People’s Tony finds the ‘right accountants’

How times change. "We must tackle abuse of the tax system," said Tony Blair when campaigning for the Labour leadership. "For those who employ the right accountants [it] is a haven of scams, City deals and profits. We should not make our tax rules a playground for revenue avoiders and tax abusers who pay little or nothing, while others pay more than their share."

That was in 1994. Last year, Mr Blair's company, Windrush Ventures, declared an income of £12m, but paid just £315,000 in corporation tax, after writing off administrative expenses' of nearly £11m. Clearly, Mr Blair now employs the "right accountants"; the People's Tony, as Max Hastings says in the Daily Mail, has become a jet-setting multi-millionaire, with Windrush Ventures a "pacesetter" for those earning huge rewards while contributing a tiny proportion to the Exchequer.

And it wasn't Mrs Thatcher who disliked the City, dominated by "smooth-tongued confidence men in Old Etonian ties" but Blair who presided over the era when fat cat greed "ran amok". How ironic.

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As for the bankers who whine they can't keep talent in Britain without paying outrageous bonuses: they might ask themselves, says Hastings, what is the definition of talent' when, in several cases, "they have ruined their shareholders and daily stuff their customers". Consider Luxembourg's Svenska Handelsbank, which pays no bonuses at all but is prospering mightily and has just increased its dividend.

A Victorian grocery bill

We may think we're hard-pressed, but consider a survey in the Grocer magazine. Today's average weekly shop, it suggests, would have cost a Victorian household a small fortune at today's prices. The Grocer chose 33 items, including eggs, butter, bread, tea, a toothbrush and a bottle of sherry, and found that today they would cost £93.95. But this doesn't take into account the difference between average earnings now and then.

So the magazine applied an average earnings measure of inflation to their 1862 prices, working out that the weekly shop would have cost a Victorian family £1,254.17. The biggest difference is in the cost of non-native fruits: a pineapple, which is about £1.70 today, sold for five shillings in 1862, equivalent to £149 in modern terms.

According to the Grocer, Victorian shoppers spent a third of their money on food, while today's shoppers spend less than 10%. "The reason food is so much cheaper in real terms today is that wages have gone up tenfold over the past 150 years, while technological changes have made food from around the world available."

Downton Abbey's makers are a canny lot. The red gown worn by Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary was first worn by Catherine Zeta Jones in the 2007 thriller Death Defying Acts. That's just one example of hand-me-downs worn for the ITV show. No wonder the producers stick to their £12m budget.

Tabloid money Kate Middleton copycats pour £1bn into economy

It's been a grim start to the New Year but here's some good news, says Rod Liddle in The Sun. "Britain is giving more than £13m in foreign aid this year to Brazil, which should be enough for them to stage a lavish samba to celebrate our stupidity.

Brazil is actually richer than Britain, and likely to become even more so. So are they grateful for this aid, the Brazilians? Last year they turned British ships away from their ports because they support Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands. They're going to take an even tougher line in 2012, apparently. Money well spent, then. Still, at least we can afford it, as we're all rolling in cash over here."

"So Alesha Dixon has been branded mercenary' for leaving the BBC," says Fiona McIntosh in the Sunday Mirror. "As Alesha has been offered a £350,000 salary by Simon Cowell to become a judge on Britain's Got Talent, as opposed to the £100,000 she was paid on Strictly Come Dancing, this doesn't make Alesha mercenary. It makes her pretty damned clever."

More than £1bn has been pumped into Britain's economy by Kate Middleton copycats, says The Sun. Retail experts calculate women "are spending an average of £250 each year to look like her". The "stylish" Duchess of Cambridge, who turned 30 this week, "has been credited with boosting sales of many products". Debenhams, for example, say sales of her "trademark nude tights" are up 65%.

Since the coalition tripled tuition fees, the number of those seeking university places has gone down by nearly 25,000, says Tony Parsons in the Mirror. It seems they "want us to be ruled by privately educated non-entities, just like them".