I always remember a conversation I had a few years ago on a train between Cambridge and London.
I was writing about tax and the man sitting next to me noticed this and said he was a tax accountant, and asked what I did. For ease, I said I was also a tax accountant.
Within seconds he was telling me about the ‘wonderful' tax wheezes he had done, setting up trusts for his children and making sure he never paid inheritance tax.
I asked him how he felt about those who might face old age without the advantage he appeared to have of a considerable financial cushion? His suggestion was that this was their fault, and no concern of his. He added that nor should it be the concern of the taxpayer. If someone did not provide for themselves, he said, they should not (revealing his narrow understanding of how state spending is really funded) look to him to make up for their personal failing.
So I asked whether those in need but without funding should they, for example, be denied state-supported access to a care home?
He was adamant that they should be. It was, he said everyone's duty to provide for their old age. If they did not, and their family could not help, then that was their own lookout, he opined, all in a voice loud enough for the whole carriage to hear.
Then I asked, what should happen to those denied care for this reason? Should they, perhaps, be left to die on the streets?
He suggested that this should, indeed, be their fate as they would have chosen it, and it was none of his concern in any case what might happen to them.
I will be honest, my next comment was direct, pointed and personal and I did not care who heard it. The opinion he had offered did in my opinion justify the rebuke I provided, after which he moved seat.
I rather hoped I would never hear comment of that sort again. An opinion so hideous was, I hoped, so rare that I would not need to do so.
But now we face a situation where millions, and not just those who are old, face poverty, cold houses, hunger and destitution. This is not necessary, just as it will not be necessary that people die as a result. But the likelihood is that they will, and the problem is now so widespread that using the model I have built of likely fuel poverty I estimate that if Citi's forecast of fuel bills approaching £6,000 a year from mid-2023 is to happen then 90% or more households in the UK will be in fuel poverty next year. Those on lower incomes will be paying more than a third of their after-tax incomes on energy, which is, of course, impossible given the other costs that they have.
In other words, the scenario that the tax accountant on the Cambridge train was happy to live with - where indifference might lead to the deaths of those who through no fault of their own might be unable to pay their bills - will have been created by the political party and the political creed to which he no doubt subscribed.
Indifference to the suffering of others is the attitude of the modern Tory. But it is not that of society as a whole. The two are now in fundamental conflict. The fight will be for survival, and not just in political terms. The fight will be for physical survival so bad will things be.
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There is indifference for sure, but I find the anti-tax element even more telling – it’s a sort of anarchic thinking – an unwillingness to play by the established rules – that marks our modern Tories to me right up to the behaviour Boris Johnson.
Rule breaking not taking.
The problem is that this attitude to tax is very widespread – some will cloak it in a veneer of legitimacy and call it being ‘tax efficient’. I know Left wingers who whinge about tax because apparently it is OK to be anti-tax.
After all, it’s what Britain’s only real post war sovereign – Margaret Hilda Thatcher – taught us isn’t it?
It’s OUR money – not the Governments supposedly.
The more I hear this, the more Thatcher sounds like the creature Gollum from another well known fantasy story. Because Tory economic thinking is nothing but that – a fantasy.
It seems to me that there is a serious issue that needs to be addressed by those responsible for training and accreditation of people like economists and accountants about the attitudes of some in these professions.
They bring the professions into disrepute by their lack of empathy and understanding, and of course it makes them completely unable to do the job properly as we have seen recently
I agree with what you’ve said. But I think it’s now worse than this. Anything decent, anything compassionate is now labelled ‘woke’ and denigrated. That’s how deeply rotten the far right tories are now. Thatcher brought us greed, selfishness and ‘there is no society’ now we have Mogg’s father’s sovreign individual and that as you rightly point out is taking us to a very dark place. They need to be very careful or risk scandalous levels of suicide and rocketing crime. I would steal if I couldn’t feed my children as would many others.
Thats the thing Sally, many those things have happened already.
Suicide has rocketed, but now it’s not reported, crime has also rocketed, but now it’s not reported. When I say not reported, it’s been through the ‘wash and spin cycle’ to sift out the worst or simply ignored.
What Richard describes are not ‘far right Tories’, this is everyday language. This conversation took place in public on a train which others overheard. Once upon a time those views would be kept for behind closed doors, now those opinions are so mainstream they can be aired freely.
Remember, the fundamental belief in Conservatism is that everyone of a different political leaning is jealous. Jealous of their good fortune , up bringing, influence and wealth. They believe that everyone aspires to be a Tory.
