Monday Moan 27

Hands up all those who pay more tax than the law requires?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I can’t help wondering what all the fuss is about on the issue of taxation and whether or not companies are somehow finding ways of avoiding paying more tax than is necessary.

So many politicians (who themselves seem pretty keen to take maximum advantage of the rules, of course) are working themselves into a high state of moral indignation on this topic that I fear for their health unless they soon take one of their frequent extended holiday breaks.

I am fed up with seeing Margaret Hodge parade herself in front of the cameras every week to deliver another barrage about the ‘immorality’ of companies using the tax rules to pay the minimum amount of tax that they can – all perfectly legitimately, as it happens. If politicians don’t like it then this is not the fault of those who advise clients on tax strategies, but of those who made the rules in the first place.  Hodge last week harangued a witness appearing before her Public Accounts Committee (see Moan 6 and Moan 8 for previous comments on such Committees) with a string of aggressive questions, or rather statements designed to draw out the responses she wanted.  A bully at work.  But when she said “If the public knew you were in the business of deliberately avoiding tax they would think you were completely and utterly and totally immoral in the work you are doing” I had to pinch myself to check that I was not dreaming.  Was she really saying that someone was engaged in completely and utterly and total immoral work when what they were doing was promoting a scheme that had been advised to the tax authorities and approved by them as being perfectly legal? If you've nothing better to do then have a look here at 12 mins 40 secs.

Hands up all those (apart from Starbucks, apparently) who want to pay more tax than the law requires?  Hmm, a fairly small number of people I imagine.  And that number is unlikely to include Margaret Hodge herself, whose life has been made just a little easier by being the daughter of a very wealthy businessman who sent her off to private school and, following her inheritance on his death, in whose company she holds (directly and through her children and others) almost 10% of the shares, currently valued at some £20m.  Questions about the tax avoidance strategies of that company have exercised some commentators recently, although the company itself says everything it does is perfectly legal.  I’m quite sure that is true, but in other circumstances that would not stop Hodge from seeking a headline or two.

 

Radio 4 Today programme – an exercise in playground debating tactics

The Today programme has been up to its usual tricks again. Evan Davis interviewing George Osborne last week demonstrated precisely why either he (Davis) should be given a holiday or why politicians generally should be wary of agreeing to be interviewed.

In classic Today style (see Moans 8 and 22), Davis knew all the answers to his ‘questions’ (statements) beforehand because he, of the massive ego, was much brighter than poor old George. So, his task was simply to get George to admit his guilt by answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as required – another tactic much used these days (see Moan 17).  Davis kept telling Osborne to answer with either of these, and then talked over Osborne if he didn’t comply.  Osborne tried to reason with him but was rudely rebuked for wasting Davis’s time.

Osborne -“I’m sorry, you can’t just ask these questions and before you even allow me to answer” ….

Davis - “Well, it’s a factual question, you are clearly unable to answer, so let’s move on. Come on, let’s not waste time.”

Memo to Today.  Please stop this pointless and insulting approach to interviewing.  Perhaps just try to imagine the boot being on the other foot and ask yourselves whether you would consider this to be a perfectly reasonable approach or whether you would find it rude and unacceptable – the equivalent of playground behaviour.

 

A clever economist speaks ……

Whilst on the subject of the Today programme, we had the great pleasure of listening to Lord Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and long-standing economic know-all, being interviewed alongside Bridget Rosewell, professional economist and business woman, last week on the subject of the Autumn Statement and the state of the UK economy.  Bridget Rosewell ventured that Lord Skidelsky’s recipe for the economy was based on a false premise because, she said, “the economy is a bit stagnant but it is not in recession”. 

Lord Skidelsky, eminent professor and man of many well-constructed thoughts, responded by saying “The economy is in recession, it has not grown, to any extent, in the last year and a half and if that isn’t …. well, all right, call it semi-recession”.

So, that’s clear.  The noble Lord’s views are based on the UK being in recession, which turns out to be not a recession but a newly-coined economic state of half-recession when confronted by the need to support his assertions.

Makes you look up to the academic profession, doesn’t it?

 

Time to put it out to grass?

I have been a great fan of Have I Got News For You for many years.  I have put up with Ian Hislop’s almost unbearable smugness, particularly when there is a guest he clearly dislikes.  I have put up with the scripted nature of so much of the programme, because it still made me laugh and there was enough apparent spontaneity to make you feel you were watching people thinking on their feet.

This series, however, has limped along rather joylessly.  We have had too may poor episodes to be able to excuse each of them as ‘just one that didn’t work’ (see Moan 19). Far too many awful guest presenters.

Even Paul Merton now appears to have lost his spark.  He has been the key to the programme’s attraction for me, and it is sad to see him struggling to find things to say that make you laugh. He doesn’t seem disiniterested, just lost.   This week’s epsode featured an extraordinarily wooden David Mitchell as guest host – another who suffers when working to a formal script, it seems.  Worst of all, it featured, yet again, Janet Street-Porter. Leaving aside the voice, which ought to have guaranteed that she was never allowed to broadcast in any form whatsoever, the fact is that she is just boring and whatever is the very opposite of funny.  She has been on this programme so many times I have to assume either that she is always available and very cheap, that she has some incriminating evidence stashed away against whoever is in charge of bookings for the programme, or that (surely not?) some kind of warped audience research indicates that people like her.

 

I can hardly believe it, but I can't see the point in watching HIGNFY in future.  It's the end of an era.