastructure.

The water company will invest billions into reducing pollution across UK rivers and has targeted reducing sewage spills by a third by 2030.

Severn Trent was one of four water companies fined a collective total of £94m by the Environment Agency for dumping sewage between 2018 and 2022.

It has also become the first UK water supplier to face a class action lawsuit over sewage pollution, although it has rejected the allegations.

As well as increasing bills, the company on Friday announced plans to raise £1bn selling shares to help fund its plans. It included a £500m investment from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, which was already one of the company’s biggest shareholders.

The Qatar Investment Authority becomes Severn Trent’s second-largest shareholder after the investment. The Middle Eastern nation first took a £200m stake in the supplier in 2019.

Severn Trent said that although customers would be paying an extra £139 per year, this would be roughly in line with the expected increase in household incomes.

Chief executive Liv Garfield said: “By 2030 we will have transformed our network to provide our customers with the very best service.

“At the heart of this ambition is a commitment to a sustainable future – from healthier rivers, to providing thousands of jobs, fewer leaks and a water supply ready for the impacts of climate change and population growth.”

Debt-laden water companies have been battling increased financial pressures over the past year, as the cost of cleaning up rivers coincided with higher interest rates.

Earlier this year concerns about Thames Water’s £14bn debt pile sparked emergency talks between the Government and Ofwat, as they considered possibly nationalising Britain’s largest supplier.

Severn Trent, which has nearly £7bn of debts, was not involved in the talks.

Severn Trent’s surprise £1 billion share sale points to wave of water industry spending

Michael Hunter
Fri, 29 September 2023 

Severn Trent’s CEO Liv Garfield (Severn Trent)

There was clear insight into the looming costs of modernising the UK’s water industry today, when Severn Trent announced a £1 billion share sale.

The capital raising came alongside plans from the FTSE 100 utility giant for spending of almost £13 billion for the next phase of its business plan. The rest of the industry is due to file new five-year plans with regulators next week.

Much of the next round of spending will on cutting the overspills of raw sewage and the mass leaks of fresh water from supply pipes that have left the water industry reeling from a wave of public anger.


Severn Trent’s market value is around £6 billion. It supplies almost five million homes from the Bristol Channel to the Humber. The new five-year plan runs from April 2025 to the end of April 2030 and is the first sign of the extent of industry spending in that period.

London’s supplier, Thames Water, has 15 million customers, or about a quarter of the UK population. It has been grappling with a £14 billion debt burden and its investors have already stumped up £750 million in fresh cash in July. Its next five-year plan has not been released.

Thames was told this week to cut household bills by £100 million next year after regulators cracked down on wider inadequate performance in the industry toward cutting sewage spills and leaks.

Severn Trent’s £4-million-a-year boss, Liv Garfield, hit the headlines this summer with a different kind of leak. In an email to other senior utility executives, she suggested setting up “an off-the-record roundtable” discussion group. It came amid calls from the general public for the re-nationalisation of water companies.

Today’s City fundraising was immediately backed by one of the world’s major sovereign wealth funds. Qatar Investment Authority will snap up half of the stock on offer. The remaining £500 million is priced at 2150p per share for institutional investors according to newswire reports.

Retail investors will be able to buy into a smaller sale, which could raise around £7 million.

Severn Trent’s stock rose 40p to 2306p.

City experts were not expecting the Severn Trent share issue, but pointed out that the rally for the stock after the announcement was a clear sign it was well-received on the market. Usually, a share issue leads to an immediate slip in price, ahead of the increased supply in stock

Severn Trent to raise £1bn to help fund transformation plan

Henry Saker-Clark, PA Deputy Business Editor
Fri, 29 September 2023


Severn Trent is seeking to raise £1 billion to help support a transformation plan that is “expected to create 7,000 jobs” across the midlands.

The water supplier has launched a pre-emptive equity placing to start raising funds and stressed that the firm is “maintaining financial resilience”.

The utility firm said it plans to spend £12.9 billion in supporting its network over the next five-year regulatory period.

