Entertainment For Lively Minds
The taxing question of Adele
Warning - contains opinions. Goat may be required.
James (if he didn't exist you'd have to invent him) Delingpole has an entertaining article about the naive/shocking/refreshingly honest opinions expressed by current big gob Adele on the subject of tax:
I’m mortified to have to pay 50 per cent! [While] I use the NHS, I can’t use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are [shit], and I’ve gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [her album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire.
Delingpole points out:
In the music business this is probably a first. Sure, the Beatles famously wrote a song about the absurd 95 per cent tax rate under Wilson and Heath: “Let me tell you how it will be/There’s one for you, 19 for me/Because I’m the taxman.” Sure, the Kinks sang, in Sunny Afternoon, how “the tax man’s taken all my dough”. Sure, the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Main St was inspired by the year they spent exiled in the south of France to avoid the punitive UK tax rate. But, though they may have let such sentiments slip into their song lyrics, they certainly never did so in their interviews or public statements.
And with good reason. A rock star can get away with many vices – from drugs to Satan worship to on-stage bat decapitation – but the one perversion that remains absolutely verboten is the kind of conservatism expressed by Adele. Rock stars, after all, are traditionally supposed to be champions of the underdog. Their fans may permit them the odd stately home or private jet, but what they absolutely won’t forgive is any sign that they’ve abandoned their socialist principles. That would be “selling out”.
Now this thread isn't on the merits of this or that tax system. It's about the suffocating consensus, clearly false, that says there are only about three right-leaning pop stars in the whole of the UK pop business - probably Tony Hadley, Gary Numan and Roger Daltrey. The lifestyles of everyone from landfill indie to Sir Elt would tend to point to that being unlikely.
Surely, in that context, Adele's remarks, while a tad over the top (like no pop star's ever made an exaggerated utterance before) are at least brutally honest and therefore welcome, no?
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Not welcome really
I don't think she's right wing - she's not demonstrating that she believes the public sector needs cutting or that her tax could be spent more economically or the burden allocated in a different way.
It might be that she's in favour of an extreme form of market-driven economy where consumption of gods and services is entirely driven by the specific consumers of those services, or she could be playing the part of a thick teenager - "I don't want that, why should I pay".
You decide.
Don't really care,
The thing is, she's an absolute rarity when countless others so clearly think along similar lines. And if you think that less opprobrium would have come her way had she articulated her belief in a low tax system better, I don't agree. Like I say, I'm not bothered about the merits one way or the other (well, I've posted on here before that I'm more Hayek than Keynes but that's not the point), I just don't think this false consensus is healthy.
Paul Weller is another case in point. A working class lad from Woking who had the temerity in the early days of The Jam to say he would vote Conservative (what an outrageous idea, given the wonderfulness of late 70s Labour!). By God did all hell break loose and he was banished from the inner circle for years, only 'redeeming' himself with Red Wedge and references to The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Quietly though, years later, we find he's living the life of a quintessentially self-made multi-millionaire- several houses, kids to private school etc. No outcry (nor should there be, in my opinion). Go figure.
She's not making a political statement
She's not a rarity, saying the unsayable.
She's got her thumb in her mouth and is saying "it's not fair".
Think you're looking at this too deeply imho.
Like I said above,
I'm not bothered whether she was making a statement about tax or simply saying 'it's not fair' (I agree, it's probably the latter). Either way, such statements are as rare as hens' teeth. That falseness just bugs me, that's all.
Most people who get into the 50% bracket...
... take a long time to get there and build up career/savings/house en route ... they can also feel fairly comfortable about staying in that tax bracket til they retire, doing tax-efficient things with pensions and savings and all that jazz ... yer instant success novelist/singer/musician/artist who goes from skint to minted in no time at all suddenly gets a mahoosive cheque then their manager/accountant says, "Oh, yeah, well, like half of that goes to HMRC..."
and indeed if we're talking classic self employment with bog all tax paid on account in skint year one, then year two with the big cheque from album sales brings tax + extra 'future' tax in the shape of payment on account for year three (unless it works differently for the instantly wealthy) which is a bloody big tax bill ...
or, in pithier terms, what i'm saying is, i'd whinge too if i suddenly thought, "Yay, no more insecurity, no more struggling, no more nearly out-of-date food from sainsbury's," then found that i had to pay half of my stash to HMRC ... being a middle aged git, i would then rationalise the fact that i still had a pile of cash left, shrug and think, "So it goes, i have a lot still" but Adele is not a middle aged git, so probably just spoke off the cuff?
As a contact of mine said on
As a contact of mine said on Facebook, Adele is probably quite new to money and after a wait of a few years, seeing such a whack of one's earnings go in one swoop was a shock.
