The YouTube revolution is finally catching up with right-of-centre mainstream British political broadcasters (the left have been there for years). It’s not great news for incumbents with big wage bills…
Former TalkTV presenter Mike Graham is doing good numbers after launching his own independent show on YouTube. This week Graham announced that he was unveiling his own TV channel called UKLive. Viewers will be able to look forward to a show co-presented by Graham and former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie. Mackenzie has been keen to enter the new media space for some time. Guaranteed to be punchy and, crucially, free from Ofcom’s regulatory manacles…
GB News also boasts Mackenzie as a pundit so that will cause some consternation. Still, GBN has plenty to be happy about. Its own YouTube numbers are flying thanks to a massive investment in original content, rather than simply repackaging the live TV output. Guido’s own offering is also on the march, and we’ll be doing much more original video content very soon. Stay tuned – and subscribe to our YouTube channel here…
Adding it was “terrible” of the UK not to back the US in Iran…
Angela Rayner could now face yet another tax bill over the legal advice Labour paid for to examine her personal finances before her resignation last September. It’s a day ending in Y, so Angela Rayner’s tax affairs are back in the headlines…
The Times has revealed that Labour used party funds to hire Jonathan Peacock KC, a leading tax barrister, to examine whether Rayner had underpaid stamp duty on her £700,000 flat in Hove. Ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus wrote at the time that the advice she sought “covered her personal position in relation to council tax, stamp duty land tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax”. Here we go again…
Under the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, employer-funded legal costs are usually only tax-exempt where they relate to liabilities or proceedings connected with the employee’s duties or office. Rayner’s advice concerned her personal property arrangements and had no connection to her parliamentary duties or her role within the party. If the payment is treated as a benefit provided by reason of her office as Deputy Leader of the party, HMRC would likely view that as a taxable benefit in kind on which she would owe income tax. This all happened within the current tax year, so if there’s tax owed, it wouldn’t need to be reported and paid yet. When the time comes, will the former ‘DPM’ open her purse? She should be used to this by now…
There are millions of taxpayers out there who would appreciate someone else picking up their accountancy bill without that being taxable. Sadly, that’s not how it works in the real world…
Missing: Britain’s “war-fighting readiness” defence investment plan. Expected arrival date: last autumn…
Fintech company Revolut was finally granted a full UK banking licence earlier this month. The app-based company has been used in the UK for years and has 13 million British customers…
The length of time it took to get the regulatory approval has been cited as another example of the UK’s sclerotic processes – it is more than four years since Revolut first applied for a licence. The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority repeatedly extended Revolut’s approval timelines…
Reform’s Richard Tice is among the politicians who have called the process “absurd”. Another take is available in the FT this morning, where the influential Lex column urges Revolut to “move slowly” with its ambitions to become a full bank in Britain, even though it has just been granted a licence. With regulators and a financial media like that, it’s a miracle the approval didn’t take a decade…
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”