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.

Monday Moan 8

You might be a professor, but ……

John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists. He has been chairing the Review of UK Equity Markets and Long-Term Decision-Making which reported today to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. He is a visiting Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a director of several public companies, the author of many books, and he writes a weekly column in the Financial Times.

In short, he’s done pretty well for himself based on his intellectual prowess.

But that doesn’t mean he listens to questions.  Asked on the Today programme this morning how confident he was that the Government would take heed of his recommendations, he replied that the questioner would have to ask the Government to answer.  Sounds like a sensible response?  Well no, not really.  The question wasn’t whether the Government would follow his recommendations,  it was what he – John Kay, eminent professor and all round brain-box - thought the Government would do.

Why on earth would we have to ask the Government whether it knew what John Kay’s answer would be to that question?

The Today programme is a wonderful source of irritation, isn’t it? Never fails to come up with something that gets me going in full moaning mode.  Usually it is John Humphreys displaying his usual Grumpy Old Man impression - “I-know-more-than-you-so-let-me-tell-you-what-your-answer-should-be.”

This morning it was James (don’t mention Jeremy Hunt) Naughtie who stepped into Humphreys’ shoes.  He was trying to interview Alistair Leathead about the recent shootings in America and asked “they're getting used to these kind of events aren't they?”  Leathead replied that he didn’t hear the question, but instead of repeating it, Naughtie said “these things come around in a kind of ghastly regular pattern now and Americans have got to accept that every now and again this is going to occur and it seems to produce a kind of element of mystification each time."

That sounds more like a statement for Leathead to support rather than a question seeking an answer.

The pulse of the nation?

So, the Olympics are nearly upon us and the nation is gripped by ……….?  I’m not sure what to put in here.  Are we really excited and enthusiastic about the Olympics, or are we miserable, angry about the cost/disruption/influx of visitors, etc? 

I guess it all depends on what you want to believe.  Turning to that great barometer of the nation’s views that is the Comments section on the  Daily Mail’s website, you might conclude that the citizens of this country are just waiting for everything to go wrong so that they can all leap up as one and shout “we told you so”.  Who are these people that have the time to fill their lives with sending venomous comments to online websites, berating all who have a view that does not coincide with their own?  Do they represent the true face of the UK?  Specifically in relation to the Olympics, do all the people living north of Watford see this as a huge southern conspiracy to spend Northerners’ tax contributions on this extravaganza, in which they (the Northerners) have no interest at all?

If so, then who are all the people that have, for the last month or so, been seen at roadsides all over the UK having parties, enjoying themselves, getting on with strangers, proudly waving their Union Jacks, waiting for hours on end, just to say they saw the Olympic torch?  There certainly didn’t seem to be any lack of enthusiasm for the Olympics anywhere in the country when the torch passed by.

On your bike

Bradley Wiggins is likely to become the Sports Personality of the Year, unless another British athlete performs amazingly well during the Olympics.  Those touting Andy (cry me a river) Murray for this title are surely mistaken.

Fantastic achievement by Bradley, of course. Becoming the first ever Briton to win the annual cycle trip around France is absolutely brilliant.  But, but ……

We will now have to put up with even more cyclists on the roads, jumping traffic lights, wobbling uncertainly in front of other vehicles, chaining their cycles to street furniture and causing blockages to pedestrians in the process.  Trains will become even more crowded with fold-away bicycles and sweaty cyclists during the rush hour.

Worst of all, there will be an explosion of lycra on our streets as people of all shapes and sizes don the uniform that they assume will make them into better and faster cyclists – unbelievably tight and unflattering clothes that should only be worn by those who are (a) fit and (b) not afraid to display their wares in public.

Bradley – well done on winning, but what have you done to us all?

 

Give it a rest?

 

Politicians have seized upon the Olympics as a guaranteed means of generating publicity.  Select Committee chairs have been quick to spot the endless possibilities for self-promotion.  A previous Monday Moan (number 6 posted 9 July) highlighted some of the deficiencies with the Select Committee system.  This last week has provided further evidence in support of the Moan’s views.

Last week we had Keith Vaz, Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, waffling on about the poor performance in an oral evidence session before the Committee (and it is true that is really was appallingly poor) of the hapless Nick Buckles, apparently (and there is no clue as to how he managed this) Chief Executive of G4S, regarding security at the Olympics.   

So much bad-mouthing of people from the safety of the Parliamentary fortress.  But in the interests of balance, let’s not forget that this is the same Keith Vaz who has what can charitably be described as a chequered history of staying on the side of the angels during his Parliamentary career – having been, for example, investigated on a number of occasions by the Parliamentary standards watchdog over various claims of wrong-doing and having once been suspended from the House of Commons after an investigation by the Committee on Standards and Privileges found him guilty of making false allegations.

Milking of the Olympics for publicity will continue for a long time to come.  Vaz’s Committee has already announced that it will hold at least three further oral sessions in September – including a return (by populist demand?) of Nick Buckles.  Can't wait?  Thought not.

I want that job .....

And finally, we had Philip Barker on this morning’s Breakfast tv on BBC1. Philip has a really important job – he’s an Olympic Sports Historian. As an aside, I can’t help wondering where you can you apply for such a role. Anyway, Philip was being asked whether he thought the UK’s target medal tally was realistic. Summoning all the expertise gathered over his years of hard work as an Olympic Sports Historian, he replied that it was a very difficult question to answer because “a lot of other teams are also trying their best”.