As further evidence of her being a bit green behind the ears, she still has a lot to learn about interviews. The journalist is not your buddy.
That said, let's all go download her music illegally and help reduce her tax bill!
"I use the NHS". Then pay your taxes or it'll disappear.
Honesty is good. It invites debate...
I know you said that the thread was not actually about the comments themselves... but every bone in my body is telling me to point out that the idea that most state schools are shit is just plain ignorant. According to the most recent Ofsted report for the UK: "just over two thirds of schools at their most recent inspection were providing a good or better education for their pupils. Pupils' behaviour was good or outstanding in 86% of schools" (Actually, even if Adele believes that most state schools *are* shit, then doesn't that give her a reason to pay her taxes?)
I admire Adele as a musician, but why should economics be all about the individual? "with great power comes great responsibility" etc...
About the rock star thing, I'm just speculating, but is it not because conservatism tends to be something passed down in a family that has a tradition of wealth? Rock stars tend to be from normal backgrounds, and we like to think that they won't forget their roots.
All bets on for when she moves to Switzerland.
The views
in that article seem stuck in the eighties.
I think it's been said on here a few times that "selling out" doesn't exist anymore; everyone is after as much money as they can get and nobody really cares how they go about it. Iggy sells his soul to an insurance company, does anyone care? Not really.
Adele seems to be forgiven her remarks anyway, mainly on the grounds that she's a "cracking lass" and she's young.
G.I.B.O. again
our old friend good intentions, bad outcomes.
Seems to me that many people are quite happy to cheerlead the Denis Healey 'squeeze the rich until the pips squeak' approach, regardless of the actual outcome. How did that one work out, by the way?
There's much debate about the specifics, but to my mind the general principle of the Laffer curve is just common sense.
Point of order, Mr Speaker
The "squeeze the rich..." remark was made by Lloyd George. Healey denies ever having said it.
hmmm...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Healey
Healey's own words, quoted in The Guardian
'I never used it. I quoted something from the 1920s. That can happen. Jim Callaghan never said "crisis, what crisis?".' What the then shadow chancellor in fact said, at Labour's 1973 conference, was 'there are going to be howls of anguish from the 80,000 people who are rich enough to pay over 75 per cent on the last slice of their income'. The 'pips squeak' was originally used by First World War leader Lloyd George; Healey did quote fellow Labour Cabinet minister Tony Crosland, requoting it 'in reference to property speculators, not to the rich in general'.
Fair point, but by the same token...
Considerably more nuanced in its entirety, I think you'll agree, than the oft-quoted part in bold. However, it's undeniable that she did want to take power from the state and give it to the individual and therefore that quote was always going to give her opponents a stick to beat her with for decades after (as Alex Salmond did only the other day).
Similarly, Healey's (perfectly fair, if to my mind suicidal) explanation of his tax policy clearly states that he was in broad agreement with the 'squeeze the rich' quote, which I presume is where the 'disingenuous' reference in Wikipedia comes in.
The other great mis-attribution to Thatcher
is the quote "Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life". She never said it, quoted it, and may not even have agreed with it, but it's widely taken as her words. The line was in fact written by one Loelia Ponsonby, a wife of the Duke of Westminster, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph.
Sub-editor required
"....which Healey accurately but disingenuously denied."
How could he, or anyone accurately but disingenuously deny anything ?
If he didn't say it then it it is accurate to deny he did it. Question his motives and policy by all means, but if it ain't his quote, it ain't his quote.
And he couldn't be lying
cos he's an MP
Here's how: I make s
Here's how:
I make s statement in which I make an odious quote by an odious individual.
I then get taken to task for saying it.
"'t weren't me guv. I was quoting [odious individual"
Everyone knows I wanted to say just that thing, but by using this deflection device, I can accurately, but disingenuously, deny that they were my words.
It worked just fine
We had a more civilised country.
Higher income tax is OK by me and much preferable to the private wealth/public squalor Tory ethos. The downside - that Andrew Lloyd-Webber might leave the country - is a prospect that I find bearable.
I suspect that Adele hasn't given it that much thought though.
So, punk...
Contrary to popular perception of it being a howl of contempt at the state of 1970s Britain, was in fact a celebration of the wonderful, at-peace-with-itself society that been created by the wise stewardship of the Callaghan administration. A world in which vulgar Essex boys knew their place and didn't disturb the established, civilised order. That about right?
*More* civilised
not perfect...
Callaghan did quite well though, actually.
She might not use public transport anymore
but I've a suspicion she does use the public highway, does have her bins emptied, does expect the police to hold back the crowds when she appears in public, does expect the fire brigade to turn up if her house catches fire and a whole host of other things beside.
