Sunday, July 02, 2006

Secretive Billionaire Industrialist!!!!!

So what to make of this story?-
Dr Hans Rausing, the secretive Swedish billionaire industrialist who created the Tetra Pak packaging empire, has given £100,000 to the Westminster office of Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary.

Despite throwing around words like "secretive" and "billionaire industrialist" you can't make someone who manufactures milk cartons sound scary. Media moguls and computer tycoons can sound sinister because they have an impact on the dissemination of information, but the thought of someone dominating the supply of milk is really not very frightening.
Rausing, who has faced questions over his complex tax-avoidance arrangements,

He's "faced questions" BURN HIM!!!
Rausing's tax affairs were the subject of scrutiny four years ago when he was estimated to have had an income of around £4m but was paying little British tax.

"Scutiny" by whom, embittered socialist lumps who have contributed nothing to society perhaps? £4m doesn't seem very much income for a "secretive billionaire industrialist", it is about the same as a certain compatriot of his.
Rausing legally makes use of a loophole by which wealthy foreigners living in Britain avoid paying tax.

So in essence he pays what taxes he should, but doesn't feel compelled to spend any more than that. So the Absurder are trying to imply that he is greedy. Which is somewhat undermined further down the page by the acknowledgement that:
Rausing has donated more than £146m to charities over the past 12 years.

So his income is $4m a year and he gives more than £12m a year to charity. How miserly of him.
Rausing is the latest in a growing list of foreign-born tycoons to support David Cameron's Conservatives......Cameron has still not revealed which mysterious foreign backers have lent the Tory party money.

"Wealthy foreigners" "foreign born tycoons" "mysterious foreign backers", anyone noticing a theme here? Of course the Observer and the Guardian are forever lecturing the benighted masses on how we should accept immigrants into our society and how much they contribute. This apparantly doesn't include wealthy, productive philanthropists. So who are the good sort of immigrants if the likes of Rausing are so sinister?

Update: Iain Dale notices an even bigger clanger in the article which really I should of picked up myself.