Michael Jackson's Death: Nonsense

Michael Jackson's death; what nonsense. That's guarenteed to get attention but not to the most interesting aspect of Jackson and his contemporaries in other industries. To me it was poetic justice that Bernie Madoff was sent to prison just after the date of Michael Jackson's death. I don't want to pass judgement on Jackson himself, his songs quite evidently touched billions of people and regardless of his eccentricities and the allegations against him, he led a life that few of us can comprehend. What it more says to me is the veneration of a man to ludicrous lengths, as we do all the time. Blur played an unbelievable set on Sunday night, only spoilt by my dumping two days later, still i've still got this is a low. But why is Jackson so unbelievably venerated when the death of Allbarn would raise barely a squeal? He was a commodity, he sold and when he wasn't sellable he had no purpose. Yes Jacko is far more popular but not in proportion (in this country at least) to the reaction. Perhaps Jacko's death is on Reagan's hands as much as our current bankrupt conception of economics is on Friedman's.

Is This Is The End?

Well there you have it: this looks like the hefty branch that added to a large pile of kindling should break the camel's back. James Purnell has resigned in what seems a slightly baffling move. There's no question that this will make it hard for Brown to survive: it is the first resignation that cannot be obviously dismissed as motivated by either personal circumstances and/or grievances against Brown and it will surely embolden those who perhaps want to resign but didn't want to associate themselves with the likes of Blears or go out on a limb by themselves and have their own personal motives for for their resignation questioned.

It seems strange because first of all the results of the elections aren't in yet and secondly because it doesn't seem in character. Purnell is a Blairite or 'moderniser' as they like to be known, but not one of those who is bristling with contempt for Gordon Brown. Lastly the results in the local and European elections may not be as bad as expected. Blears' attack on Brown will perhaps have encouraged a few Labour supporters to vote Labour in order to stave off the catastrophic results that would allow the likes of Blears to claim vindication, as well as a possible swelling of the vote in those areas where the BNP have been talked up.

It is key that if Brown is to be toppled by the Blairites, as well as possible moves from the left that the Blairites are not allowed to 'modernise' the party in their own mad way as if they do it would tear the Labour Party apart. This may well need to happen anyway but if it happens in the run up to an election it could mean that the Tories face an opposition that is not opposing them but itself. One thing's for certain 'The People's Dave' will be laughing in his public paid for house, or perhaps in the half of Oxfordhire or Lincolnshire that his family owns.

The Curious Case Of The Arshavin In The Tax System

One player who certainly has made an impact upon his arrival in the Premiership(or First Division as it should be is a certain Mr Andrey Arshavin, his beguiling talent making a fairly mediocre Arsenal side watchable again and putting what turned out to be one of the final nails in Liverpool's title hopes' coffin. However all is not well in the Arshavin household, not only has his no doubt fragrant wife had to put up with the supposed unkemptness of our English roses but it seems Andrey has been a left a little shortchanged by Mr Darling, his agent and Arsenal's negotiators. It seems Andrey didn't realise that a huge chunk of his £80,000 a week wages would not be going to buy materials for his dressmaking business but would instead be being used by HM Government to plug the black hole in its finances.

Now I may be being more generous than most but I would attribute Mr Arshavin's taking umbrage to something other than mere greed, namely the unfairness of it all. This is because most of his peers, many of whom lack his considerable talents, do not make the same generous contribution to the upkeep of the nation. Savvy agents have long insisted on wages being paid net and many clubs and players upon the announcement of the 50% Tax Rate will have swiftly renegotiated the payment of their wages as interest free loans or some other such method of keeping their star names happy and in Gucci manbags. Arshavin's contract was negotiated during the snow ridden chaos of the last transfer deadline day and so, no doubt, he failed to employ the creative accounting that others will have used in order to ensure that their cash is used for monogramed kitchen tiles for themselves rather than for the ducks of Gosport.

But Arshavin here is surely the exception: his travails are what millions of hard working people experience every day. Those with ordinary incomes (unlike Andrey), who lack the time (like him) and money to ensure that we make as small a contribution as possible to the public purse can only look on in envy at those who can. This is the inherent bias in the tax system towards the very rich. Not only do they sometimes earn unjustifiable sums of money due to markets' occasional bouts of insanity but they then pay far less as a percentage of their income even than those who one would class as rich. A basic principle of any progressive or even moderately Tory society is that the top earners pay a larger percentage of their income in tax than those in the middle or at the bottom.

