How strange, there has never been more than the odd scuffle since 1789 in the UK. You must enjoy trouble like so called football supporters. If you really want to upset Vodaphone then stop buying and using its products. You can sit at home to achieve this. And whilst your at it stop using supermarkets too. It's customers that keep big businesses going, if you don't like them, do without. Life carried on before there were any mobile phones!

@Mr Divine/Michael

But it's typical Tory thinking to believe that somebody making lots of money is "hard-working and wholesome and responsible" because the money in their bank account means they can afford a fatter pension when they retire. It also has negative social consequences: every pound that a rich person is earning above the mean (average) UK salary, one pound that a poor person below the average is not earning. Making a "respectable middle-class income" is actually just screwing the poor and increasing the level of social inequality. And of course the idea that middle-class professionals are "hard-working" is to some extent a myth, to the extent that lower paid workers often have to work even longer hours just to pay the rent and buy food, usually in much worse conditions.

The complacent idea that some people deserve to earn, or own, more than others is dangerous, but is storing up the seeds of its own demise. I know it would have been more fun to blow your savings on a party than have them requisitioned and redistributed, but the rich have been put on notice that this was inevitable ever since (1) they noticed that there were people much poorer than them, and (2) those people would be very much better off if the money held by the rich was taken and spent on them. On the other hand, they've all been on notice since Karl Marx pointed this out, and it hasn't happened yet, so it's probably prudent to hold off that party for a while!

@Tim Avenell

But punishing the mother for having five children she "cannot afford", only punishes the children, who are blameless. Besides, who says that she "cannot afford" them? Children are a social cost - they are all our futures, not just the mother's. So the cost of having children must be fully funded by tax revenue. We agree that for education (nobody says that the poor kids shouldn't be sent to school because their parents couldn't have afforded it without help from the taxpayer), why should we say the same about them getting a decent diet, or a roof over their heads?

Peacefull protest are all very nice but the Police get violent anyway. Why take it lying down? The 'Cuts' are nothing other than Class War. Remember the Poll Tax? we beat the Poll Tax and we can beat the cuts. http://sabcat.com/news/?p=75

Lets do the Banks.
Everyone should move their accounts to either a building society or a credit union (as many in the US have done since the collapse there).

Vodafone is a scandal but a much bigger one is Philip ( TOP SHOP )Green brought in to advise the government on Whitehall waste and efficiency and all of his profits are paid in dividends to his WIFE in an off shore tax haven.

Perhaps the flagship Oxford St Top Shop store as the next target...?

Excellent work all round.

The tweet I pushed out last Thursday is ranked #6 in the world on Twitoaster.com with over 400,000 accounts reached. I never thought so much anger and solidarity would appear!

http://twitoaster.com/tweet-ranking-week/

In fact, I hadn't used twitter much at all before last Thursday. Now I see it's a vital tool for mobilising public opinion about george osborne (who, by the way is advised by the financial director of - you guessed it - vodafone! - on UK tax matters) - even george is at it: apparently he gets tax advice to avoid up to £1.2 million a year in tax!

The petition asking our govt to reconsider Vodafone's tax settlement is at

http://www.gopetition.com/petition.40035.html

I'd urge everyone to sign this, we have to stop these huge companies thinking it's still OK to avoid paying tax using loopholes: our government needs to see that the UK public is who they should bow and scrape to, NOT TAX LAWYERS AND LOBBYISTS FOR HUGE COMPANIES.

This is great. A new generation have learned from the environmental protests (Climate Camp and the like - it's all there has been for the last five years) and are now taking this energy elsewhwere...

This is great. A new generation have learned from the environmental protests (Climate Camp and the like - it's all there has been for the last five years) and are now taking this energy elsewhwere...

This is great. A new generation have learned from the environmental protests (Climate Camp and the like - it's all there has been for the last five years) and are now taking this energy elsewhwere...

Bravo!

May I suggest a run on the banks next? We all withdraw our money on a set date and leave the banks with no option but to cancel their outrageous bonus payments and put our interest rates up soi we can actually save some money.

Viva la revolution!

Why divert the attention onto Topshop now? There is a lot of pressure on Vodafone at the moment. Surely keeping the focus on them would make for a more effective campaign

Superb.

As a thought, I would ponder whether or not it would be useful to film/photograph these sorts of demo and put them up at some central website with written accounts like the above. Comments from people that were there etc. Brief description of the purpose of the protest etc. Call the site youprotext or something.

I don't know what the legal issues might be surrounding such a thing, but I do feel a centre point where ad hoc groups can present their arguments may have a mimetic and contagious quality.

Oops. *youprotest* even...

Maybe even give it a sort of profile page - give protest and identity... Man, I should make the first 'social dontwork' site.

Watch the video of todays Vodafone store closure here http://www.youandifilms.com/2010/10/vodafone-dodge-6bn-tax-bill-vodafone...

How many shares do we need, to be entitled to speak at Vodafone's AGM?

dont be so paranoid stephen,when i said you know who, i meant you know who is not you, but you know who knows exactly who i am on about.

Ultimately pretty pointless. Companies do what they do, which is to optimise their shareholders' interests (for which the directors have a legal obligation) - and the majority of that stake will be investments made by pension funds, assurance funds and the like. One way or another, indirectly the financial interests of a lot of fairly ordinary people.