Tories for decades have talked openly about this, it’s nothing new
Another fundamental issue, the government do not need to be careful, the country can truly go to the depths of misery and despair and you cannot change them, they have a fixed term. Add in a compliant media, a pandemic and a ‘war in Ukraine’ to blame absolutely everything on and they are literally safe as houses.
For example, at the start of the COVID pandemic, Boris Johnson, in front of the countries business leaders, called the plans ‘Operation Last Gasp’ and that if thousands of OAP’s died then the so be it. His government policies and inaction placed billions into the hands of Tory donors for fictitious PPE and somewhere in the region of 200,000 people died painful and horrible deaths.
Did he get away with this appalling behaviour ? Yes
Christ how depressing. And if you challenge it you’re shrugged off as ‘woke’. I feel ashamed of this country.
He’s got away with it so far, but he won’t if The Good Law Project and The People’s Covid Inquiry get their way.
Apparently the people wanting lockdown are to blame for what’s happening now, according to an article in The Guardian. In the i a doctor at the Royal London Hospital mentioned the number of people in hospital over the weekend because they had attempted suicide. ‘ I jumped because I can’t afford to eat.’
Apparently people with type 2 diabetes should be checked for depression now. That’s chicken and egg, isn’t it? I imagine it’s more than people with type 2 diabetes that suffer from depression. The most common emerging ailment linked to the condition? Emerging since when?
I spent this morning shouting at the Radio listening to the pure crap being spoken on R4 this morning and now I find that Aditya basically saying the same thing as me.
Thank Goodness, as afterwards I thought I was going insane.
The BBC – I just don’t know what to say?
I’d finish them tomorrow I really would if it were up to me.
‘Public service broadcasting’?
Public lying!
Public misinformation!
Public bias!
All we got were excuses from these morons to bring in other harsher measures.
Disgraceful.
Utterly disgraceful.
If there is one thing I’ll stop paying for first it’s my TV license I promise you and I’d recommend you all do the same!
Not paid my TV licence fee now since Sep 2019. Indeed I am proud to reside at what the TV Licensing Enforcement Division has been reminding me monthly for three years is known as an ‘unregistered’ address. True, the aerial had blown down anyway, but I had become so completely sick of the Tory bias of BBC News and Current Affairs that I decided it just wasn’t worth the repair.
Before that I had long since given up on the R4 Today programme the political bias of which, judging from the gripes of those who still subject themselves to it, has still barely moved on from the days of Jack de Manio.
Let’s face it, the fundamental problem with BBC news is summed up in the announcement: “And now let’s take a look at today’s papers.”
Letting the papers set the BBC agenda is a major issue
The problem is the Tories think the BBC is too left-wing although followers of this blog know otherwise as the BBC are intimidated by the threat of their license and funding being reduced when any sort of criticism of government policy is aired. The Tories do not like an advertisement free and service that tries to be impartial following the original Reithian charter. The Tories would like people to refuse to pay the licence because that would add to their campaign of trying to make out how bad the BBC is. Despite all its faults (such as exorbitant salaries paid to top executives etc), I think the BBC should be preserved at all costs and that Channel 4 too should be preserved in its present form and not privatised. The reimposition of the TV licence for the over 75s is completely unjustified and should be reversed.
I agree
There is only so much you can put up with from a broadcaster, particularly when you can see no prospect of any improvement in their behaviour. I cancelled my licence two years ago over the disgraceful behaviour of BBC Scotland during the pandemic where they appeared to be doing everything they could, in the style of a tabloid, to undermine the Scottish Government’s public health measures, including the announcement that they were ending the First Minister’s daily Covid briefing to the country. That was a blatant tinpot political move against a government measure which many valued as informed and dependable information in very uncertain times and an essential motivating factor in maintaining cohesion and direction. BBC Scotland contributes nothing constructive to Scottish public life.
Ever since one interviewer has been allowed to interview one person with one particular view, the Reithian principal has been under mined. These have been used cunningly to get over one sort of view without being challenged.
I’d rather see the BBC privatised but in a properly regulated market which we have not got now. A market where advertising was restrained and with a remit of balance could work. Regulators being well staffed.
I’d be happy to part fund all broadcasters that way too – but balance would have to be enforced and part of the deal.
Isn’t it one Truss who plans (planned) to put the cost of the tv licence onto the council tax bill? Forcing those of us too disgusted with bbc bias to even have a tv to pay for it anyway?
Have a listen to the Jeremy Vine show aired on 28/07.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001997q
See what you think about his exchange at about 17 mins.
