Sometimes you have to endure rather too much of Richard Littlejohn’s tedious and unfunny blethering in order to get to the nub of his argument, and so today’s hot and steaming offering has proved. Dick, whining that “The rich aren’t all merchant bankers” (and generating unintentional hilarity in so doing), is once again banging on about the SWP and “scruffy layabouts”. The reason? Basic self-interest.
Fifty pee in the pahnd, Guv? Daylight robbery, innit?
Taking a recent speech by Young Dave as his cue, Dicky Windbag accuses politicians of going after the well-off, and warns that this has got out of hand. Cameron’s expertly crafted PR guff, designed to soothe a business audience by telling them what they want to hear, is quoted at length and as if every word is universally true, rather than the PM doing a bit of strawman creation.
Most folks outside the meeting where Young Dave delivered that speech wouldn’t know what the heck he was going on about: many will have forthright views on bankers and their bonuses, but the idea that there is some kind of movement against business is total crap. But Littlejohn, secure behind the gates of his Florida compound, isn’t interested in reality.
This is underscored by his clumsy attempt to paint Labour and the Lib Dems as two pantomime dames, the former asserted to have a “contempt for the wealthy” and the latter who “seem to see private industry as a branch of the social services”, a magnificently meaningless statement. But slowly and eventually Dick gets to the point, and this time it’s personal.
Yes, it’s about him keeping hold of more of his money. Facts do not enter, and thus the 50p tax rate of Income Tax is “Brown’s vindictive and unproductive” one (it was brought in by Alistair Darling two years after Pa Broon left the Treasury). And Dick doesn’t like the suggestion of a “mansion tax”: “Not everyone who lives in a £2 million-plus house is a multi-millionaire banker, Arab billionaire or Russian oligarch”.
Indeed not – there are also that endangered species of multi-millionaire editors and hacks to consider, like, er, Dick and the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre. But this is serious – they might have to sack the gardener or cleaner! Littlejohn’s plea is in the same vein as that of J-P Floru, who made his pitch some weeks ago via the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA). And it’s equally vacuous.
Moreover, so is Dick’s lame attack on local Government, which would put the Mail to shame in any demonstration of laying an audit trail so spending can be tracked and accounted for. All today’s Dicky Windbag column is about is special pleading for overmonied hacks like Himself Personally Now.
Dick, you’re a dick. You’ve done very nicely for yourself on the basis of next to zero talent. Stop whingeing at having to pay your taxes when you’re rolling in it.
“The rich aren’t all merchant bankers”
ReplyDeleteHah. Nice one Dickie. It's almost as if you weren't aware that the merchant banks and bankers were either wiped out or bought up by American investment banks in the 90s. Almost as if you don't bother with the most rudimentary fact-checking.