Global warming - a master class in dodging the question being asked.

Global warming - an open cheque?

http://goo.gl/LGG7p1

Robert Shove ... RIP

My dear friend and author, Robert Shove, who had been battling Parkinsons for two years sadly passed away yesterday in Epsom.

A truly inspirational and charismatic man, his wonderful stories included many from his life in the military (not the secret service element!), and running businesses both here and abroad. His enthusiasm for the Plymouth based writing group, Portal, and the wonderful lunches that he and partner Sue hosted for members at their house on Plymouth Hoe will never be forgotten. 

It was Robert who, in 2006, came up with the original idea for my thriller, The Messenger. His time in the Military especially his service in Korea had a profound effect upon him, his outlook on life and his attitude to war, even more so in his later years. Robert's concept of a soldier, plagued  by visions of war dead, fighting for peace was one that fascinated me and, as Robert felt that he could not write fiction - his stories (Tales from a Kitbag and Tales from a Briefcase) being factually based on his life experiences, he gave me the idea to play with.  It was then that I created the story of Special Forces soldier Jack Chandler and over the next five years wrote The Messenger - the first in a trilogy of Jack Chandler novels.

RIP old friend - at peace at last.  

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Effectively the UK is a company and we are the shareholders, but have you ever seen a balance sheet for it? We're told it's making (or losing) X amount, but where's the proof - where's the P&L account, the capital account, the auditor's stamp? If you were a shareholder of a company and the MD said "Well, chaps, I'm not going to show you the figures, but we're losing money so there's no dividend - and we're going to demand each of you make up the shortfall." What would be your reaction?

FREE DOWNLOAD - THE MESSENGER

THE MESSENGER http://goo.gl/Q3INE is available on FREE DOWNLOAD on Kindle on Tuesday March 19th. 

A 500 page explosive mixture  of Enemy of the State and Sixth Sense.  You can read the first six chapters and the story behind the story on my blog pages (see right).  

‘If FLAG can’t run the Middle East then no one does. And we sure as hell can’t let it run itself.’ General Falcon - The Messenger.

 

FREE DOWNLOAD - THE MESSENGER - 500 Page thriller

For those of you who may have missed it last time THE MESSENGER http://goo.gl/Q3INE is available on FREE DOWNLOAD on Kindle today (15th), Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  A 500 page explosive mixture  of Enemy of the State and Sixth Sense.  You can read the first six chapters and the story behind the story on my blog pages (see right).  

REVIEWS:

Thriller with a twist.

By dragonara

The Messenger is a full on thriller with a mysterious twist. And while military novels are not my usual fare, I got on board with Jack Chandler when he entered the Land of Souls. John E. White skilfully weaves the two worlds together in the way Stephen King does, but without the fantasy tag. Amid tense Harrison Ford style action is the deeper `what does happen to war dead?' Tight, thought-provoking and a great read. You won't think the same about war again.

A thrilling read,  By  Margaret A great read with a great message skilfully handled. The suggestion of a sixth sense but leaving the reader to interpret that in their own way made it intriguing for me.

PACEY THRILLER WITH A POIGNANT POLITICAL MESSAGE 

By Daisy Adams

John's novel has all the ingredients one would expect in an adventure story - a well researched and developed plot, believable characters in reader friendly and accessible prose. It's also pacey containing exciting action scenes within a contemporary and highly relevant political and historical setting.

This is not all however, in a layered narrative, The Messenger fuses the genres of thriller, adventure and the supernatural to excellent effect. This novel is a thoughtful critique of politics, economics and war.

COMPELLING  

By jaycole

'The Messenger' works on more than one level. As an exciting story with believable characters it carries you along in the way you expect from writers like Lee Child and Matt Hilton. And the military scenes, while not full-on Andy McNab, are pumping with action and well-researched authenticity. But it's the third dimension that makes this book stand out. Lots of people (probably lots of soldiers) who have had near-death experiences will be intrigued by Jack Chandler's visions and doubts. PTSD, paranoia, brain-washing? Or something else? Read it and make up your own mind.

Victory ... winning small battles leads to winning wars.

So, it looks like the public have spoken and Starbucks are going to start paying the tax they had tried so hard to avoid. Whether these payments will be of the order that will put the company back on a good PR footing with the general public remains to be seen. Interestingly, it was not just Starbucks who were playing the avoidance game. Amazon and Google ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20288077 ) have also been enjoying the fruits of their tax accountants hard work.  The point here is that, if the public vote with their feet, they can achieve anything. Now - how long will it be before the hard pressed citizens rise up and tell Government it must deal with the Starbucks, Amazons and Googles of this world before it hits the easiest and softest of all tax targets - the average man and woman - who have no choice but to pay tax and who, because Starbucks, Amazon and Google do not pay their moral fair share are being sunk by debt. Remember folks, if the boys and girls at the top paid their whack then the people at the bottom wouldn't be taxed to the degree they are. 

As an illustration of a girl at the top who takes her moral contribution seriously - I give you probably the most famous of writers, after Shakespeare - J K Rowling ( http://www.businessinsider.com/jk-rowling-on-high-taxes-2012-9 )  and from the article concerned I note the following:  

It is with this as a backdrop that it's worth recalling why the richest woman in the UK, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, says she remains a citizen of Great Britain even though she's now a billionaire.
The bottom line?
Rowling loves her country, and she wants her kids to grow up there. And, as someone who once depended on the safety net designed to help those going through hard times, she feels a debt to her society.

Here's Rowling in the London Times (via Chris Bertram of Crooked Timber and Frank Black) :

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug

SEE ALSO: "With An Ache In His Heart And In His Balls"--The New Book By JK Rowling

STARBUCKS - grounds for avoidance?

I have enjoyed a Starbucks coffee in Singapore, in cities in the US and here the UK. I even wrote to the company when Drake Circus (mall) was being built in Plymouth and suggested that the company ought to consider opening a shop there. Their response that Plymouth was not on their agenda disappointed me, but, a couple of years later, when Drake Circus was finished they had changed their mind and, now, Plymouth has two Starbucks cafes. I used to tell friends to drink there - that the mocha was good. I suppose you could say I was a Starbucks man.

So, maybe you can imagine my embarrassment and anger when I read that in its 14 years in the UK, on sales of £3 billion, Starbucks has paid Corporation Tax to the tune of just £8.6 million up until three years ago - and, during that last three years, nothing. Apparently, it is not Tax evasion as that would be illegal. It is Tax avoidance - and whilst that, sadly, is legal, in this day and age of austerity when the average man and woman is being squeezed until the pips squeak to repay the Government's deficit, I believe it's morally repugnant. That average man and woman has no choice about whether or not he or she  pays tax - it is a burden that is visited upon them in the same certain way as old age. However, we should remember that the more companies like Starbucks avoid paying tax, the more that average man and woman have to make up their shortfall. I am not naive enough to think that Starbucks is the only company to have tax accountants expert in the field of tax avoidance - which is why I believe that those companies who don't pay their share should be identified - as they are effectively thumbing their noses at us, their customers. Once we know who they are, then we can decide whether we want to give them our business (our cash) or whether we want to give it to a company who is contributing to the British economy (like Costa coffee) - because those companies help to reduce our tax burden.