It said this will include £5 billion of investment focused on improving capacity and service beyond current levels, with £3 billion of this focused towards aiding the “natural environment”.

Liv Garfield, chief executive officer of Severn Trent (Veuve Clicquot/PA)

The plan comes amid a period of intense scrutiny over the water sector and renewed speculation over the potential for nationalisation in the industry.

Significant financial instability at debt-laden rival Thames Water drove calls for political intervention, raising questions over the financing of the industry, while firms have also come under pressure over environmental issues.

On Friday, Severn Trent said its new business plan will be submitted to regulator Ofwat on Monday following the equity raise.

The firm said the plan will help it towards a 16% reduction in leakage and a 30% reduction in spills from storm overflows, putting it on track to deliver the Government’s 2050 industry targets five years early.

Severn Trent also said the investments are expected to create up to 7,000 jobs directly in the business and supply chain.

Liv Garfield, chief executive officer at Severn Trent, said: “By 2030 we will have transformed our network to provide our customers with the very best service.

“At the heart of this ambition is a commitment to a sustainable future – from healthier rivers, to providing thousands of jobs, fewer leaks and a water supply ready for the impacts of climate change and population growth.

“At the same time, our £550 million affordability scheme aims to ensure no customer in our region needs to worry about affording their water bill.

“We’ve listened hard to our customers, not only will we make sure we keep building on our sector-leading track record, but we will also work to make our region proud of their water company.”

UK The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria: an original take on a difficult topic

Kirsten Grant
TELEGRAPH
Thu, 28 September 2023

The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria, at the Arcola - Will Alder

“I saved nearly 50,000 lives and you’ve never bloody heard of me,” Boris III laments in the opening moments of this surprising historical drama about the wartime monarch. The premise of Joseph Cullen and Sasha Wilson’s revisionist play is certainly an intriguing one. While the Second World War is a subject that is frequently theatrically revisited and rehashed, how many are in fact familiar with the story of Bulgaria’s king?

It also challenges binary narratives about the war that we in the West hold dear. While the real-life Boris sided with Hitler’s Germany to regain Bulgaria’s lost territories, he still managed to prevent the country’s Jewish communities from being sent to concentration camps. Described by Hitler as a “wily fox”, the king infuriated the Nazi leader in their final meeting by demanding that Bulgaria keep its Jewish population for hard labour. Two weeks later, Boris died in mysterious circumstances from suspected poisoning.

Out of the Forest’s galloping 80-minute production whips through these events at breakneck speed, and provides its own interpretation of them (a sympathetic Boris uses his road-building project as an excuse to save the Jews from deportation). Recently a sell-out hit at the Fringe and backed by Boris’s grandson Prince Cyril, the drama has been accused by some historians of “rewriting history” to perpetrate a myth about Bulgaria’s heroics.

In Hannah Hauer-King’s staging, Cullen plays Boris as a reluctant, decision-averse king who engages in a cat-and-mouse game with Hitler to avoid imposing restrictions against his Jewish citizens. Initially, his dithering is played for laughs but, when he is literally backed into a corner by the rest of the five-strong ensemble and forced to strip Jewish Bulgarians of their citizenship, he morphs into a tortured figure who repeatedly asks audience members: “What would you do?” It’s a thought-provoking performance that is somewhat undercut by the antic caricatures of the anti-Semitic figures around him, which aim to be satirical but end up feeling tonally jarring.

This production tries to address the complexities of Bulgaria’s history as much as it can in its short runtime. We are introduced to key players such as Liliana Panitsa, the secretary to the Commissar for Jewish Affairs, who bravely warned Jewish communities about deportation plans. And nor does the script shy away from the hard-hitting reality that 11,000 Jews from the regained Bulgarian territories were, in fact, sent to concentration camps.

The writers have clearly done their homework, but overpacking this drama with fun – yet unnecessary – historical facts does it no favours and puts you in mind of a Horrible Histories special, while clumsy asides to the audience are used to shoehorn in extra details. Still, this is an ambitious and inventive outing for a fledgling company.



