There's one for you, nineteen for me

In some quarters, it has become an article of faith that to cut the 50p top rate of tax is an act of betrayal, a callous and partisan decision by a ‘posh-boy’ government inclined to favour the filthy rich at the expense of the hoi polloi. That might be a convenient peg on which to hang your donkey jacket while you’re signing up for the ‘Class Warfare’ module at your local college, but knee-jerk responses and party slogans are inadequate to the task of appreciating the nuanced realities of our tax system.

Back in 1970, the top 1% earners in the UK contributed around 11% to the total tax yield. That was after several years in which the government imposed ‘super-tax’ rates which peaked at 83% (and which, for some, reached an unbelievable 98% once a surcharge on investments and dividends had been levied). Super-tax rates, in class warfare terms, might have scored a few brownie points; as a tool for income generation, they sucked.

UK governments since then have -by and large- accepted the idea that punitive tax rates for the very rich are not beneficial to the overall yield. Today, the inconvenient truth for those who like to complain about the rich ‘getting away with it’, is that the top 1% of earners in the UK are accountable for 28% of the total income tax yield, while the top 15% of earners are responsible for 63%. In just over forty years, the income tax yield from that top 1% has increased by more than 150%.

The argument for cutting the 50p top rate is that it actually generates more money from the top earners. Evidence suggests that people who earn huge sums of money are far less likely to seek legal methods of tax avoidance if their top rate is lower than, or somewhere around, 40p in the pound. Once it hits 50p, there is a perception that it becomes ‘unfair’ and folk are then encouraged to look for ways around it. If, therefore, you want to get more money out of very rich people, you have to make your top rate just high enough to generate the desired tax yield, but just low enough for them to think they are being treated fairly. Not only (the theory goes) do you get more tax out of them; you encourage them to spend more money on goods and services, which will have been provided by small, medium and large businesses (employing small, medium and large people).
Some folk might not like the idea pandering to such a mentality, but those misgivings should be irrelevant if -and this might be a big if- the primary focus really is on increasing the tax yield to the exchequer.

Last year, Adele took a lot of flak because she had the nerve to complain about her £4m tax bill. That’s four million pounds in one year. A four million pound contribution to roads, schools, hospitals, MPs expenses and all the rest, paid into the system by our most successful singer. On a quick, back-of-a-fag-packet calculation, I reckon I’ll need to live and work until the age of 389 to have contributed that amount to the public coffers.

It’s not difficult to see how and why the tax yield from that top 1% has increased so markedly within a few decades. We’ve developed a system that induces the top 15% of earners to contribute 63% of our total income tax yield; most folk, I think, would be comfortable with labelling that system as ‘progressive’.

Those who claim that the current government is merely currying favour with our top earners should perhaps ask themselves whether they want to bleed the rich for the sake of it (which is one thing), or whether they want to generate more funds for the exchequer (which is quite another).

Gang of One

‘Gang of One’ is the story of Scottish banker Gary Mulgrew’s spell in the Big Spring penitentiary in Texas. One of the so-called ‘NatWest Three’, Mulgrew was indicted by the US authorities in 2002 for his part in some dodgy financial dealings. Having invested with a NatWest client who was directly connected to Enron, he made the mistake of not telling his employers about that investment, hence the spectacular fall from grace.

One of the achievements of his book is that it manages to evoke sympathy for an investment banker who was perceived to have profited massively from some very sharp practices. Mulgrew appears contrite about his role in so-called ‘casino capitalism’ and wisely avoids going too deeply into the details of the case.
He focuses instead on the human interest story surrounding his separation from his son Calum and the search for his missing daughter, Cara Katrina.
His daughter is missing because, when the scandal was at its height, his ex-wife abducted her and fled to Tunisia, leaving Mulgrew and his son to come to terms not only with the gathering storm of his impending extradition and imprisonment, but the disappearance of half of their family unit. With his career and his marriage in ruins, he was forced to draw upon reserves of fortitude which he attributes, in some part, to his Glasgow upbringing.