Wow, for this insight into what the Olympics are all about, Philip should be given the knighthood that had probably been reserved for Andy Murray had he won this year’s Wimbledon.

Monday Moan 6

Just in time

I had been assuming I'd be able to write a piece about Andy Murray and the annual mascochistic festival that is Wimbledon.  Seventy-six years and counting ......

But things started to go wrong.  First Andy Murray failed to play his role of over-hyped loser and not only kept going and made it to the final, but played some great matches along the way.  Then we were distracted and a little confused by headlines about Marray becoming the first British winner for seventy-six years ................ had I missed this momentous laying of the Fred Perry ghost?  Turned out that I hadn't but that some imposter had tried to cash in on Andy's fame by winning the doubles under an almost identical name.

Then we had the final itself and Andy Murray again failed to meet our expectations of crumbling when it mattered. Instead, he won the first set and then produced some great tennis.  He lost, of course, but then it's probable that every other tennis player who has ever appeared at Wimbledon would also have lost to Roger Federer is that form.

But, thank goodness, Andy came through in the end with what can only be described as a major 'big girl's blouse' moment. Not for him the stiff upper lip. Not for him the quiet acknowledgment that he had simply been beaten by the better man.  True, he eventually managed to utter the right words of congratulations to Federer, but his inability to avoid blubbing like a baby was either heart-rending or cringeworthy, depending on your own emotional persuasions. 

Can't imagine that kind of behaviour would have been acceptable the last time a British man was in the Final in the 1930s, when men were men and nothing could detract from the masculinity of the players ............  if you could ignore their names, that is. 'Bunny' Austin?  How did he ever allow that one to catch on? 

I'm furious ...... I think

Diamond Bob's appearance at the Treasury Select Committee last week did not go quite the way he would have hoped. That's to say, nobody seemed impressed with what he had to say or with the man himself.

Even his admission that there had been 'reprehensible behaviour' cut very little ice. Sincerity was not the most plausible interpretation of his stance.

I like the approach of Chris Addison on last week's 'Mock the Week' - something along the lines of "we are all furious about this scandal, but nobody knows why".  Precisely.  Most of us have only a vague idea about the City, the financial system, the way everything works.  But we all know bankers and people who work in the City are bad. They are out for themselves, they make huge amounts of money at our expense, they maniuplate things to help them bolster their gains - and when we get an opportunity they should be put in the stocks and we should all be allowed to throw whatever we like at them (see also Robin van Persie, below). 

That's so much easier than having to work out why manipulating interest rates so that they stay low is a bad thing for the rest of us.

Toothless Committees?

If Diamond Bob was unimpressive then so was the Treasury Select Committee.  A series of statements rather than probing questioning, set piece and rehearsed 'anger' rather than insight and pursuit of the truth.

But then why should we have expected this Committee to be any different from the rest?  These Committees are either good at self-publicity or the media (particularly the BBC) has decided to bestow upon them an importance far greater than has previously been the case.  How often these days to we find out on the 'Today' programme that a Committee of MPs has reported that ...... blah, blah, blah.  We then get to hear from the Chair of whichever Committee it might be - these days quite often Margaret Hodge (Public Accounts) or John Whittingdale (Culture Media and Sport).  Do these people fill us with a quiet, calm satisfaction that they are able to get to the bottom of whatever issue it is that they choose to investigate and that their repots will contain penetrating and vital analysis and conclusions? 

Er, no, not really.  Their reports are mainly written by the clerks and 'special advisors' they employ. The oral evidence sessions usually manage to reveal not much more than that most MPs are reasonably competent at reading aloud questions written out for them to ask. The Chairs rarely say anything more than a superficial soundbite or two and never seem to be asked any difficult questions by their interviewers. And whilst Ministers do have to respond in due course, nothing much happens beyond the Committee getting on with its next damp squib of a report.

I love you - now where's the money?

Nobody should be surprised that Robin van Persie has decided to move on from Arsenal in pursuit of more money.  But he treats everyone with contempt when he says he is going, despite his love of the club and its fans, because he disagrees with the strategy of the Manager and Board.  Why do players (or is it their agents) come up with kind of rubbish all the time? 

Conventional 'wisdom' has it that Arsenal are not prepared to invest money in proven players because of the cost of doing so , and would rather find a few promising youngsters who might develop into stars.  According to the 'logic' of this 'wisdom' any club could buy success if it had a mind to do so and the owners of Arsenal are simply being pig-headed in not following this path.

Let's leave aside questions around the imminent introduction of new rules that will (ok, should) require clubs to become financially viable. Let's ignore awkward issues like only one team can win the League even if they all spend huge amounts of money. Let's park for now any discussion of whether van Persie is anything more than a reasonable player who has had his one season of everything falling into place. Let's put aside any questions about whether he should have shown more gratitude for the support given to him by all at the club through some serious personal problems and persistent injuries.  Let's not ask whether anybody seriously doubts the ambition of a club that has followed up improving its league position to third last season by strengthening its squad since then with the addition of two proven internationals. 

Instead, let's just ask whether this isn't really just about the money.  And whilst we are thinking about that, let's ask ourselves whether wages in excess of £200,000 a week are really necessary - even for inflated and ungrateful egos.