FRINGE

Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh

The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III, King of Bulgaria review – a monarch’s missing morals

Wittily drawn historical drama follows self-effacing leader ill-equipped to deal with the encroaching Nazi menace

Mark Fisher

THE GUARDIAN
Thu 3 Aug 2023

Awkward questions to answer … The Brief Life & Mysterious Death of Boris III,

 King of Bulgaria.

 Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/the Guardian

If you think actor Joseph Cullen is cartoonish at the start of this chewy true-life story, you should see the grotesque caricature he becomes. Playing Bulgaria’s wartime king, he is so self-effacing he looks about to crumple down the middle. He is placatory and feeble, the Beano’s Walter the Softy made flesh.

The joke in Hannah Hauer-King’s production, written by Cullen and Sasha Wilson, is that nobody in this neglected Balkan country can take themselves seriously. The five-strong ensemble josh their way through silly accents and meta-gags as they send up a nation that knows it will never be a player on the world stage and is too laidback to care. The king is in good company.

Snappily written, wittily performed and brightly coloured by a live score that encompasses not just Slavic folk but also campfire gospel and protest song, it has a brisk knockabout charm.

But it also has a more serious purpose. Cullen plays Boris III, who ruled Bulgaria from 1918 to his suspicious death in 1943, as a reluctant monarch, averse to responsibility. But as Hitler’s Germany extends its territory, it becomes ever less possible for him to stay on the fence. A pact with the Nazis puts the fate of 50,000 Jews in his hands. “Service requires action,” he is reminded, as the comic evasions of the beginning become cruel moral choices.

Playing a game of double bluff – or is he? – the king morphs into a nasty parody of antisemitism, eating himself up with the inhumanity of it all. And as the movement of Out of the Forest theatre’s production goes from frivolous to ferocious, so the play makes us confront those awkward questions about appeasement and compromise, and the slippery line between honourable neutrality and collaboration. For all its fun and games, it is a play with a sting.

At Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, until 28 August

All our Edinburgh festival reviews

UK

29% of women ‘say state pension will be their only income in retirement’

Vicky Shaw, PA Personal Finance Correspondent
Thu, 28 September 2023 



Women are around twice as likely as men to be expecting to rely solely on the state pension for their retirement income, research suggests.

Nearly three in 10 (29%) of women surveyed for pensions and investments mutual Royal London said the state pension will be their only source of income in retirement, compared with 13% of men.

Women are also less likely to say they have checked their state pension age, with just over half (53%) of women having checked, compared with 58% of men.


Among people planning to retire before they reach state pension age, men were more likely than women to say they will use money from investments to help fund the gap.

Women were more likely than men to say they intend to rely on money from their partner’s savings during that period.

Sarah Pennells, consumer finance expert at Royal London said: “The state pension is the foundation of most people’s income in retirement, but for almost one in three women, it’s their sole form of income.”

She added: “Retirement is meant to be when you have the time to do the things you’d like to do, and for many women the state pension alone won’t give them the income they’d like.

“The cost-of-living crisis is putting extra pressure on household budgets, but relying on the state pension alone could mean many years of making very tough choices about spending.”

Opinium surveyed 4,000 people across the UK in June for Royal London’s research.

UK shame as Pakistani police storm hotel and arrest Afghans promised sanctuary in Britain


Exclusive: British High Commission were forced to intervene to secure release of UK-bound Afghans – as ex-Army boss accuses government of ignoring allies

Holly Bancroft
Social Affairs Correspondent

Afghans promised safe haven in Britain but trapped in Pakistan have been arrested by police amid fears refugees could be returned to the Taliban,The Independent can reveal.

Hundreds of Afghan families, many of whom worked for the British army, have been stranded in Islamabad for months after the UK stopped chartering flights last year and demanded refugees find their own housing in Britain before travelling. The families were invited to come to Islamabad and were put up in UK government-paid hotels after they were found eligible for Britain’s resettlement schemes.


