The political events of the last week or so have now convinced me that I am indeed a grumpy old man, at the ripe old age of 47. And probably not for the reasons you might think.
I am going to concentrate on the case of Communities Minister Hazel Blears, because it raises tax issues, which in this example is the relatively tenuous basis on which to vent my spleen on the modern media.
Now at this stage I must declare an interest of sorts, in that during my years of working in Salford I got to know Hazel vaguely, meeting her on 3 or 4 occasions, and indeed on one occasion being photographed with her and our now Prime Minister. I was particularly impressed when she interrupted her role as Labour's 2001 North West election supremo, not only to open our business group's open day, but to spend at least 2 hours talking to every exhibitor, many of whom were not even her constituents. She also paid me my best ever back-handed compliment after a Question Time event in Salford, when she told me that I was "funnier than David Dimbleby". However, my political leanings do not incline me in her party's direction, so from that viewpoint I can claim to speak dispassionately.
Dealing with the specific before the particular, the great 'crime' of which Hazel appears to stand accused before the media is avoiding capital gains tax on the sale of her London property, presumably by electing for it to be her main residence for capital gains tax purposes. The implication is that this is the dastardly act of a minister intent on screwing the public purse for every penny she can get. I'm sorry, but this is rubbish.
Where a taxpayer has more than one residence, as Hazel had to have as a government minister and conscientious local MP, she has the right to elect which one is her main residence for capital gains tax purposes. Now I bow to no-one in my love for Salford as a city, but given the choice between claiming tax exemption on the future gain on a property in Salford or one in London, what rational human being would have done any differently to Hazel Blears? Certainly had I been her tax adviser I would have suggested that electing for the London property was the only rational thing to do.
At worst this is tax mitigation, and is not in my view a controversial piece of behaviour. Are we now saying that our MPs should deliberately maximise their tax liabilities, which seems to be the implication? Which leads me neatly on from specifics to my general rant.
"The advent of 24:7 media has been the worst thing ever to happen to journalistic standards in broadcast and written media." Discuss.
This may well be an urban myth, but I have heard it said that on one occasion before World War 2 the BBC cancelled its evening news programme because there was no news. Now of course that could not be allowed to happen, given the amount of media time and effort devoted to round the clock news generation and presentation. So when things get a little quiet on the news front, there is a terrible temptation to exaggerate the importance of relatively trivial events to fill time and space (a personal and family tragedy, yes, but Jade Goody's death, anyone? An event of national importance - I think not).
Which brings me neatly to MP's expenses and the Daily Telegraph. If this was really a matter of such earth-shattering importance they would have cleared the decks and printed all of the information at once. But because it is a cynical ploy to sell extra newspapers the 'revelations' are dragged out over days, and indeed weeks (probably reflecting the financial imperatives of how much they paid for the information in the first place). And the rest of the media jumps on the bandwagon so as not to be left behind, and eager to fill hours of broadcasting time with anything that purports to be news.
Rarely has such a non-story captured so much media attention. Read Gordon Brown's sister-in-law's recent Guardian column to see just how ridiculous all of this has become, as the media desperately tries to scrape together some sort of damning indictment of a major political figure, and it must be said utterly fails. And woe betide any poor soul (such as the PM's brother) who unwittingly finds himself embroiled in all this.
The charge which is of course levelled at MP's over all of this is that of hypocrisy; taking a 'holier than thou' approach to public integrity and condemning tax avoidance whilst themselves engaging in dubious practices. But where are these accusations coming from? How many journalists, presented with an expenses system such as that 'enjoyed' by MPs, would virtuously turn down the opportunities that such a system offered (let us remember that the vast majority of MPs appear to have done precisely that)? And who better to give us an informed view on tax avoidance than the majority of major media proprietors, to whose personal expertise on the subject I would happily bow? So who are the true hypocrites in this story?
Regular readers of this blog will know that I am far from holding a candle for our elected representatives, and there are no doubt those who have sought to take advantage of what is generally accepted to be a flawed system, albeit a small minority, even on the Telegraph's carefully chosen evidence. Among what group of 650 people "chosen at random from among the ranks of the unemployed", to quote David Lloyd George (now there was a politician who really WAS corrupt), would you not expect to find a few who sought to play the system?
But the real concern is that the absurd media over-reaction to this story threatens to tar all MPs with the same brush, which is potentially extremely dangerous for democracy. When Norman Tebbit suggests that we 'boycott' the major parties at the European Elections, we can well imagine in what euro-sceptic directions he might like our votes to go, And if people think that our current MPs are an unsavoury bunch, they might like to take a look at some of the characters who have been prominent in those particular fringe parties.
As the title of his book about the Australian media, David Salter coined the phrase "The Media We Deserve". All I can say is that if we in Britain get the media we deserve, we must have done something pretty damned awful.
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