He writes amusingly of his preparations for prison. During the limbo period after extradition, while he is hanging around in Houston awaiting instructions on where to report for his prison sentence, Mulgrew imagines all of the negative possibilities of prison life. From his perspective as an average middle-aged executive: “they broke down into two distinct categories ... I labelled the first group BAD: things like poor diet, boredom, bad beds, no pillow, cold showers, shared toilet, no tea or coffee … The second heading covered murder, rape, violence, death etc., so after some thought I named that group FUCKING CATASTROPHIC”.

He hires a personal trainer to prepare him for the probability of physical challenges but, when the time comes, it is his quick-wittedness and ability to assimilate which prove to be his greatest assets in Big Spring.

In spite of his initial dread at being perceived to be the ‘Enron Guy’ (and therefore a likely target), Mulgrew uses his wits to carve out his own little niche in the prison. Convention demands that each inmate in Big Spring must be affiliated to a gang. Unable to join any of the various ethnic groups and unwilling to side with the loathsome Aryan Brotherhood, Mulgrew survives by forming his very own ‘Gang of One’. He manages to befriend the right kind of people and turns his energies positively towards gainful employment, first as a toilet cleaner and then in a ‘promoted’ post in the library. His real focus is on re-uniting with his son and then on finding his daughter. The pain of separation from his children is the thing that gives him the strength to endure his imprisonment with equanimity.

The boredom and brutality of prison life is evoked skilfully. Long periods of inertia are peppered with brief but sickening bouts of ultra-violence. Mulgrew is horrified to witness some awful ‘revenge’ beatings. He reacts in the way that anyone who has not been anaesthetised to that level of brutality would react: he wants to intervene. His instinct is to help the men being ‘punished’, but is warned that to intervene would be equivalent to writing his own suicide note. The experience makes him question what it is to be human:

“I had given up all pretence of not watching and sat on my bunk … wondering where the hell I was. I hated all these people, I hated myself for watching it. I hated the people who had sent me here. Is this what those cunts in the Department of Justice wanted to teach me? Was this how anyone was supposed to be corrected? I wanted to scream, to tear the walls down, to attack them all, but I just sat there like I was watching a movie”.

This book provides an entertaining read, due in no small part to the clarity and candour of Mulgrew’s voice. The prison scenes are written with a cinematic eye for detail and it would be no surprise to see the story translated to the big screen sometime soon. I can think of several big-name Scottish actors who might quite fancy the idea of playing the main man in the ‘Gang of One’.

The right to define

Now that we are into what Lynne Featherstone, Minister for Equalities, has called the ‘consultation period’, the battle lines have been drawn in the debate around the legal status of same-sex partnerships.

All the indications however, are that –in some quarters- the terms of debate will be framed within the context of the perceived superiority of the modern secular worldview. ‘Modern’ values are almost universally understood to be somehow more ‘evolved’ than those of previous generations. The modern secular liberal believes him or herself to be not only morally and intellectually superior to old-school religious conservatives, but morally and intellectually superior to every human being that has ever lived. The tiresome growth of hard-line atheists and their increasingly fundamentalist approach to the God debate is but one example of this phenomenon.

Let me make this absolutely clear: I am all for same-sex partnerships. I think that people in same-sex partnerships should have the same rights as heterosexual couples and should be allowed legally to describe their union as a marriage. Nor do I have any issue with such partnerships raising children. Society is much better off when children are raised by responsible people who love, support and care for them; the gender or sexual orientation of those carers is not the primary consideration.

I do, however, understand why some folk might fret about the impending legal redefinition of the word 'marriage'. It was only in 2005 that the concept of civil partnership was legalised in the UK. In historical terms, the ink is barely dry on that deal, yet the proposal now is for a further seismic shift in legal terminology.

This isn’t like ‘Marathon’ changing its name to ‘Snickers’. There are perfectly good economic and socio-cultural reasons why marriage has –at least up until now- meant the union of man and woman. Accordingly, you can’t expect everyone to react with unbridled enthusiasm just because a relatively new societal trend has emerged. Marriage has an extremely long and significant history. It is, at best, naïve to expect that a complete redefinition within the space of a couple of generations will not encounter a significant degree of hostility.

