WAVE THE FLAG AND POCKET THE CASH

20/06/2012 - 17:10:46

British Prime Minister David Cameron today branded comedian Jimmy Carr “morally wrong” for seeking to avoid taxes.

To describe Mr Cameron as being guilty of hypocrisy, his own family hardly being strangers to tax avoidance, barely seems strong enough, so I consulted Mr Roget. He gives:-

Hypocrisy: affectation, bad faith, bigotry, cant, casuistry, deceit, deception, dishonesty, display, dissembling, dissimulation, double-dealing, duplicity, false profession, falsity, fraud, glibness, imposture, insincerity, irreverence, lie, lip service, mockery, pharisaicalness, pharisaism, phoniness, pietism, quackery, sanctimoniousness, sanctimony, speciousness, unctuousness

Well that will do for a start, we might also add some more colloquial terms, bullshit, horse-shit, bollocks, crap, for good measure.

 I was extremely amused to read that the recently honoured Gary Barlow, he who organised the patriotic love fest that was the Queens Diamond Jubilee concert, is also involved in similar legal tax scams. Happy to blow his patriotic kazoo and wave the flag his patriotism does not run so deep as to actually contribute to the upkeep of the armed forces and the other services of which he makes use, in his case literally tax free. Proof if proof were needed that behind many a flag waving patriot there lurks a scoundrel.

There is something particularly nauseating about these morally bankrupt individuals, like Lord Ashcroft, who in his case uses the libel courts to conceal his chicanery, boasting of their love for this country.

So Carr is of course a hypocrite and a fraud but my guess is he is not alone. Many a left leaning public figure who does not suffer the indignity of being forced to pay tax through the PAYE scheme must have felt queasy when Mr Carr was exposed. Tax is, as Oliver Wendell Holmes declared ‘the price one pays for living in a civilised country.’ Thatcherism, the shadow of which we still live under, called into question this maxim, tax evasion and avoidance are the logical consequences of that ideology. Finally it is worth observing that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, though that is scant consolation to those having their home help cancelled and their libraries closed.


Havng visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.

Popular posts from this blog

NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

Image
As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries...
Read more

INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

Image
Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a café/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t...
Read more

VOLINE AND TROTSKY

Волин и Троцкого A Footnote in Russian History In April 1917 the Russian anarchist revolutionary Voline* and Leon Trotsky were both stranded in New York as the Russian revolution broke out in Petrograd , inevitably coming into contact with one another. Voline stated that he felt that the Bolsheviks, given their ruthlessness and single minded determination, would ultimately come to power. They would then begin eliminating their opponents, amongst whom of course were the anarchists; this persecution would end with the Bolsheviks shooting the anarchists “like partridges.” Trotsky was dismissive, they might have their differences but they were comrades in arms, they had different interpretations of the revolutionary process but shared the same goals. It was nonsense to speak of Bolsheviks shooting revolutionary comrades, “we are socialists, comrade Voline! So we are not your enemies….” [1] In December of 1919, whilst gravely wounded Voline was captured by the Bolshe...
Read more