The state of the UK

[Scot Dutchy]

The richest Brexiteer leaves the UK. The rats are deserting the sinking ship.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, UK's richest person, moves to tax-free Monaco

Brexiter Ineos boss, who has an estimated £17.5bn fortune, officially changes tax domicile

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest person and high-profile Brexiter, has quit Britain for tax-free Monaco.

Ratcliffe, a petrochemicals magnate with an estimated £17.5bn fortune, has this week officially changed his tax domicile from Hampshire to Monaco, the sovereign city-state that is already home to many of the UK’s richest people.

It has been estimated that the move will save him £4bn in tax payments. People who live in Monaco for at least 183 days a year do not pay any income or property taxes. The highest tax rate in the UK is 45% on income above £150,000-a-year.

Before he left for Monaco, Ratcliffe was the UK’s third-highest individual taxpayer, paying £110m to the exchequer in 2017-18, according to the Sunday Times tax list.

His decision to quit Britain came soon after he was knighted by the Queen for “services to business and investment”, and the UK voted to leave the European Union.

Ratcliffe, the founder and chief executive of petrochemicals company Ineos, was an ardent supporter of the vote leave campaign, declaring that the UK would thrive without red tape from Brussels.

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Other rich Britons who have moved to Monaco include the Topshop boss Sir Philip Green and his wife Tina; the property billionaires Simon and David Reuben; John Hargreaves, the founder and chairman of Matalan; and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.

[Scot Dutchy]

British inequality is the best inequality

UK's six richest people control as much wealth as poorest 13m – study

‘Extreme inequality is the story of Ferraris and food banks,’ says the Equality Trust

The UK’s six richest people control as much wealth as the poorest 13 million, according to research into the gaping inequality in British society.

Six billionaires at the top of the UK wealth league have a combined fortune of £39.4bn, which, according to analysis by the Equality Trust, is roughly equal to the assets of 13.2 million Britons.

The richest six are: the Indian brothers Gopichand and Srichand Hinduja, who control a conglomerate of businesses, including cars and banks, and top the table with a £12.8bn fortune; Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the chairman and chief executive of the chemicals company Ineos, with £9.2bn; the hedge fund manager Michael Platt, who has an estimated £6.1bn; and the property developer brothers David and Simon Reuben, whose net worth is estimated at £5.7bn each. The estimates are based on wealth reports produced by Forbes magazine and Credit Suisse.

[NineBerry]

I can't imagine it would take a lot of soldiers of the Légion étrangère to invade Monaco and make it part of La Grande Nation. I certainly wouldn't mind.

[Scot Dutchy]

They would just make them all millionaires with money from their back-pocket.

[rainbow]

Being a millionaire is no big deal. When I was living in Zambia, I would draw a million Kwacha, just to do the monthly shop.

[Sean Hayden]

I still don't understand why you had to go through with it. It's been truly bizarre to watch, like you're under a spell...

[laklak]

I've got a One Hundred Billion Zim dollar note.

[Scot Dutchy]

I knew you were a secret billionaire.

[Brian Peacock]

I still don't understand why you had to go through with it. It's been truly bizarre to watch, like you're under a spell...

In a nutshell: Because a whipped-up fear about being swamped by a tsunami of immigrants, whose mere existence threatened to dilute the very notion of what it means to be British, made moving out of the regulatory orbit of the largest free-trade zone in the history of the world and into the orbit of the US seem like a no-brainer.

[laklak]

You're gonna get you More and Better Freedom!

[JimC]

And guns!

[Scot Dutchy]

Yep the 51st. state is a no brainer.

[Scot Dutchy]

Fuck the environment. JFCOAPS. Money is everything.

First new deep coalmine in UK for 30 years gets go ahead

Plans to open the UK’s first new deep coalmine in 30 years have been given the go-ahead by councillors in Cumbria.

West Cumbria Mining (WCM) said it plans to mine under the seabed to extract around 2.7m tonnes of metallurgical coal annually, which is solely for use within industry and not for power stations. Steel and chemical factories in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire and Port Talbot are expected to burn the coal’s output, with the company arguing that the coal will replace imports and will not increase emissions because it will not be shipped over from the US.

The move comes almost five years after the country’s last deep coalmine – the Kellingley colliery in North Yorkshire – closed and two months after England’s last coalmine – the surface mine in Bradley near Durham – extracted its last coal.

[JimC]

There is research going on to replace the coal needed for steel production by hydrogen...

[Svartalf]

Won't work, a lot of steelmaking technology turns around controling the carburisation of the iron... if you heat it with a carbonless fuel, you'll have to rethink steel making from square one.