The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

A curious “logic”

Published by Tom

on

Darling announces one-off shock tax to 'break bonus culture' | UK news | The Guardian.

Sources close to our glove-puppet Chancellor (quite possibly so close as to be the hand wiggling his implausible eyebrows) observe;

"Salaries have got out of hand. They have been paying themselves like football stars."

What kind of a society do we live in where it's taken for granted that a nitwit with a knack for ball control is so obviously worth more than the intelligent men and women looking after the investments that fund our pensions, life assurance, etc?

I do not quarrel with the remuneration the market doles out; irksome though it is that it values Terry Wogan, Chris Evans and Jonathan Ross – men possessed of nothing but cheeky charm – more than someone who creates employment in several countries while generating millions in invisible exports for his own. Let's just say that I regard the following statement (about football players or BBC presenters) as being of equal (i.e. zero) moral value;

"Salaries have got out of hand. They have been paying themselves like investment bankers."

If the government persists in pandering to popular prejudice in this way, it will find itself governing a country that can't afford to pay its idiot entertainers as much as they and their audiences think they "deserve". Then they will be able to provide neither bread nor circuses.

6 responses to “A curious “logic””

  1. Moggs Tigerpaw Avatar
    Moggs Tigerpaw

    Ross and Rooney in charge of RBS… could they do a worse job than Fred did?
    Come to think of it… I figure they would be hard put to do a worse job than the Ant and Dec of political incompetence, Gordon and Alistair?

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  2. Tcheuchter Avatar
    Tcheuchter

    I must write in defence of Terry Wogan. Pretty sound bloke from what little I heard of his radio prog & his musings in the Sunday Telegraph are well worth reading.

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  3. Diogenes Avatar
    Diogenes

    It amused me to learn that Terry Wogan is a qualified banker unlike Fred Goodwin.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/6152589/Banking-on-Wogan.html

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  4. Theophilus Grantly Avatar
    Theophilus Grantly

    I do not quarrel with the remuneration the market doles out; irksome though it is that it values Terry Wogan, Chris Evans and Jonathan Ross
    There is something quite amiss with this part of your otherwise very sensible post.
    The main source of these people’s remuneration is not the market but the BBC. The two have nothing to do with one another.

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  5. Demetrius Avatar
    Demetrius

    What matters as far as I am concerned is that the earnings in the UK should give tax revenue to the UK. Indeed some may be luckier than others to be where the money is going, but this jobbing about and penal rates does not do any good at all. Tax needs to be reliable, robust, and allow benefit to the earner, as well as revenue to the state.

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  6. jameshigham Avatar
    jameshigham

    What kind of a society do we live in where it’s taken for granted that a nitwit with a knack for ball control is so obviously worth more than the intelligent men and women looking after the investments that fund our pensions, life assurance, etc?
    In he end times, all values will be turned on their heads.

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Your blogger

Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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