"It’s correct to distinguish between tax evasion and avoidance. The £25 billion of lost revenue from tax avoidance that Owen mentions is from schemes, such as the K2 scheme in Jersey that Jimmy Carr infamously took advantage of, that are technically legal and which the HMRC and government seem keen to remain complacent to on behalf of corporations and rich Tory Party donors. Tax evasion is just as morally decrepit, but much more methodological. The combined cost of all tax evasion and avoidance schemes by certain multinational corporations and wealthy individuals, the ‘tax gap’, is estimated to be £95-to-120 billion annually. But nevertheless, the £25 billion that could be clamped down on with relative immediacy would quite sufficiently cover the expense of public services which are being cut, dismantled and privatised by the Cameron’s government ideological austerity drive: justified by economic losses caused by the greed and criminal irresponsibility of the financial system. The alternative to ideological austerity that the Labour Party should pioneer would simultaneously provide the means to lift society in the UK out of recession, disenfranchisement, and sheer injustice and despair."