cliff weight

Member of ShareSoc, The UK Individual Shareholders Society, Investor in Shares since 1984. I don’t give FinancialAdvice. Be polite and considerate to all.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

30% must be in UK companies, phased in over 10 years. Pensions and ISAs!
@DonaldPond6 @dominicoc @ShareSocUK soc https://t.co/1Fpl8pjNy8

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@JohnCleese @john it must be time for @BBC @BBCWorld to re- broadcast Monty Python. I recall the days when satirical critiques helped understand concepts and ideas. A different age?

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@DonaldPond6 Trust and the rule of law are so crucial to investing returns.

[Donald Pond @DonaldPond6]

This post made me research Andrew's background. He's my MP, so I know he works hard, but I didn't know that actually, he's got a very impressive background. We need more people like this making important decisions.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@DonaldPond6 Cheap energy
Secured borders
Technology innovation, AI, huge data centres, Nvidia chips, SpaceX

[Cut My Tax @CutMyTaxUK]

@wesstreeting But Wes, HMRC say that your proposed hike to capital gains tax will actually lose over £10bn in revenue over the next three years.

And what happened when your former boss slashed CGT rates to 10%. Revenues trebled over the following four years. Your policy is a loser.

[MAGA Voice @MAGAVoice]

Keir Starmer does NOT want the World to see how badly British Patriots want their country back

Would be a shame if it went viral on 𝕏

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@JonathanPieNews A very good video only spoilt by unnecessary swearing. @jonathanpie makes some very good points. Worth listening to.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@TheOldYeller @TRobinsonNewEra @RTCORGUK It was meant to be a polite peaceful march. Nobody told this guy not to swear. It is a bad look. Not the sort of behaviour you want women and kids to see.

[The English Brief @theenglishbrief]

@TRobinsonNewEra Please don’t give the government what they want

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

5.82%. Soon blue chips will be viewed as less risky than thus Labour Government.

[Andrew Griffith MP @griffitha]

This is the price of Labour’s leadership chaos.

30 Year Gilt yields and borrowing costs at their highest level in decades. Billions worth of extra costs.

All of us will pay dearly for Labour’s game of musical chairs.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@Rubken256533 @BGatesIsaPyscho Need more than 4000 police if we want all the marchers to be safe. Police may have underestimated the scale of their task.

They have been told to expect a big march. Sadly there are anarchists and leftists who want to disrupt this peaceful march.

[Cut My Tax @CutMyTaxUK]

Importance new evidence from Sweden highlights the stupidity of Labour's decision to extend inheritance tax to family firms

After Sweden removed inheritance and gift taxes in 2005, private firms with potential family successors grew faster, invested more, & paid higher corporate taxes than firms without natural heirs, according to new research from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Scrapping the death tax meant that firms no longer needed to divert resources to pay the tax, instead they invested more in growth

"Overall, we conclude that the abolition of inheritance tax in Sweden encouraged and enabled firms with potential next generation owners to adopt a long-term horizon, be growth-oriented, & to create transgenerational value, which in turn benefitted society by increasing recurring corporate tax revenues & employee salaries," said the researchers.
1/2

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@griffitha US rates are 3.99% for 30 year Treasuries. Lots to learn from US. Drill baby drill; reduce red tape and useless bureaucracy.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@griffitha Ministers should have to pass an exam to test their level of competence and knowledge of relevant science and economics. Milliband would fail the test even at the basics level.
@griffitha would pass with distinction right at the top of the class.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@DonaldPond6 Yep. They’ve lost control.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

PM admits officials 'withheld' Mandelson vetting information from senior... https://t.co/kE8WG1Qa49 via @YouTube

Incredible- it beggars belief. Listen to @Kier_Starmer_PM words

[Christopher Lupine @LupineLives]

The Reeves economic plan in action…

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

@griffitha 🇬🇧 4.92% versus 4.32% in USA 🇺🇸 for 10 year T-bonds. We can expect sterling to decline by 0.6% p.a. Further reducing the wealth of those who hold £ investments.
@ShareSocUK @DonaldPond6 @AmitVedhara @MelloEventsUK

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

It is so important we do not forget @Carillion and learn from our mistakes. @ShareSocUK campaign and represent individual shareholders; we criticised the lack of accountability for those involved in the @Carillion debacle/fraud. @FRC is better and stronger now but ARGA was needed

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

SHE REPORTED FRAUD AT ONE OF BRITAIN'S BIGGEST COMPANIES. NOBODY CARED. THEN IT ALL COLLAPSED.

Emma Mercer started her new finance job at Carillion in early 2017. Six weeks in, she found something that made her stomach drop.

The books were wrong. Costs were being hidden. Profits were being made to look bigger than they were. On projects worth hundreds of millions of pounds, the numbers simply did not match reality.

She told her boss. He brushed her off. She told the CEO. Same response. She went to HR because she had run out of people willing to listen.

A board member later described her in writing as a whistleblower who did not feel she was listened to.

She was right about everything. Every single thing.

But instead of launching an independent investigation, the board quietly scrapped the idea of outside scrutiny and handed the job back to @KPMG, the company's own auditors.

The same firm that had been signing off Carillion's accounts as healthy for 19 consecutive years. The same firm collecting £29 million in fees from the very company it was supposed to be independently checking.

MP Frank Field said it plainly in Parliament. KPMG were asked to mark their own homework.

They gave it top marks.

Eight months after Emma Mercer raised the alarm, Carillion collapsed. January 2018. The biggest compulsory liquidation in British history.

Here is what that actually meant for real people:

3,000 workers lost their jobs overnight. 28,500 people in Carillion's pension schemes saw their retirement savings cut. A £2.6 billion pension black hole left ordinary workers worse off for years.

Taxpayers handed over £150 million just to keep hospitals, schools and prisons running while the mess was cleaned up.

Meanwhile, Carillion's former Finance Director Richard Adam sold every single share he owned on the day the 2016 annual report was published. He walked away with £750,000. The shares were worthless months later.

It took the regulator five years to act. When it finally did, KPMG was fined £21 million, a record. Investigators also discovered KPMG staff had faked meeting minutes and altered spreadsheets to deceive the regulator during its inspection. The lead audit partner was banned from the profession for 10 years.

The fine was less than what KPMG earned from Carillion.

One woman told the truth in her first six weeks on the job. She was ignored, sidelined and described as a problem. The executives who ignored her kept their bonuses. The auditors who backed them up kept their fees. The workers who had nothing to do with any of it paid the price.

This is how British corporate accountability works.

[cliff weight @CliffW8]

Oh dear!

[Grifty @TheGriftReport]

North Sea oil prices have surged to near-record highs amid the Iran conflict — Forties Blend hit nearly $147 a barrel, Brent crude up to $120.

The UK is sitting on reserves worth up to £385 billion, with Rosebank and Jackdaw alone holding over £80bn in potential output.

Yet Ed Miliband’s Labour government still bans new drilling and slaps 78% windfall taxes under Net Zero rules.

Tories warn it’s costing £25bn in extra tax revenue, thousands of jobs and energy security while we import dirtier, pricier fuel.

Net Zero madness in the middle of a crisis.

Ed needs to go...