From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
The newspaper claimed Tice had avoided paying corporation tax on the company's "multimillion-pound profits for most of 2018 to 2021" through gaining "rare legal status" for it as a real estate investment trust (Reit). The status gives firms a grace period in which they are exempt from corporation tax, according to the paper, and instead issue a portion of the company's earnings to shareholders who are taxed individually.
Peter Ricketts said there had to be more awkward questions asked of a person such as Peter Mandelson than the system allows, given all the baggage of his three decades in politics and business. For that person there must surely be an even more thorough process including detailed interviews with those who have known him/her well in their previous life. That will take time, Lord Ricketts said.
I think that's a matter for the police. They will conduct their own investigations, but one of the core principles in our system is that everybody is equal under the law and nobody is above the law. It's a very important principle of our country... and it has to apply in this case in the same way it would in any other case.
