UK money laundering
24 Oct 2014Schools, universities, solicitors, estate agents and financial advisers are elements of a growing industry of ‘gatekeepers’ to the UK for foreign money launderers. Currently hundreds of law firms across the country are undergoing checks from their regulator into how much care they take to keep out the criminals, because an international anti-money-laundering body, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), will soon visit the UK. FATF has become increasingly concerned about the rising number of legal actions being taken in London by foreign nationals, who have become a huge source of earnings, particularly for big city law firms. Fraud experts say much of this action is funded by laundered money from Russia and former Soviet republics. Analysts expect the inspectors from the Solicitors Regulation Authority to run into stonewalling as lawyers claim professional client privilege to keep information about their clients secret. A similar exercise on UK banks found guidelines breached.
More than a million pensioners are still living in poverty, partly due to their failure to claim benefits, the charity Age UK has claimed. In a new report it said, 1.6m pensioners in the UK are living below the poverty line, and are ‘floundering’ on low incomes. It conceded that the numbers living in poverty had fallen since 2000, but said progress had now stalled. The government said it was trying to help pensioners claim their benefits. The report, called How We Can End Pensioner Poverty, said that many pensioners ‘had been walking a tightrope in recent years,’ as food and utility bills have risen. But the biggest cause of poverty is that people are missing out on £5.5bn worth of public support. Age UK said, ‘It is nothing short of a scandal that there are still so many vulnerable older people in the UK living in poverty.’
UK Prison Service – a disgrace
24 Oct 2014Nelson Mandela said, ‘No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.’ The UK prison and probation ombudsman said he is ‘troubled’ and ‘appalled’ by the rising rates of prison suicide (125 inmates killed themselves between January 2013 and August 2014. 26% of those were on remand awaiting trial. The chief inspector of prisons expressed concern about prisoners spending too long in their cells with nothing constructive to do and Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform called plans for a super-jail for children a ‘recipe for child abuse’. When all else fails prison is an opportunity to intervene and attempt to put right what has gone wrong. Prisons are a tool for society and across the country churches are running Alpha for Prisons. Men and women prisoners are being given the opportunity to know Jesus through participating in this specially adapted course followed by caring for ex-offenders to keep them from re-offending. See
British Ebola survivor Will Pooley is returning to Sierra Leone where he contracted the virus, despite being told he may not be immune to it. Being a nurse Mr Pooley said that returning to help the crisis in West Africa was the 'right thing to do'. No one has ever been recorded catching Ebola twice and it is thought Mr Pooley will have at least short term immunity against this strain of the disease but this has never been tested. He has said he will act as if he is not immune and take the same precautions as other British staff in Freetown, the capital. Mr Pooley is flying out to Sierra Leone on Sunday evening and will join a team from the King's Health Partners, a coalition of three NHS hospital trusts in London. ‘I chose to go before and it was the right thing to do then and it’s still the right thing to do now,’ he said.
A successful Christian school could face closure for failing to uphold ‘British values’. The school was warned after an inspection by schools regulator Ofsted, in the wake of new regulations introduced by the Government. Ofsted criticised the school for not promoting other faiths, and it was told to invite a leader from another religion, such as an Imam, to lead assemblies. It was then told that unless it could demonstrate how it was going to meet these new rules, it could ultimately be closed. The regulations state that academies, free schools and independent schools must ‘actively promote’ the rights defined in the Equality Act 2010. Details of the case are disclosed in a letter to the Education Secretary Nicky Morgan from The Christian Institute, which is providing legal backing for the school via its Legal Defence Fund. The Institute warns that the new rules are already having ‘disturbing consequences’.
National day of prayer about abortion
17 Oct 2014A National Day of Prayer about abortion is held each year on 27th October, the anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act. When the Act was passed 47 years ago assurances were given that abortion would be limited to a small number of exceptional cases. Now we have virtually abortion on demand. In 2013 202,577 babies were aborted in England, Wales and Scotland - on average, 555 each day. 98% of all abortions were ‘social abortions’ and more than one quarter of these were repeat abortions.
Shocking divisions between rich and poor in UK
17 Oct 2014Many perceive the distribution of wealth in the UK to be more equal than it actually is. For 30 years the gap between the rich and the rest has widened and the trend shows no sign of slowing. The share of income going to the top 1% has doubled from 6% to 14%. If this growth continues at its current rate we are heading towards Victorian extremes in 20 years. The UK has the fourth highest level of inequality after Mexico, the US and Israel. Owners of multi-million-pound homes in central London (often the international super-rich) seem to live in a different world from those hit by the bedroom tax. However both are part of the same social fabric. The unequal society is driven by a more interlinked world economy keeping down wages at the bottom of the income scale so that working people compete with low-wage economies internationally.
According to recently leaked documents seen by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, representatives of big business rubbed shoulders with senior politicians at a ‘black and white’ ball in February. David Cameron and other top politicians dined with billionaire donors at a dinner costing £1,000 per head. Among the guests were executives of a highly controversial doorstep lending firm criticized for soliciting retired elderly people and who had donated more than £25,000 to the party in the past three years. The first donation came when the government was being encouraged to regulate payday loan companies. Property tycoons and a Ukrainian energy boss also attended the event. The leak comes following accusations that Mr Cameron backtracked on his pledge to clean up politics by getting rid of giant company lobbying. Last year a network of bankers, businesspeople and lobby groups attended a Conservative fundraising dinner costing £12,000 per person.