What’s the opposite of writers’ block? Should I stick to pensions, finance etc or why not write about spies? For a second I reach for my calculator but with the whole blogosphere available, go for both. Slightly surprised that I have not had any panicky messages from Higher Rate Income Tax payers see last blog who may have thousands of pounds of unclaimed Income Tax relief. On the other hand, perhaps I should not be surprised as two afternoons at a new group pension scheme client result in only one proper pension discussion even after two e-mails to over two hundred employees. Perhaps they are waiting until NEST the Government’s new compulsory pension scheme starts in 2012, but with the coalition taking “a long hard look” at it, apathy rules.
People with unrealised capital gains would do well to consider making them now and paying 18 per cent rather than whatever the new tax rate might be after the 22 June Emergency Budget. Objections from the Tory right about raising the capital gains tax rate, miss the point. Why have different rates for capital gains, personal income and companies? This just encourages tax arbitrage where you structure your affairs for tax efficiency rather than good business – the (tax) tail wagging the dog.
Even more ironic is the LibDem insistence on a fixed four year term for the next election date. OK this is a necessary part of the Conservative/LibDem deal but with the real pain of spending cuts yet to come, four years may not be enough. It may be near the peak of the pain making the government very unpopular. An election happens and the previous lot get back in? Why not a one-off fixed term of six years? That would at least allow the emergency measures to work, but I am not holding my breath.
But enough of this monetary stuff. As a child of the Cold War or Baby Boomer, spies and spy novels have always been a welcome distraction to school and professional exams and a Saturday afternoon walk starting at Piccadilly Circus provides some real life spy stories brightening up a drizzly day. Much of the content revolves around the Cambridge Five spy ring: Guy Burgess, Donald MacLean, Anthony Blunt, Harold (Kim) Philby and John Cairncross. Many of their haunts are in Mayfair so the walk can be looked as a guided walk around one of the smarter parts of London. Norfolk House in St James’s Square where the D-Day invasion was planned, is on the itinerary as are other flats where senior American spies lived.
Most outrageous of the Five was Guy Burgess who liked chewing raw garlic, told everyone who listen that he was working for the Russians. And when making his escape with a suitcase of secret documents, gave the answer “State Secrets” to a curious customs officer who asked about its contents!
The D-Day landings were of course in Normandy but the Germans had been hoodwinked into thinking that the main invasion would be across the shorter sea-route to Calais and that the Normandy one was a feint. At the start of hostilities, the 30 odd German spies in the UK were rounded up and given a stark choice – work for us, or the firing squad. Just after D-day, Rommell wanted to move reinforcements down to Normandy but one the UK’s best ever spies John Pujol Garcia with the then glamourous name of Garbo, stopped this. After WW2 he disappeared and was only discovered many years later in Venezuela. Having been awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class by Hitler for his service to The Reich, he was invited to collect an MBE from Buckingham Palace which he did in 1984.
Saddest statistic to come out of the tour is that Stalin’s death toll is now known to be around 27 million shown from files now seeing the light of day, making Hitler’s Holocaust efforts seem rather humble. For some reason, this brings back a memory from the late 1980s when I was in the property business. A rather drab dark green painted shop in Tufnell Park came up for sale. The shop sold lefty books and had never seemed very busy but the name The Bellman Bookshop was in fine gold copperplate lettering. Top floor contained a boardroom which had the atmosphere of a shrine. Here the floorboards were bare in contrast to the rather bourgeois shopfront lettering. At one end was the framed front page of The News Chronicle announcing the death of Stalin, from 1953. Why didn’t the owners take this relic with them? The Stalin Society would have liked it. But I digress…
The real world of espionage is apparently quite mundane and it can take years to infiltrate someone into an organisation before they start producing anything of value. James Bond driving around in an expensive car would have attracted attention which real spies avoid.
The heading is a comment from author Ian Fleming who was still writing when the first Bond films were made and the end part is “He was no Sidney Reilly”. The latter was one of the UK’s greatest spies and responsible for Great Britain getting oil from Persia initially via the Anglo Persian Oil Company. Persia is better known as Iran these days and busy trying to make its own nuclear weapons which the Americans and few others are trying to frustrate. One thought probably in the back of Iranian minds is that they were a superpower long before the British and Americans were. The Anglo Persian Oil company is still around but has got itself into a fine mess in America just now, where we all know it as BP – British Petroleum.
Spy Walk details here: http://www.walks.com/LondonWalksHome/SaturdaysWalks/default.aspx#12899 and Sidney Reilly stuff here: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/terroristsspies/spies/sydney_reilly/4.html
Garbo’s story is in this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/GARBO-Saved-D-Day-Secret-History/dp/1903365589 while story of Yuri Modin who ran the Cambridge Five spy ring is here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Five-Cambridge-Friends-Yuri-Modin/dp/0747212805 You couldn’t make it up.
To conclude with the day job, if you are not sure about your tax position before the Emergency Budget Day or haven’t reviewed your portfolio for a while, George has been pretty busy lately, but would still be happy to hear from you.