I wonder if she spent the previous and less wealthy part of her life thinking, "Gosh, I'm taking out of the system far more than I'm contributing and that really isn't fair... what can I do about that one, then?"
Yes, and she's paying a fair whack for those services now,
isn't she?
Probably no more or less
than bankers, professional footballers and landed aristocracy pay and I haven't seen many calls for them to have their taxes reduced.
What's the story?
She doesn't like paying tax. Most people don't.
Much ado about nowt
It wasn't a political statement. It was a young girl making a throwaway remark about the amount of tax she's paying.
If she hadn't mentioned the figures
nobody would have batted an eyelid. But I guess it's just a sign of the times, people talk a lot more readily and freely about money these days. I've been shocked when people I've worked with have asked how much I'm on, simply because I would never think of asking them.
In the old days people would never have talked about such things. I'm a bit nostalgic for a time when people didn't talk about how much money they're on and how much their house has gone up in value. Those were the days.......
I try to avoid
people like that like the plague. I can't help feeling a combination of pity and disapproval at folks who contextualise their discursive input primarily in terms of personal wealth/income or material worth. Such people invariably create absolutely no dynamic for a conversation, but rather reduce the basis of discussion to a boring sequence of comparative statements about who in the room has more or less of one thing or another. Don't get me wrong I love it when people talk animatedly about a material possession in terms of the pleasure it gives them when it's obvious that the pleasure supercedes the money aspect but most often they don't, they just want to brag or draw comment that makes them feel good about themselves, even if it's at your expense.
The pity comes from the fact that they have such an inherent lack of self-worth that they have to qualify the public display of their ego and their interaction with you in terms of materialism and the disapproval largely stems from the realisation that I've ended up in the company of dull f**kers once again.
As for Adele's "Phil Collins moment" I doubt she'll be quite so opinionated again about her tax bill but it is amusing to read how wound up people get about stuff like this. It strikes me as a peculiarly British form of parochialism, part of the general 'little Britain' mentality that many of us suffer with at various times in our lives, a strange capacity to become personally riled and inflamed by the comments or actions of a person whose existence has absolutely no bearing on our lives whatsoever. It's up there with news programmes asking the viewer to text or tweet their thoughts on a news subject, as if the 10 word emotively phrased opinions of Steve in Luton and Donna in Durham will help us all cope with Libya, Obama, Royal Weddings and naive singers with a gob.
There's a wonderful and true story
about the writers Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. They were at a party given by a Wall Street squillionaire in his fabulous, art-laden, well-furnished, celebrity-bedecked house. Vonnegut asked Heller how he felt about the fact their host probably made more money in a day than Heller ever had from 'Catch 22.' Heller replied, "Well, I've got something he'll never have." Vonnegut can't believe this and asks what that thing might be. Heller says:
"Enough."
(BTW: Vonnegut subsequently celebrated this in a poem called 'Joe Heller.')
Pot; hue of kettle
Perhaps Adele should explore the use of offshore subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, just as the Guardian Media Group does to avoid paying corporation tax.
Well said Sir!
That would be the same Guardian that would probably otherwise have gone out of business without massive cross-subsidy from its stable-mate Auto Trader? The level of influence it so clearly still has, despite its paltry circulation figures, is truly remarkable.
Goat??
Not pertitent to the main discussion but (re the OP) - why might a Goat be required here? Useful animals yes but I don't see how they fit in here. Perhaps I have missed something?
Also, why the need for "Warning - contains opinions"? Are we objecting to points of view now?
Goat
The Massive has a pet goat, named Kid A, that is led out on the occasion of a heated discussion, to symbolise the getting of one's goat.
Drakeygirl often photoshops the goat with amusing results.
Everything is Illuminated!
thanks Sparto
Watch out,watch out the Goat is about.
Bleat! Tax! Bleat! Poor old rich little me! Bleat!
Exile
Wonder what 'Exile on Main Street' would've been like if the Stones had bunked off to the Isle of Man rather than the South of France for tax purposes.
As the Isle Of Wight
is still stuck in 1972 it might have meant many more albums with Mick Taylor. So a good thing.
Keep schtum or be loud & proud
The only way a pop star is able to talk about money is to tell people what they already suspect, ie 'I am minted and very happy for it'.
Noel Gallagher is very good at doing this, as was Robbie Williams after his £80m signature: "I am rich beyond my wildest dreams."
I also recall seeing Phil Collins at a press conference when Genesis reformed to tour in 2008(ish) when asked by a sneering journo whether it was 'just for the money'. Phil said something like "Let me tell you, we don't need the money" and it was refreshingly candid and shut the snipers up.