Stuck in limbo with expired visas, the Pakistani police targeted these groups this week, arresting several. The Afghans were only saved when the British High Commission (BHC) on the ground intervened. Those still trying to get to the UK say they are terrified the same thing will happen again and that they will be deported back to Taliban-run Afghanistan.

Military chiefs, MPs and charities hit out at the news, accusing the UK of ignoring those who helped us in our fight against the Taliban.

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General Sir John McColl, the army’s former deputy supreme Nato commander for Europe who served in Afghanistan, told The Independent the “deaf government” wanted to ignore the issue, adding the Afghan allies were “out of sight and out of mind”. Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey said it was “unacceptable” that these Afghans had been waiting so long they now risked arrest by the Pakistan authorities.

Pakistani authorities have already deported thousands of Afghans from their country, including Afghans eligible for resettlement in the US based on their work with the American government.

Early on Tuesday morning, at around 6am, one of the hotels housing UK-eligible Afghans was stormed by Pakistan police who interrogated the families and demanded to see their documentation, The Independent can reveal.


Police arrested seven Afghans who did not have in-date visas, rebuffing protests that they were under the protection of the UK government, Afghans staying in the BHC hotels told The Independent.

The Afghans were freed on Tuesday afternoon and returned to the hotel after BHC officials lobbied for their release. The Foreign Office is working to resolve issues around expired visas and undocumented eligible Afghans with the Pakistani government.

One former interpreter in one of the British High Commission hotels in Islamabad said ‘we are like prisoners’
(The Independent)

All the Afghan families have been given permission to come to the UK under the Ministry of Defence’s Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy Scheme (Arap) or the Home Office’s ACRS programme. The Afghans are under the care of the BHC and are having their accommodation paid for by the UK government – to the sum of over £17m.

As of July, there were over 1,300 Afghans living in these hotels but these figures have likely risen since then. The MoD has refused to give updated figures to The Independent.

One former interpreter, who was embedded with British troops in Helmand province and who has been given eligibility under Arap, told The Independent the arrests had made everyone terrified.

“We are like prisoners. The situation is not good and we don’t know what we have to do or what will be our future,” he said.

Describing the arrests, he said: “Police came to some hotels in the early morning when families and babies were sleeping. They checked their passports and they saw that the visas had expired.

The Afghans told the police: “We are under the accommodation of the BHC.” But the police said “this is not the UK government, this is the Islamabad government” and then they arrested seven people.

“They arrested them from one hotel and they took a list of the Afghan families in another hotel.”

It is just over two years since the evacuation operation after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan
(Getty)

General McColl, the former prime minister’s special envoy to Afghanistan, has been putting pressure on the government to help the thousands of Afghan allies stuck in Pakistan. He said: “They are still asking those in Pakistan to source their own accommodation in the UK and the effect of that is to ensure that they stay in Pakistan. They are out of sight and out of mind.

“There has been no significant movement by the government. Nor is there any intention to do anything about it. We’ve got a deaf government which wants to ignore the issue”.

General Sir John McColl said the government have ‘no plan’ to help Afghan allies trapped in Pakistan
(PA)

Referring to the number of Afghans who have places on UK resettlement schemes and are waiting for relocation to Britain, General McColl, said: “We think that must be approaching about 3,000 now in Pakistan, some of whom will have been there for 18 months.

“Many in Pakistan were tacitly or overtly in support of the Taliban, and police have been aggressively seeking those whose visas have expired,” he added.

Labour’s Mr Healey added: “Ministers are continuing to fail Afghans who risked their lives supporting our Armed Forces Personnel. It is unacceptable that Arap-eligible Afghans have been left in Pakistan for so long that they now risk arrest due to their visas running out.”

Sarah Fenby-Dixon, Afghan consultant for the Refugee Aid Network, who is supporting a number of Afghans in the hotels, said: “The UK government’s treatment of eligible Arap families has been nothing short of incompetent and negligent. The families had already been waiting months or years to be transferred to Pakistan and now they again face another agonisingly long wait for relocation to the UK.

