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Ever wondered what the BBC pays for those interviews with politicians?
Like you, we thought they were free, a chance for the great and good to bang on about their pet campaign. But it turns out that John Prescott and John Reid, both former cabinet ministers, were paid about £250 for their views on the Labour Party conference.
A spokesman for the BBC tells the Mail: “They were given a facility fee to cover the inconvenience and disturbance of being available to BBC News for the whole day, and that is not in breach of our editorial guidelines.”
Hard work, if you can get it.
News reaches us via the Freedom of Information Act that the postponed wedding of Prince Charles and the ever-fragrant Camilla did not come cheap.
The do was scheduled for April 8, 2005, but that meant a clash with the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
And no one outfit would do for both.
So it was shelved. But not at no cost.
The bill, as footed by the Metropolitan Police came at £52,266.
And who says they’re not worth it?
Rudy Giuliani is in London. This is part of Rudy 2008. It is 2007. Rudy is a man with his eyes on the future.
As the Guardian reports, the man who would be the American President is at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.
You can meet him. Lunch in the same room as Mr Giuliani costs $1,000. If you want your picture taken with the man, the full package costs $2.300.
Your money will be viewed as a donation and in no way reflects the width of Mr Guiliani’s grin nor the quality of food on offer.
Rick Jacobs writes on the Northern Rock debacle:
With the relish that they reported the recent Tube strike, all the news outlets here in Britain are reporting on the crisis surrounding Northern Rock.
If you don't know the story, this bank is the 8th largest in the UK, and last Friday it was reported that they had to go to the Bank of England (the central UK government bank) in order to keep the cash flow on the positive side.
Thanks to problems within the mortgage and loan sector, and lots of defaults, Northern Rock is especially vulnerable because it's business is mainly around mortgages and loans.
They tend to lend and borrow from other banks out of habit, but now that the economy has turned to dust thanks to lousy risks taken by everybody, nobody wants to loan to Northern Rock and now they don't got no cash.
All very interesting and probably the start of a slow and painful pinching of the already unstable economy.
Tim looks at 'Emissions Tax Idiocy'.
Grr. I do wish people would think a little more about these things.
Motorists are facing a fresh squeeze from Alistair Darling, the chancellor, with a one-off £2,000 tax on 4x4s and the most polluting cars, a leaked Treasury paper has revealed.The new “purchase tax” would have to be paid when a luxury car, such as a Range Rover or top-of-the-range BMW, is bought at the showroom. In subsequent years owners would pay the top rate for their road tax disc, which is also set for big rises under the confidential plans.
The aim is to reduce emissions. Thus the tax should be as closely associated with emissions as possible. That means on petrol, not on the sunk cost of the car itself.
However, the report goes on to admit that “under any option emission reductions are small”.
See! Even the Treasury doesn't think it's very sensible.
Via [Tim Worstall; Anorak]
The map above (click here for the large version) shows what the world would look like if each country’s size was proportional to their proven oil reserves.
And it's all about oil, right? In American petrol prices are rising - and they may result in an end to American obesity. See here.
Via [Neatorma]
A Tim note: War on Want is making noises again about how little sweatshop workers are paid in factories overseas.
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer for War on Want, said: "This report exposes retailers' empty rhetoric on ethical treatment for workers who make their clothes but remain trapped in poverty." Staff in Bangladesh earn 7% of a UK living wage - even taking into account the cheaper cost of living. This compares with 9% of a UK living wage earned by the average garment worker in India, 11% in China and Vietnam, 14% in Thailand and 25% in Morocco.
Lessee, Bangladesh is poorer than India, which is poorer than China and Vietnam, which is poorer than Thailand which is poorer than Morocco which is poorer than the UK. Amazing how this works, isn't it? People in poor countries get lower wages. Almost as if there's some sort of connection between people getting low wages and a country being poor or something.
Why not do something about it then? Like, ooooh, maybe pay people in Bangladesh a UK style living wage? The obvious answer then being that we'd use Bangladeshis living in England to do the work, leaving those in Bangladesh without any wages at all.
In light of Harriet Harman's comments, Beau Bo D'Or has produced apicures on life in dopwning street, as it was once known...
Via [Beau Bo D'Or; Anorak]
The Croydonian notes: Mrs Harriet Harman speaking:
Or Jack Dromey, as I believe he prefers to be known. He is deputy general secretary of the T&G Unite.
"It is plain wrong for private equity to claim they should get preferential tax treatment".
Preferential compared to what Jack? If I win big on the premium bonds I have hidden away somewhere, that would be tax free...
How can it be right that private equiteers boast of paying less tax than their cleaners and then expect us, the ordinary tax-paying public, to back their privileged position.
Erm, no. I think you will find that they do not collectively boast at all, and while some may have arranged their tax affairs in such a way that they pay a less confiscatory rate, I very much doubt that they pay less in total.
Tim has some 'Fun With Statistics; at the TUC.
Via Richard Murphy we get this, a fun filled list of ten things you didn't know about inequality. Number nine is especially interesting.
The richest fifth pay £18 tax on every £100 of disposable income, while the poorest fifth pay £30. (HMRC direct and indirect tax).
How can that be? We know that income taxes are higher for the richest than the poorest, so how can this be?
Aaah. The secret is in the word "disposable". Disposable income means what you can spend after income taxes, NI (and yes it does include any benefits you might get, either directly or via the tax system) and housing costs have been deducted.
Ten, nine, eight, six, five...
Happy New Year, Ethiopia. And it is a special one. It's the dawn of the 21st Cenruty. Tonight they're going to party like it's 1999. And it's not going to be cheap.
They use the Julian calendar over there. It's an ancient system of measuring time abandoned by the West in the 16th century, don't yer know.
And there's going to be a show, featuring singer Beyonce, Janet Jackson and rapper 50 Cent in a 20,000 capacity venue being built on Addis Ababa's priciest avenue.
As reported:
President Girma Woldegirogis has billed the celebrations a time to focus on fighting poverty and advancing democracy in the Horn of Africa country of 81 million people.But, reports that Saudi-Ethiopian tycoon Sheikh Mohammed Al Amoudi is paying $10 million to build the Millennium concert hall has angered some in Ethiopia, which ranks 170 out of 177 in the United Nation's Human Development Index.
And those are 16th Century prices. Not cheap.
Can't they just get together in a tent. Worked for us. And at £700million, a snip...
Followers of government policy will remember talk of the information superhighway. At the very apogee of the Internet dotcom boom, the likes of Tony Blair were fond of telling us how important computers were.
These unlovely lumps of electronic plastic would free up a service-biased workforce, and make Britain happening, brash and, how can we ever forget, cool.
And computers have changed the way we work. Aside from talking to our mates over instant messaging systems and peering at naked flesh when we should be studying an altogether different kind of figures, the working environment has altered.