If there is to be a target, then best direct it to those who actually operate and define the taxation regime. So if HMRC didn't optimise their return (were they unsure of the legal outcome?), then direct the attention to the politicians. However, beware of killing the golden goose - countries are in competition over tax revenue. Push it too far, and you are in danger of reducing income through relocations.

Also the benefit cuts are per year. A one-off won't cover that. The difficult game is to achieve a sustainable balance of income and expenditure. Not such an easy game, and nothing that's going to happen by closing down an Oxford Street store for a few hours, and I somehow don't see many people changing their mobile phone company over this.

nb. it's much easier to guarantee income by taxing activities - VAT, duties and so on, than profits as the former are a bit more difficult to avoid.

The Government are not only allowing the mobile phone industry to get away with tax, they are also allowing them to gamble with our lives, especially our children.

I've been trying to get an appointment to introduce Dr Devra Davis to David Cameron next week when she visits the UK to launch her book "Disconnect, The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation, What the Industry Has Done to Hide It, and How to Protect Your Family". Dr Davis is a top US scientist and guess what? We are not even allowed to knock on the door of Number 10 to hand deliver a copy of the book for security reasons.

“Over four billion people own mobile phones worldwide, many of those users are children. Can we afford to put their lives at risk?

The UK department of health need to urgently update information and produce public awareness for citizens on the health risks of exposure to EMF radiation.

While other Governments advise children not to use mobile phones unless it’s an emergency, industry should not be allowed to market their products and warning labelling on wireless technology are very important. The Radiation Research Trust advocate public transparency of uncertain risks and their potential implications to public health, so that an informed public have more options to exercise precaution

Download "Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern, Science, Spin and the Truth Behind Interphone," from the Radiation Research Trust website: http://www.radiationresearch.org/pdfs/15reasons.asp “

Eileen O'Connor
Director
Radiation Research Trust
http://www.radiationresearch.org

A bit of light reading (from the IFS) for the economically clueless, of which there are more than a few here. Here's one study on competition for tax revenue

http://www.ifs.org.uk/economic_review/fp202.pdf

As it says :-

"But what would happen if capital became even more mobile and taxes on
profits were finally driven to very low levels, perhaps even to zero? Even then it is not so clear what the consequences would be. Our simple model completely ignored the fact that there are taxes other than profit taxes. In practice we have income taxes, consumption taxes and many more. Some of them are raised from immobile factors. Taxes on labour for example are likely
to have much smaller effects on relocation, as we would expect very few people to move country for tax considerations. We would therefore still be able to raise taxes to pay for public goods, even if profit taxes disappeared".

Well done to the protesters! Keep up the good work!

I'm not a guy to defend the interests of the capitalist classes - as far as I'm concerned, they're all going down, and the sooner the better. I do, however, believe in decent unbiased reporting, and thinking with your brain switched on.

Where is this £6Bn figure coming from? This article seems to writing as if it was absolutely certain that Vodafone "dodged" it, relying on a story in Private Eye magazine. But realistically HMRC would love to get their hands on that sort of money, if it was possible for them to. Instead their spokesman has said "There is no question of Vodafone having an outstanding tax liability of £6bn. That number is an urban myth." And unsurprisingly Vodafone deny it as well, having paid £1.25bn in CFC liabilities. Any piece of unbiased reporting MUST at least report the views of the other side, even if it disagrees with them - surely it is germane that both Vodafone AND the HMRC dismiss the allegation.

Even if you accept the £6bn figure (and it's plausible, I just think that fair journalism always gives a chance for the other side to respond... failing to even hear out the views of other side reduces you pretty much to being a conspiracy theorist), recouping that £6bn would NOT pay for the benefits cut, because this amount is a one-off, whereas the spending cuts are per annum! Taxing profit is, at any rate, a stupid thing to do, because there are so many clever things that accountants can do to avoid it. There should be more focus on taxing economic activity e.g. targetting sales, store rental, and turnover, which can be less well hidden.

Do I have any sympathy for Vodafone and its shareholders? No of course not. When a true left-wing government comes to the UK, I hope one of the first steps it takes is to nationalise all telecoms firms - BT, Vodafone, Orange, T-mobile, the lot. And I hope it gives no compensation whatsoever to shareholders, simply declaring that they are now state property. Nobody wealthy enough to own shares deserves compensation - infact it is necessary that their assets are taken from them, in order to establish a fair and equal society. Once all the nationalised operations are combined, perhaps back as a telecoms branch of the Post Office, the combined British Phone operation will of course be banned from making any profits off the back of the ordinary people so reliant on its services. By having only one provider, we will also remove the need for all these flashy high street stores and the legion of salespeople who actually add nothing of real value to the British economy. We will know that a real left-wing party has taken power in England when Oxford Street and its carnival of consumer capitalism with no useful productive power, is reduced to a ghost town. The fact that it thrived so much under New Labour shows just how much Blair sucked at the teats of mammon.

Once again the masses in France have called off their protest. Have they at last realised in the EEC, it is not logical to have differing ages for retirement? Or maybe the wicked police beat them into the ground? Or maybe they just got tired, and the weather got colder. Lots more to come from Mrs Merkal, but then she who pays the piper!!!!!!!!!!!

get to the demos ,it takes a global uprising to depose the bastards and you are all leaders