She doesn't view herself as right wing
In the following paragraph of the original article, unreferred to by most of the churnalists discussing the issue, we find the below quote:
Instinctively Labour, but troubled by prior-held convictions being challenged in early adulthood as ambitions and circumstances change? I'm sure there's a few of us who can sympathise with that.
Or, more simply..
Day One : "Wow, I've got a cheque for eight million pounds."
Day Two : "Bloody hell , I've got a bill for four million pounds".
It might turn anyone's head a little bit.
Well
put
Day Three onwards
I've got £4million left. And my latest CD has been at number one for about six months. And I don't get paid for that for another couple of years. What the f@@k am I moaning about?
That's really my point.
As long as the person makes a statement that 'I'm a Labour supporter', all is fine, regardless of their actual lifestyle choices. Bit like Brett Anderson's 'I'm a homosexual who's never had a homosexual experience'.
Much as (to pluck one out of literally thousands of examples) David Mitchell can be wholly on-message about the absolute certainty of dangerous man-made climate change while filling the supermarket shelves with spectacularly inessential Peep Show DVDs, That Mitchell & Webb books and advertising a tacky range of male grooming products. Hey, let's all do our bit, eh Dave? Or, why not just accept that you've chosen to swim in the world of pop-culture ephemera and that therefore ruminating on our supposed certain doom due to our sinful ways is perhaps rather annoying?
You don't like comedians much, do you DougieJ?
Perceptive of you ;-)
Many of them do seem to, ahem, get my goat...
Brett Anderson's quote...
...was actually: "I'm a bisexual man who's never had a homosexual experience", which is a different thing entirely.
Bottle half empty
A savvier pop star might have put it differently:
"I'm suddenly earning so much money, absolute rolling-in-shitloads amounts of the luvverley stuff, that I'm in the top tax bracket apparently. So every time a cheque for two million comes in, I get a million pounds as pocket money and my music creates another million pounds for the government to buy loads and loads of thermonuclear warh... er dialysis machines for all the people with... dialytitis, which is a really terrible thing and shouldn't be allowed in this day and age. Isn't pop music brilliant?"
Who cares?
She's not your mate, your mother or your MP. She's just a musician, you don't have to like or even admire her as a person.
No no no you're wrong
Dougie has identified that because a thick singer - albeit one with good pipes - has got grumpy about tax never having had to give it any thought before, all us useless lefties are weak minded hypocrites ;-)
you said it!
;-)
Ooh you are awful
But I like you
OK. Sorry I'm late.
I don't mind I'll find
Someone like ewe.
No
kidding!
I don't care how many arguments appear on this board.
Just so long as Kid A appears in an appropriately depicted context towards the end of the conversation, I would argue it's all been worth it.
And no doubt the same thing will happen again
when she gets the cheque for the 21 album.
And finds she's only left with £4,000,000.
To put in the bank next to the last £4,000,000.
Which she's barely made a dent in.
Poor little girl. It's so unfair.
Sorry... Hang on...
Have I got this right?
She made an album called '19' & a follow up called '21'?
I think everyone should ask for their money back.
P G Wodehouse
Every little bit added to what you've already got makes just that little bit more ...
You can never be too rich & c
Just imagine
If, together with her views on tax, she also supported Celtic and went to a Catholic School too!!! No way back then I suppose!
£8,000,000 (gross)?
For that run-of-the-mill first album (the only song of which anyone knows/likes was a cover)? Alison Moyet must be livid....
Huge in the US though
Rolling Stone and Bob Lefsetz - normally a beacon of reasonableness - are wetting themselves over her.
Alison Moyet
She's nothing like Alison Moyet. Not musically, not vocally...etc Yet people keep mentioning her. I think I know why, and it's pretty sad.
Not what you think....
Moyet's just a better singer in my opinion and was doing pretty similar (styles of) material 25+ years ago. 'Rolling In The Deep' is a great record, though.
Not 'alf
/coat
I always assumed...
... that most rock stars vote Tory apart from the ones who vociferously deny it.
And those who vociferously deny it probably do as well :-)
Honestly
... you wait ages for a thread about Adele's taxes and then two come along at once...
Guilty as charged m'lud...
I would also ask for other offences to be taken into consideration, particularly the gift that keeps on giving of the inherent hilarity of me having started a thread discussing Gerry Rafferty following his death when, get this, someone else had already posted about it!
Waits....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
'Have I missed some news about Gerry Rafferty?'
Aching sides - repeat to fade.
Yes
apparently he hasn't filled out his tax return yet. No idea why
I don't mind people moaning about tax...
... as long as they pay it. Heck, *I* moan about tax, and I'm a passionate supporter of 'big Government', the public sector, nationalised this, that and the other etc.