To me a major moral case behind this is our humanity: We need money in order to exchange it for the things we need to live first and foremost. From there we need it to break up the monotony of our existence by either treating it as an end in itself and using it to open doors or by buying luxuries. The more one earns therefore the less each actual pound is 'worth' to its owner. Someone may struggle to live on £4,000 a year, £30,000 a year may allow one to live in relative comfort, the difference in quality of life between the two sums is significant. If someone is earning £100,000 a year then that same increase would make a not completely insignificant but far, far smaller contribution to that person having a better quality of life. Perhaps this difference is not to be sniffed at. It could after all mean a better car or an extra bedroom, not particularly significant when compared with the difference it could make to a child in poverty but one can understand why an increase in this person's tax bill would be unappreciated. However where I honestly cannot fathom the sheer selfishness is amongst our astronomical earners: precisely those who pay a much lower portion in tax. They may be earning £10m a year, losing £5m of that £10m rather than £2m would make absolutely no difference to their quality of life, that £3m could, if put to good use significantly change the lives of a huge number of people by providing better services such as good education, healthcare, housing, transport, or enabling us to pay off the debts incurred escaping a recession created by many of the same people who howl about higher tax, perhaps in better times we could even cut tax on those at the bottom, in the middle or even moderate high earners. Of course in reality life is much more complicated than this simple method of money vs quality of life: there are considerations about incentives, the rich moan that we must be 'competitive' (why to attract more greedy nation wreckers?), whether a government puts this money to good use etc. However surely as a starting point we need to have at least the super and very rich, who benefit from our public services as much as anyone else (how would companies make money if they had a workforce that was ill, illiterate and unable to travel?), paying the same percentage or more of their income in tax instead of being always one step ahead and contributing as little as they can to the country that has given them so much. He may not be very happy about it but we need more Andrey Arshavins: here's to more snow next January 31st.

What on Earth is going on?

Today the knives have been out for Gordon Brown, including one which with astonishing shamelessness has been wielded by Hazel Blears. One almost sympathises for Brown in the calibre of his assassins, but that has always been an essential reason why so many of us have supported him on the principle 'If Blair, Clarke, Blunkett, Blears, (Insert Blairite/Tory) hate him he must be a great person.' To be honest Brown probably deserves to go, he has consistently let down his supporters and has shown an astonishing lack of leadership in allowing the Tories to gain any benefit at all from a scandal in which they seem (I don't know the exact ins and outs) to have perpetrated the worst crimes. In this sense Brown is his own victim but it's seems astonishing that in the midst of the bloodletting that one HUGE story seems to have slipped under everyone's radar. This is that Cameron was at it! The leader of the Conservative Party paid off one mortgage so he could claim the maximum on another. Let us not forget that 'The People's Dave' is a multi-millionaire and so could easily afford the repayments of interest and not only that the mortgage is astronomical. As far as I can tell from his interview on Channel 4 his only defence seems to be that he didn't charge the whole of the claim to the taxpayer. If this is the case it means that Dave seems to think he is entitled to a certain level of taxpayer funding for his astronomical mortgage (he chose to pay off his non-taxpayer funded one) and that this is somehow mitigated by the fact that he is rich enough to have a larger house than he could otherwise get on his dodgy expense claims. What a fantastically Tory way of looking at things! I do hope those who bother to vote Blue tomorrow realise the green they are voting for is the extra acres of Dave's lawn the taxpayer has paid for. http://page.politicshome.com/uk/cameron_on_his_mortgage_claims.html

While I am aware that Gordon's attempts to prove Jilted John correct are probably the main political story of the moment, William Hague's hilarious attempt to justify one of the most scandalous elements of modern politics also deserves a mention. For anyone who hasn't seen it 'Ar Willyum refuses to answer Paxman's question on whether he has asked Lord Ashcroft about his Tax Status. Which funnily enough is exactly what the Tory Party Chairman refuses to do when asked that question by us. Whilst under current law it is perfectly acceptable to avoid tax, some in the Tory Party even say moral, it was under the condition that he paid UK tax that he was made a Lord and he is effectively funding the Tory election campaign allegedly through offshore companies. So perhaps we do have a right to know whether a man who effectively doesn't live in this country and is not British (for tax purposes) is influencing our democracy.
http://page.politicshome.com/uk/hague_pressed_on_ashcroft_tax_status.html