Lynne Featherstone claims that the church does not ‘own’ marriage and that the government is entitled to introduce same-sex marriages as a "change for the better". But do governments –which are always temporary- really have the moral authority to redefine a concept as old as marriage? Is this ‘moral authority’ founded upon nothing more substantial than the ability to guess which way the wind of opinion is currently blowing? Does it rest on a narcissistic belief that the modern secular liberal knows best? A Guardian editorial on this topic last year stated that the law needed to ‘catch up with where people are’. If more people decided that shoplifting was an appropriate lifestyle choice, would the law have to 'catch up' with that by legalising shoplifting?

I’m not religious and I have no desire to see any religious grouping dictate terms to society at large, but I do respect the fact that the Judeo-Christian value system has, by and large, shaped our laws, institutions and societal mores. I don’t support the arguments of folk like Cardinal Keith O’Brien, but I do understand the background from which it is possible for him to arrive at his position. And a position that has evolved over centuries won’t be changed by trend-hopping governments or by editorials in the Guardian.

How to spend your royalties wisely

When you have been involved in the business of music, even in a modest way, you can occasionally be surprised and delighted to receive remuneration for your work. I’ve just received notification of a royalties payment of $24.64 (or £15.58 in actual British money) for some music that I released several years ago.

Now I’m not going to get carried away by this, but I’d like to think that all of the folk who have scoffed at my musical efforts over the years will now be scoffing on the other side of their faces. Show business is about learning how to take the knocks before dusting yourself down and then –literally- getting on with the show. Part of my strategy for coping with criticism over the years has been to divide into various categories the folk who criticise, ignore or ridicule my musical efforts. This will make it a bit easier to exact revenge on the day of judgement (a.k.a. the day I make my acceptance speech upon receiving the ‘lifetime achievement award’ at the Brits).

For the record, the offenders are categorised as follows: teachers, schoolmates, journalists, liars, promoters, record company executives, neighbours, girlfriends, DJs, workmates, bastards, random strangers, friends, relatives, wives, children and members of the medical profession. There is also a ‘miscellaneous’ category, just in case I’ve missed anyone out. I’ve already got a rough draft of my acceptance speech and, if I can trim it down by about 45 minutes, it will be succinctly and utterly devastating to anyone who has ever doubted my abilities.

Along with the rewards that the music business can bring comes the pressure of having to decide how to spend your hard-earned wonga. Like other major rock stars, I occasionally feel a burning need to put something back, to use my position, my influence and my earnings to make a positive contribution to society. Sting famously built a recording studio and health spa in a remote African village, while Madonna published a 128-page glossy hardback translation of her lyrics into Aramaic in an attempt to promote greater understanding and world peace. On a more modest level, Peter Gabriel funded a moth sanctuary in Cornwall, while de Bono out of de U2 has written various books on the power of positive thinking.

Now I’d be the first to admit that £15.58 is not an amount that is likely to change the world; the fact that it is such a modest sum makes it rather tempting to blow it quickly on my hedonistic lifestyle. Like many rock stars before me, I almost succumbed to the desire to shove my earnings straight up my nose. I checked the current street prices and ‘my man’ assured me that I could get two, maybe even three, Vicks Vapol Inhalers for that kind of money. However, now that I’m older and -I’d like to think- a bit wiser, I’m more inclined to try to broaden my mind with a bit of cultured reading. A quick rummage around a certain well-known internet shopping site reveals that there is currently a very interesting book available, just inside my price range. It’s called, somewhat intriguingly:

“The Doctrines of the Resurrection and the Reward to Come, Considered as the Grand Motives to an Holy Life. Discoursed Of, from 1. Cor. XV. 58. / By the late pious and learned John Worthington DD (1690)” [Paperback edition]

You may recall that this treatise on the early history of religion was made into a successful film, ‘Snakes on a Plane’, starring Samuel L. Jackson (although I believe some of the heavier religious stuff was left out of the final cut). While there is a lot to be said for using my royalties to advance the understanding of complex philosophical ideas, I’m tempted instead to invest in something that would bring a little bit of unadulterated joy into the world.

A job lot of ten sets of Universal Curly Sexy Car Headlight Eyelashes (pictured below) is currently sitting at £13.96 on e-bay. That sounds like a pretty good price and it still leaves me some room to manoeuvre on the bidding. I don’t watch ‘Top Gear’, so I have no idea what the views of the cognoscenti of the car world would be on headlight eyelashes. I can’t imagine that Clarkson and the boys would be anything other than completely in favour of this innovative automotive adornment. Surely ten sets of these sexy car headlight eyelashes, distributed at random to friends, relatives and acquaintances would help make the world a better place? After all, we are the world, we are the children. We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving.