Vine is a Tory, as I always know when in his studio
I agree with your your main article. I am a teacher and tell my kids in class every year that while I don’t like paying taxes, they go to help all those less fortunate than me who may be renting a house like me or are the homeless living rough all around me. Taxes pay for healthcare and my sister-in-law who is a nurse and mum who died in a nursing home, the military, lawyers for those who don’t have any chance of justice without help, the unemployment and social security when I needed it, an inadequate state pension that I have paid into over the years and the building industry pension that will be worthless that I also paid into. I don’t like taxes, but they do so much for others less fortunate than me – see the article Richard Murphy wrote for the Observer posted today.
Which article?
Sorry the wrong newspaper – it should have been The Independent newspaper article.
Ah….I did not thin k I had written foe the Guardian
Article was in the Independent.
But Richard seems to have forgotten about low earners getting Council Child and Housing benefits that would help with some of their expenses although in general I would agree with him.
No I haven’t….that’s in the data
Richard,
You say modern Tory but history shows that these attitudes of indifference to the fate of others, and indeed profiteering from it, goes back to at least the Eizabethan era.
The oxford revolt of the late sixteenth century when a few bad winters caused food shortages and merchants bought up the stock is instructive . As is the fate of one of its leaders who decided enough was enough.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Steer
I agree with Bill Hughes and Richard about the BBC, and I propose a version of the peoples Covid enquiry to work out a new basis for it. Like Oxford university it is full of faults but too strong and valuable not to reform and re-establish with a sound constitution.
Do contributors agree, and if so who might be approached to lead the enquiry?
Bit late commenting on this but, for what its worth, my view is that is that this type of thinking is (a) very common (b) the product of a pervasive form of social Darwinism that persists in our culture (c) goes largely unchallenged
(A) I worked in the private sector all my like, to those who thrive in it (i.e. get on) this is standard fare, anyone can get on if they just try hard. I have had many similar conversations. I one analysed some success stories of promising young managers printed in Management Today. Without exception that all had one, sometimes more, of the following; private school, financial help from a relative or friend, access also from family or friends. Those that hadn’t gone to private school had gone to the remaining grammar schools. All the write ups emphasised, hard work, dedication and following (oh how hate this) your passion.
I had a run in with an ex colleague over the ability to buy cheap ingredients and cook for next to nothing – according to him its just ignorance, or laziness if you cannot manage.
(B) Why should this be so common? It’s a simple thing, if the people who get to the top are the survivors of the fittest then, by definition, those who don’t fail because of their own failings. I’m aware that Herbert Spencer is c19 and discredited but the idea lives on and is both seductive, perversion and useful. Its part and parcel of TINA. Keith Joseph one opined that social mobility had had its day, those who could had risen the ones left wouldn’t (just part of the dismantling of the post war settlement) – I read this in a speech he made but have been unable to track down a reference. In its modern form it mostly effects economists who imagine their field is a science rather than a tool to justify exploitation – that how we get people nodding sagely at the idea of “move fast and break things” and the oxymoronic “creative destruction”.
(C) As to the challenge, no current mainstream politician is anything other than a technocrat tinkering with the system. The Labour Party gave up the Crown Jewels when it abandoned clause 4. Not because of anything it would do in a 5 year term – progress requires baby steps – but because of the symbolism. It represented an alternative way of looking at the world, a different “weltanschaunng”, different starting g assumptions and all that follows from it – which is a lot and we are still seeing the long term consequences. When politicians now talk about framing and Overton windows they rather miss the point if we have totally given up on the simple truth that there is no wealth except through the labour of man (as written by PBS) meaning people. There is no moral compass, and sadly compassion and outrage don’t win elections. My point is on air, in debate, doggedly and without apology we need politicians who will spell out the issue from first principles. Like you did in the train. FDR had a good slogan relief, recovery and reform, our current leaders don’t get past relief, and Labour is easily contested on that ground.
Sadly I think we have regressed so far in terms of public understanding we are effectively having to start these arguments from scratch. Unless we know what the target of reform is before we get into power the day to day contingencies of “events, dear boy” (MacMillan) stop anything else; political capital is soon spent. The relief provided by New Labour has been easily be removed because the actual case for it – the different way of looking at the world – was never made. The thing that kept it alive (however faintly but symbolically) has been wren out of the constitution. No surprise RMT and others are not affiliated why waste your money, enough is enough.
Sorry, bit of a rant, but it makes me so cross, I am 69, I went to a Secondary Modern, I got a leg up provided by the state, why has my generation kicked away the ladder?
Thank you
Your comments are appreciated