The Human Race

So, last night’s BBC Question Time was a hoot. Baroness Warsi ably swinging the handbag for the Conservatives against the feebly flapping hands of Labour’s plain old Miss Cooper (double-entendre intended), who had the temerity to engage in a tit-for-tat battle over the respective performances of this and the last government.

When the last administration was under Gordon Brown’s leadership, the best you can do is apologise, surely? But maybe she has something in her arsenal, something to deploy to land a knockout blow? Wait for it, wait for it… here it comes… And there it is, the emotive but tired and ultimately meaningless statistic that the 5% reduction in top rate tax means a £40,000 tax rebate for somebody earning a million pounds a year.

Meaningless? Of course it is. Is that the only thing Labour has? It must be; it’s the only thing I ever hear from them. Again and again and again. Steal from the rich to feed the poor. It won’t work and you should really read this excellent article to see why. Squeezing the rich is an utterly futile exercise which demonstrates that those who propose it really don’t understand either money, or human motivation.

Everybody should pay their share, of course, but nobody should be taxed at a higher rate in return for their industry or their good fortune. It’s called the human race and at a million squids per annum I would most definitely be winning (or at least I’d be through to the play-offs). Trying to take my prize off me is envious and stupid and anyway, you’d have to catch me first. And I’m winning, remember?

Which gets me on to the other big race, the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix. I have no idea what’s happening. I don’t care. I don’t follow the sport and I have no real interest in whatever the Bahrainistas are up to, but I do know that it will make not one iota of difference to the prosperity of Britain whether the race goes ahead or not. For all the bleating and whining hot air that whooshed out of George Galloway's lying, hypocritical gob I'm sure that not a single B'rainie of influence lost a moment's sleep.

 You see, the Grand Prix is about rich people. And rich people really don’t care what you or I think about them. If we think too hard and get cross about them being rich they’ll just move – to Bahrain perhaps – and then we’ll never see another penny of their tax money again. Who will pay for everything then?