Apr 2009 28

My name is Michael Caine, and I talk a lot of sense8

In an excellent column by Iain Martin in today's Telegraph, Sir Michael Caine is quoted denouncing the new 50% top rate of tax. Sir Michael goes on to say that he, undoubtedly like so many other wealthy and successful Britons, will be leaving the country if the tax burden continues to increase.

I have written, both last week on our website and for Guardian Comment is Free, on how this tax rate signals the death of British ambition. Without wanting to go over old ground too much, it will punish success and exemplifies a seriously retrograde step for a Government that, whatever flaws it had, was strict about not soaking the rich to the extent Labour governments have in the past.

Sir Michael also makes an excellent point in terms of the Government's skewed priorities. In the last ten years, we have seen social mobility decrease, and the welfare state is struggling under the strain of too many people who have a sense of entitlement. These people are either unwilling or unable to work, have become a drain on the taxpayer, and yet still the Government would rather put up taxes than deal with the looming spectre of our benefits crisis. The charming old fox put it much better than I ever could: "We've got 3.5 million layabouts on benefits, and I'm 76, getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them. Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it up."

Hear, hear.

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  • Hardeep Singh

    I always did like Michael Caine, is he a ‘Sir’ yet…? If not I doubt the government will be very warmed by his recent comments to award him one :)
    Nevertheless he conveys a very good point and highlights our nation’s social-economic snapshot very well. If those same words had been uttered by an opposition MP there would be all manner of accusations being hurled but from a national figurehead like Michael Caine it’s a bit more difficult for the government to rubbish his claims. It will no doubt be responded to with an uneasy smile and the usual “well he’s entitled to his views though it differs from our priority to help hard working families” <– there’s that phrase again!

  • gb

    “The death of ambition”? Having to pay 50% tax? If your ambition is to be wealthy in the midst of squalor perhaps.

  • Brian Smith

    It’s not 50%; it’s 61.5% due to the removal of the NI cap.
    This is totalitarian stuff; expropriation or, simply, theft.
    No civilised country – where a democratically elected government respects the obligation on them not to abuse their majority and to govern equitably in the interests of all sections of society – would tolerate this.
    These rates are tyranical.
    Using expropriation to fund bread and circuses is a very short term policy.

  • Tony Stewart

    All public services are under pressure from the massive influx of Eastern European economic migrants. My wife is a Senior Midwife, and doesn’t get paid as much as the interpreters she has to book for her consultations under Government “Best Practise”. We are not entitled to free use of interpreters abroad, aren’t we part of the same EU? Or are we just too PC NOT to provide this lop-sideed arrangement? And don’t get me started on sending child benefit back home!

  • James Duchan

    I left my civil service non job to join the private sector and have recently been made redundant. It is unfair that millionaire Caine tars me with the same brush. I would love to work but the wages on offer will barely cover my grocery bills, transport and energy costs and then I have rent money to find. Quite simply i’d rather be poor and out of work than poor and in work. Sorry but thats just me.

  • Emma

    My God, you TaxPayers’ Alliance people are all idiots. If I have to see you one more time on BBC news I will scream

  • http://www.buyvigrx.us patrick

    OMFG. it is terrible.

  • Steve Robson

    It seems that the last poster has really worked out the problem that most of you right wingers suffer from – and that truly underpins your bitterness, negativity and zenophobia.