“Families of up to seven people are living in one room, unable to go out and children are missing month after month of school.

“After the arrests of Arap applicants by Pakistani police earlier this week, people are terrified that they will be arrested and deported back to Afghanistan.”

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A government spokesperson said: “The UK has made an ambitious and generous commitment to help at-risk people in Afghanistan and, so far, we have brought around 24,600 people to safety, including thousands of people eligible for our Afghan resettlement schemes.

“We continue to honour our commitments to bring eligible Afghans to the UK, and we are issuing new visas to people in Afghanistan and other countries for resettlement here.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM 101

Trump’s Bank Fraud Defense ‘Defies the Laws of Physics’

Jose Pagliery
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty

Donald Trump’s colossal trial for faking property values starts next Monday, and one mind-boggling issue has emerged as his weakest defense yet: the idea that his past lies on financial statements were justified because prices eventually went up anyway.

The judge already expressed his utter contempt for that argument, tearing it apart on Tuesday in the same order that already determined Trump had committed bank fraud and should have his real estate empire pounded into dust.

“He claims that if the values of the property have gone up in the years since the [statements of financial condition] were submitted, then the numbers were not inflated at that time,” Arthur F. Engoron wrote. “The defenses Donald Trump attempts to articulate in his sworn deposition are wholly without basis in law or fact.”


That doesn’t bode well for Trump, his heirs, or other top executives targeted by the New York Attorney General. This is a three-month bench trial, which means there won’t be a jury. The judge alone will decide the outcome, and he’s already concluded Trump is an unrepentant serial liar.

Trump Basically Just Lost the New York Bank Fraud Case Before It Even Started

But for Trump, this particular defense is revealing in its stunning detachment from reality—one that hints at how far he’ll go to justify his lies.

As the judge described it in his recent order: “This is a fantasy world, not the real world.”

The matter came under heightened scrutiny at a court hearing last week, when the judge’s clerk, attorney Allison Greenfield, questioned Trump’s lawyers about the inexplicable reasoning. Defense attorney Christopher Kise’s answer? He’s a real estate genius who sees the world differently.

But that doesn’t explain why, during an April 13 deposition with the AG’s lawyers, Trump maintained he was right about real estate prices all along—even though they weren’t true at the time he listed the property values in the personal financial statements he submitted to banks in order to get millions of dollars in loans.

That morning, AG senior enforcement counsel Kevin Wallace questioned Trump on a public statement the politician gave to minimize the embarrassment that followed when his longtime outside accounting firm dropped him as a client and distanced itself from his web of lies.

To investigators’ surprise, Trump suddenly launched into a diatribe about how an eventual increase in prices validated his inflated past assessments.

“If you look at the values today of this property that you have down, obviously, the numbers are low. In 2014, the numbers are low because the properties are worth much more today,” Trump said.

Wallace tried to move on, but Trump wouldn’t relent—doubling down on this time-altering reasoning.

“Obviously, it turned out to be right, because the properties are worth more today, generally speaking, than they were in the statement—substantially,” the former president said. “Regardless it turned out to be true.”

“Because the properties are worth more… I think we have now the benefit of knowing that the statement when I did it was probably low because of the fact that a number of years later, not that long later, the properties are worth substantially more,” Trump added.

Now that months have passed—and Trump’s defense lawyers refuse to back away from that line of reasoning—the former president is setting himself up for rough seas ahead.

On one hand, the argument doesn’t hold up in the business world—at least not the one that operates legally.

“What he is saying is completely inconsistent with how real estate professionals talk about valuations,” said David Reiss, a Brooklyn Law School professor who specializes in real estate finance.

“When you talk about valuations at a given time, you’re talking about what its value is at that time. It becomes more valuable in the future, but that’s its value at the time,” Reiss said.