If I can just get my hands on those headlight eyelashes, I’ll know that all those years of trudging around various dead-ends gigs in hovels, dives and toilets up and down the country will not have been wasted.

A wise investment

Thinking is better when you use your head

The historian David Starkey kicked up a bit of a storm during his latest appearance on Question Time. This is par for the course for Mr Starkey, as is the silly over-reaction to his peculiar brand of intellectual grandstanding. Sadly, if the average edition of Question Time is anything to go by, 'par for the course' in what passes for political debate in the UK involves the reiteration of a series of anodyne, statistic-heavy stock phrases, scripted by spin doctors, enforced by whips and parroted by party hacks with little more than the ability to read and memorise a script. The reaction to Starkey says a great deal about our atrophied capacity for the cut and thrust of grown-up political debate.

Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, provided a particularly dismal example the other night. There was no point in the show at which one felt that she was ‘listening’ to her fellow panellists or indeed ‘considering’ an answer. She didn’t have to listen to the questions, because she already knew the answers. She didn’t have to think, because she had memorised her responses in advance (and this isn’t a party political point, because all of our mainstream parties are riddled with this kind of intellectual dry rot).
Ms Reeves, drunk on statistics and spin, briefed up to her eyeballs and terrified (or unable) to reveal even the merest hint of anything approaching an original thought or -god forbid- an opinion, exemplified a wretched truth about modern politics. Namely, that to be a thriving member of the professional political class, one merely requires the ability to regurgitate an approved set of platitudes, statistics and stock phrases; there is nothing in the job description about intellectual bravery or insight.

Unlike 99.5% of the usual Question Time panellists, David Starkey is at least prepared to stand or fall by his intellectual arguments. You might not agree with him (or like him), but he will let you know exactly what he thinks and you know that what he thinks will have been arrived at through an intellectual process. His comments on Syria, multiculturalism, taxation and the French have all received critical attention this week, but the reaction to his remarks about the NHS (particularly about the conditions that the British Medical Association has managed to secure for GPs) provide a perfect illustration of a polity mired in censorious groupthink, wallowing in a mushy middle ground wherein conspicuous compassion is more valued than intellectual rigour.

There is a great deal to commend about the idea of the NHS and a lot of wonderful work is done by its employees. But then again, one might be entitled to expect high standards from any organisation that employs 1.3 million people. Unfortunately, political discourse in the UK is not mature enough to handle a discussion on how to improve or modernise the NHS. As soon as you deviate from the line that it is the 'envy of the world', you are branded as a hardline free-marketeer who would like poor people, when not lying dead at the side of the road, at least to have sold all of their meagre possessions (perhaps including their vital organs) to pay for medical insurance.

George Orwell famously wrote that: “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

David Starkey reminds us that true intellectual freedom is the hallmark of a mature and functioning democracy. We need people who are willing to tackle sacred cows, to say the ‘unsayable’, to strip away the layers of spin, obfuscation and sentimentality, to get to the very essence of political ideas.
To say, when required, that two plus two makes four.

Michel Houellebecq - 'Atomised'

‘Atomised’ is one of those rare beasts in modern fiction: a novel with the cojones to take on big ideas and envisage a world in which the human condition has been completely redefined.
Set several decades in the future, it looks back on the lives of two half-brothers at the tail end of the 20th century. The cerebral Michel is a semi-autistic molecular biologist who has no understanding of (or need to indulge in) everyday human emotions, while Bruno is a frustrated free spirit, trapped in an overweight body, but still managing to enjoy a series of sexual adventures which he hopes will somehow give meaning to his life.
Both men are dysfunctional and, through their various shortcomings, western liberal society is put under the microscope. It would be fair to say that the author finds it wanting.

Houellebecq is the bête noire of the French left-liberal mainstream and ‘Atomised’ rips with contemptuous abandon into a number of his favourite targets: anthropology, psychoanalysis, New Age philosophy and organised religion (the author achieved a degree of notoriety for his outspoken views on Islam).
The big idea in ‘Atomised’ is that our society –in the early part of the 21st century- will undergo a startling metaphysical transformation. Genetics will offer us the opportunity to procreate without recourse to sex. Thereafter, human sexual activity –historically fraught with neuroses, anxiety, commodification and shame- will be downgraded.

