My default setting when Sir Keir Starmer accuses Boris Johnson of anything is to take Boris’s side. I am no fan of our mop-headed apology for a Prime Minister, but even less so am I a fan of our apology for a Leader of the No-opposition. My initial reaction to the allegations of sleaze around the direct messaging between James Dyson and Boris Johnson was that it was probably above board, a storm in a sleazy teacup and should not concern us. But the more Julia Hartley-Brewer tried to defend the situation on talkRADIO—and I normally agree with most of what she says—the more I got to thinking: something smells fishy.
The defence is that Dyson was not profiteering; he was invited and had offered his expertise for free to build ventilators to address the predicted shortage thereof; he was merely trying to ensure that his engineers who would come to the UK from overseas would not be disadvantaged from the tax perspective; Boris is very liberal in providing people with his mobile phone number; Dyson is a billionaire, therefore successful and just the chap to get us out of a fix. What’s not to like? Well, only that most of this can be shown to be plain unnecessary at the least or outright wrong at the most.
James Dyson was invited. Really, why? Apparently, he designed a novel type of ventilator and managed to manufacture a pile of them in record time. Were these ventilators tested and why was there no competitive tendering? Dyson may not have been profiteering, but we were spending money and a great many predicted—correctly as it transpired—that the additional ventilators which were aimed at stocking the unused Nightingale hospitals, were completely unnecessary. Immediate profit may not have been Dyson’s motive, but I cannot imagine, if his ventilators had been successfully used and tested (on British NHS guinea pigs), that he would not have offered these on a commercial basis in the future. If he had not aimed to do this, I would consider him to be a very poor businessman as that would be commercially unviable.
The tax related story is just nonsense, and I cannot imagine a man with Dyson’s brain and international experience not being aware of how this works. If you are a UK citizen, for example—and I have vast personal experience of this—and you are under-taxed on overseas income, this is adjusted up to UK level by the Inland Revenue. Conversely, if you are over-taxed on overseas income your tax is adjusted down to the UK level and the respective countries sort it all out. If you are over-taxed in the UK then at the end of the tax year, you can claim a rebate. That is how it works for anyone earning across borders; it matters not whether you are helping out in a pandemic. Was this move a Trojan Horse to smooth Dyson’s return to the UK and to put that on a profitable footing? The question needs to be asked. And the fact that someone would waste our Prime Minister’s time in the midst of a global pandemic with such a trivial question verges on chummy irresponsibility. I could go on.
Let’s face it, Dyson is a remarkable inventor and entrepreneur but, after being supported and encouraged to develop his business in the UK, when it became too expensive for him, he shifted it off to South East Asia to avoid paying tax here. Thanks Jim! Apparently, he has already returned to the UK. There is no evidence, yet, that Boris is lubricating this process or that Dyson is yet benefitting, but his philanthropic efforts over ventilators will not go unnoticed if he is seeking preferment. Possibly he is a better man than that; only time will tell.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