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That means Trump’s 2014 financial statement should have, naturally, captured the value of any given building or land at that time.

To better understand why Trump’s excuse is bonkers requires a quick review of the three basic methods to assess value employed by professional property appraisers.

One is the income approach: What income a particular property is currently generating? That doesn’t account for the future, Reiss said.

Another is the cost approach: How much does it cost to replace the property? That doesn’t consider the future either, Reiss made clear.

The third is the sales comparison approach: What are similar parcels and comparable properties selling for? This could include future expectation of development, Reiss explained. After all, sale prices are determined by supply and demand—and a fundamental concept in economics dictates that demand can be affected by consumer expectations of future price changes.

As usual, Trump’s logic seems to careen off the rails and focus solely on his property’s future value. But Trump simply can’t do that because he wants to.

“That’s not how the legal system works or how the real estate industry works… if everybody could say that, nobody could be accused of a lie. We would all do whatever the heck we want,” Reiss said.

Reiss likened Trump redefining time-bound questions on financial forms to the way Humpty Dumpty makes up words in Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The law professor read a passage in which Alice took issue with the Eggman’s improper use of the word “glory.”

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

And yet, another way of exploring Trump’s assertion that his 2014 estimates were true then because they became true in 2022 is through the lens of physics. For that, The Daily Beast contacted one of the world’s leading thinkers about the concept of time: cosmologist Marina Cortês at the Institute for Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal.

“He's defying the very laws of physics,” Cortês said. “The past is different from the future. That is the most basic knowledge we have in cosmology. The arrow of time is the most fundamental property of reality.”

She’s referring to the scientific notion that there’s a one-way direction to the occurrences in our universe. In the world in which a real estate tycoon is slapping inflated values on his properties, now is now and later is later.

“Unless he wrote specifically that this property will be valued this much in the future, the statement he wrote carries four-dimensional coordinates in space that are attached to the time he made them. He cannot make statements that are continuous into the future. If he had, there’s a large community of theoretical physicists who’d like to speak to him,” she said.

Essentially, Trump is wrong for the same reason that his lawyers can drop ice into their glasses at their courtroom table next week and watch it melt—but won’t ever see their New York City tap water coalesce into ice cubes. Heat always moves from hotter objects to colder ones unless some outside force is involved.

“According to the second law of thermodynamics, the future does not move into the past. It’s always different from the past,” Cortês said. “It’s like Sir Arthur Eddington’s famous statement: ‘If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope. There is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.’”

The simplest explanation suffices, Cortês said. “It’s just a tale.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Barcelona charged with bribery in referee corruption scandal – and could face ban from football


Sam Wallace
Fri, 29 September 2023 

Barcelona's Nou Camp stadium was knocked down over the summer to be rebuilt as the Espai Barca complex, but doubts are growing over the project - Getty Images/Joan Valls

Barcelona face a bribery case in the Spanish courts over a refereeing scandal that could potentially lead to the club being banned from football, at a time when their finances are at their most precarious and the Nou Camp has been demolished.

The last obstacle to a jury trial for Barcelona’s alleged illegal payments to José María Enríquez Negreira, the former vice-president of the Spanish refereeing committee, was removed on Thursday by a judge who had examined the public prosecutor’s case against the club and key individuals.

Judge Joaquin Aguirre Lopez ruled that the trial would go ahead over the payments of €7.7 million to Negreira between 2001 and 2018, for what the club claim were “technical reports” on referees. The club themselves have been named among the defendants as well as former presidents Josep Maria Bartomeu, Sandro Rosell and Negreira’s son Javier Enríquez.


If found guilty, the sentences for the individuals could be between three and six years in prison. Barcelona themselves could be suspended from trading as a professional football club, which would likely plunge the 124-year-old member-owned entity into bankruptcy.

In Aguirre Lopez’s remarks on the case he said that he considered José María Enríquez Negreira to have been a public servant at the time of the alleged offences, which makes the charge of bribery more serious. The judge also said that he believed the case demonstrated the club obtained advantages from referees. It will be for a jury, nine people under Spanish law, to decide.