In envisaging this utopia beyond the demise of the liberal west, Houellebecq is writing arguably the most powerful and prescient literature of our times.

Oh no, it's the Oscars!

For most of the year, I’m able to pass myself off as a laid back, happy-go-lucky sort of chap, with a reasonably pleasant disposition and an inclination to accentuate the positive things in life. There is, however, one annual event that forces me to raise my head above the parapet to reveal my secret identity as a middle-aged curmudgeon, stewing in a fug of grumpiness and embittered scorn. Exposure to this event, for even a fleeting moment, has me swooning with nausea and plotting violent, old-testament revenge on some of the most feted people on the planet. I’m talking, of course, about the Oscars.

It’s difficult to feel anything but indifference and antipathy to this horrible event. And no, there isn’t a contradiction between the ‘indifference’ and the ‘antipathy’. I’d be quite happy to maintain the indifference, in the way that I can maintain indifference to figure-skating, crossword puzzles, The Archers, cooking programmes on TV, horse-racing and the music of Coldplay. But sadly, it gets harder each year to stick with mere ‘indifference’ to the Oscars, because the wretched thing is all over the telly, newspapers, internet and radio and will remain so for days after the prizes are handed out. My natural (and perfectly logical) antipathy for the Oscars, therefore, is further fuelled by its sheer ubiquity; it denies me the option to be merely ‘indifferent’.

There are three main reasons to despise this annual orgy of self-congratulation:

1. The Oscars present a generally unedifying spectacle in which a bunch of needy, overpaid, over-rated ninnies will get to feel even better about themselves by celebrating their various 'achievements' and by picking up thoroughly unmerited accolades and prizes. If you’re already paid humongous sums of money for your work and you are generally adored by the people who consume that work, why on earth would you need further reward? If you’re a film star, you’ve already won the lottery of life; are the wealth, the fame and the adoration not enough, already?

2. Hollywood being what it is, some of the winners won’t be able to resist the temptation to use the occasion to pontificate on matters of which they have, at best, a superficial grasp. This, I suspect, is because they know –in their heart of hearts- that they are criminally overpaid for the essentially trivial work that they do and so feel the need to make statements about, y'know, really important stuff. Eight years ago, when the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh was murdered for his art, nobody at the Oscars cracked a light. No mention was made of an artist whose executioner actually left a five-page note with the murdered body, declaring explicitly that he had been killed precisely because of the art he had made. No-one at the Oscars in 2005 thought that the murder of someone in their profession for carrying out that profession might have been worth a sentence or two in commemoration; they were too busy being ‘brave’ in their acceptance speeches by having digs at that fish-in-a-barrel target, George W. Bush.

3. The Oscars themselves are awarded on the basis of matters of opinion. It's not like sport, wherein contestants actually compete and (usually) stick to an agreed set of rules, allowing the person or team that out-performs their opponent to win. The so-called ‘competition’ of the Oscars is decided by anonymous people sitting in darkened rooms declaring, in effect, that “we like this film better than that one”. Why should we care what other people think is the best film, or the best supporting actor, or the best foreign movie soundtrack? It’s merely an opinion and, as such, has about the same value as any other opinion. When it comes to judging artistic performance, at least X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing seek the views of the consuming public. The Oscars judges don’t take anything as vulgar as mere public opinion into account. I suppose they must know better than the folk who pay actual money to watch the films.

I’d like to see the Oscars replaced by something altogether more egalitarian and entertaining. If, for instance, the ‘best supporting actress’ were to be decided by throwing darts, potting balls or taking penalties, we’d be able to witness a clear and transparent process, leaving no doubt as to how and why each winner came to triumph. Or better still, we could dress the contestants in sumo costumes and make them tackle an assault course, before immersing them in a huge vat of custard.

Now that would be a competition worth watching. With regard to judging methodologies, it would certainly beat a bunch of folk sitting in a room, arguing over cinematography. And, better still, it would probably cut down on the need for speeches.