Carrm Down

I've been out of town and out of touch, but even I know that David Cameron has considered himself hard enough to come and have a go at Jimmy Carr's tax arrangements. Is this a wise move, I ask myself considering the long history of successful entertainers and tax avoidance? Surely everybody remembers the case of Ken Dodd and his famous Diddy Men - Diddy Pay and Diddy Fuck.

But maybe it is a good tactical  move after all, because it poses something of a problem for the left. It shines a feeble sort of light on the hypocrisy of show business, which is almost entirely populated by folk who declare themselves the epitome of caring socialism and the enemy of what they think of as conservatism. Show business attracts the young and hopeful, who often earn little throughout their lives and live in an extended, often ill-educated, mutually supportive peer group as they struggle to make ends meet by dressing up to make the grown-ups laugh and clap.

The grown-ups, of course, are happy to pay to keep performers in their juvenile and starry-eyed state, in the hope that they'll continue to entertain them for next to nothing. Sounds a lot like Socialism to me, where a ruling elite keeps the poor barefoot and helpless, while pulling their strings and offering crumbs of encouragement in place of real wages.

But all the sweet bonhomie does little to disguise the fact that in the fiercely competitive world of entertainment the big breaks are few, far between, fought-over and favour the hardest-working and most persistent. (What's that? A capitalist work ethic?) Your time in the spotlight - if it ever comes - may be short-lived and could be the only chance you get to build a nest egg. The question shouldn't be, "How dare you?" but more why wouldn't you avoid paying tax?

Many years of "progressive" politics have led us to be forced to hand over ever more of our earnings to support experimental policies of social engineering, touchy-feely (failed) multiculturalism and an infantilisation of the entire population - we're all in show business now. Which of us wouldn't - given the opportunity - pay an expert to allow us to legally avoid that high price and put something aside for those rainy days ahead?

Breaking free of the bounds of mediocrity, it is rarely long before achievers in all walks of life seek to separate themselves from the masses. Give a lefty a bit of money and pretty soon he or she buys a secluded house with security to keep the little people outside. Let people improve themselves and see how long they continue to espouse their former quaint notions of equality.

Jimmy Carr is only doing what most of us would do if we could. If there is fault here it is that the tax burden is too high, to pay for things that we don't need and ultimately don't really believe in. The irony is that the showbiz masses are natural Labour supporters - somebody has to pay the welfare bill for when they're 'resting' - but quickly reassess their priorities once they've made it. It's called human nature.

Who's laughing now?