Barcelona are rebuilding the Nou Camp, which was knocked down over the summer to make way for the Espai Barca complex, although there have been suggestions in the Spanish media of nervousness among the 20 or so investors in the €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion) project. While none have spoken publicly about their concerns over the prospect of a guilty verdict for the club in the Negreira trial, the collapse of the new stadium financing would leave Barcelona without a home of their own.

In addition to the debt assumed to build the stadium, there is around a further €1.5 billion owed to creditors that has been accumulated over recent presidencies. That includes the sale of some €700 million worth of future income streams last summer that funded the building of the team that won the league title under Xavi Hernandez last season.

Although the club’s exact liabilities are not known it is understood that the United States investment bank Goldman Sachs is Barcelona’s biggest creditor. While president Joan Laporta is the elected leader of the club it is clear that the creditors are now effectively in charge.

Despite towering liabilities, and the threat of the court case, Laporta and his board decided to push ahead with the stadium demolition. They also continued to sign players in the last window, albeit chiefly loans and free agents including Ilkay Gundogan, formerly of Manchester City.

The club also face a Uefa investigation over the Negreira case. Uefa is injuncted by Spanish courts from disciplining Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus over the European Super League dispute. It means Uefa may wait until the Spanish court case has concluded until it reaches judgment. Juventus have, nevertheless, already accepted their Uefa punishment of a one-year ban.

It has been reported in Spain this week that Alex Barbany, the managing director of Espai Barca, has quit the project. Barcelona and all the individuals charged deny any wrongdoing over the Negreira case.

‘They don’t want to give power to girls’: the women shaking up Colombia’s graffiti scene

Caroline Davison in Medellín
Fri, 29 September 2023 at 12:00 am GMT-6·7-min read

Ana Moreno, 32, standing next to her wall mural

A drug-smuggling route runs straight through the Comuna 13 neighbourhood on the outskirts of Medellín, which was once one of the most dangerous places in Colombia. Over the past decade it has been transformed, and is now better known for its colourful murals than for gang warfare.

Graffiti tours of the neighbourhood now attract 20,000 tourists every day. With them comes a renewed sense of purpose for those growing up in the aftermath of Colombia’s civil conflict. But the gains from graffiti tourism have benefited some more than others: almost all of the artists are men.

The Comuna 13 neighbourhood on the outskirts of Medellín has become a tourist hotspot because of the murals and hip-hop culture

They paint war tanks, guns. But not one is going to paint about the pain a mother feels who had a child who disappeared
Ana Moreno

A group of women are trying to change that, one wall at a time. Last year, for the first time, an artist from the area was allowed space to paint a mural by the informal group who control the graffiti. Now she, and a handful of other women, are getting their art seen in a neighbourhood scarred by decades of violence. With themes of motherhood, loss and female resilience, the artwork is contributing to Colombia’s healing process.

On hills in the outskirts of Medellín, Comuna 13 was the stronghold for violent drug cartels fighting for a stake in the multibillion-dollar cocaine empire run by kingpin Pablo Escobar. At one point, the murder rate was 357 per 100,000 inhabitants per year in the area. In 2002, a controversial military operation brought an end to the power struggle – at the cost of many civilian deaths, including those of children, and the displacement of thousands.

The murals and graffiti reflect this turbulent history, and the legacy of the wider five decades of civil conflict on its citizens. But the women of Comuna 13 say they were left out. “They paint helicopters, they paint the war tanks, they paint guns,” says the mural artist Ana Moreno, referring to the men. “But to be honest, not one of them is going to paint a mother with her child. Or make a painting about the pain a mother feels who had a child who disappeared.”

Tourists take photos in front of a wall mural in Comuna 13

Colombia has one of the highest rates of forced disappearances in the world. Official estimates suggest about 83,000 people have disappeared over five decades of conflict.

“We lost our uncle to the war,” says Moreno. “If you ask my grandmother to paint a mural, what she’s going to paint is her dead son.”

For Moreno’s mural on the walls that line the main tour route, she is using colour to explore the emotional toll of the conflict on women and “what we have to live as women every day,” she says. “Every colour I use is a different frustration.”

Ana Moreno, 32, left, and Sulay Pino, 26, two of the only female graffiti artists in Comuna 13

The ability of women to give voice to their experiences preoccupies Moreno. “We see a lot about war, violence, but not the women’s feelings; to say it’s hard, it’s painful, the things that they have been through,” she says.

A report published in 2017 by Colombia’s National Centre for Historical Memory found that more than 15,000 women suffered sexual violence during the conflict – calling it the “most forgotten and silenced violence.”

But things are changing, says Moreno. “They used to stay silent, and not say anything about the situation,” she says. “But now women are not like that any more. They are able to speak out and say what they are feeling.”

For Sulay Pino, 26, another graffiti artist, painting is her way to be heard. “For me, it’s a very good way to express yourself, and say to the world, I exist,” she says.

She started painting after working as a guide on the graffiti tours. “I was talking about murals, graffiti, but none of them were mine,” she says. “People were asking me, where’s yours? And it was like, OK, that’s destiny, telling me that I have to paint.”

Pino started tagging, marking public spaces with the repeated use of a personalised signature. Her tag, the initials ESA, can be seen along the main tourist walkway where the male artists’ murals cover the walls – a deliberate move, says Pino. “It’s very powerful to say, ‘I am’. I am and I’m here,” she says.

Sulay Pino: ‘I like to hide my feelings. When I have very strong feelings, I prefer to hide and suppress them. So I wanted to paint a bird to be able to communicate’

Painting along the main tourist route has proven harder, however. The neighbourhood is still largely ruled by gangs, and they decide who gets to paint the murals.

As part of efforts to transform Comuna 13, the government installed outdoor escalators in 2011, improving access to the sprawling hillside neighbourhood and bringing in a more stable police presence. Tourist numbers grew steadily, too, drawn to the hip-hop culture and history, and attracting commercial interest as local people and outsiders realised that there was money to be made from graffiti. Social media vastly increased the visibility. Now many of the murals are commissioned and sponsored by leading brands.

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“Now everybody wants to come. Because they see the opportunity,” says Pino, who thinks that commercial influence is diluting the original purpose. “They want to take advantage, but they were not here when we had hard times.”

She was six when the military operations took place, and remembers weapons being stored in her house and peering out at shootouts from her balcony. The walls should be painted by those from the neighbourhood who experienced this history, she believes. “It’s our memories, our history,” she says. “And if you don’t know your history, you will repeat it.”

For us it’s hard, because they don’t want us to get recognised. They don’t want to give the power to girls
Sulay Pino

But the gangs are reluctant to let women from the neighbourhood paint, says Pino. “For us, it’s hard, because they don’t want us to get recognised,” she says. “They don’t want to give the power to girls.”

“The main walls are mostly by men,” agrees Moreno. “[But] I want to be known as a famous artist in the neighbourhood and I’m fighting for it.”

Moreno started painting as a way to make money and to help out her brother, who owns a gallery, but started to dream of making her own mural. “I thought maybe I can make this bigger and people can talk about a girl painting in Comuna 13 – because there were none,” she says. Now, she says she feels proud to be the first woman chosen to paint a mural.

One of the paintings in Ana Moreno’s gallery

“When I’m painting, everyone is like, who is that girl painting? I’m like a star,” she says. “In the beginning it was super embarrassing. I was shy. But later I felt important, like OK, I’m doing something great that people like, and people want to know who I am.”

The women’s work is attracting attention, which has now inspired a new venture, says Pino. “We are talking about a graffiti festival only for female artists,” she says. The hope is that younger generations of girls will see the work and get involved, too. “We have to make a change,” she says.

Moreno agrees. “Being a woman is hard, but we have an idea, and we will fight for it,” she says.