I Guess Zoe Williams Didn’t Get The Message…

…you know, the one about ‘sneering at others’ being divisive and dangerous for society:

I don't normally care much about Burberry, the dynasty of beige, who bang on so much about heritage that they put me off not just their own umbrellas but also tomatoes and the Tower of London. Yet when they post a profits warning following flat year-on-year sales for the past 10 weeks, and a drop in sales for the past fortnight, and MoneyWeek magazine says, "we told you to get out of the luxury goods market" – then everything looks more interesting.

Ah, yes. It’s always good for the left to see someone fail to make a profit, isn’t it, Zoe? It must be why you keep writing for this rag.

In Italy, MoneyWeek reports, there has been a quadrupling of the ownership levies on high-performance cars. Meanwhile in the UK, Nick Clegg returned from summer touting a new wealth tax. If that fails to take root in public discourse it will most likely be because of Clegg's own unpopularity – the idea itself chimes with the majority view, exacerbated by the cut in higher rate tax, that the rich aren't just insulated from this austerity drive but are actively gaining from it.

It’s hard to tell whether, when Zoe refers to ‘the majority view’, she just means ‘at the ‘Guardian’ watercooler’. I think she probably does.

Point any of this out, however, and immediately Tory voices chant "the politics of envy"; Bernard Jenkin responded with this charge directly to Clegg's speech; Michael Fallon made the accusation against the whole country, garnishing it with the (ahem) rather inflammatory idea that we should be "saluting" rich people, rather than finding ways to tax them.

At this point, I’d normally point out that ‘rich people’ provide employment and enrichment opportunities for other people, and ‘poor people’ don’t. But then I remember the huge state apparatus that the ‘Guardian’ so favours, and all the fakecharities that abound, and I think better of it…

As for the Italians suffering the Lamborghini penalty, the focus on luxury motors was part of a wider clampdown on tax evasion that saw the government stop and search "supercar" drivers, with stunning results: eight million missing euros from a tax fraud near Venice; three million more from a man in Bergamo. This is just in the last two months. An amusing side-effect is that you can now pick up a secondhand Ferrari for the price of a new Polo, because these people would rather have a fire-sale of their status symbols than pay a proper amount of tax into their crashing economy.

Well, yes. I can understand that. I’d rather set fire to my money and property than see a single penny of it go to the government to squander on barmy projects, too…

Are they chief executives who earn 202 times more than the person at the bottom of their pay spine? The tolerance band of human ability simply isn't wide enough for any one person to be 202 times better than anyone else.

That’s so utterly absurd as to almost need no rebuttal, but does Zoe seriously think that the managing director of ‘Boots’ does the same job (and so should get the same remuneration) as Doris in the staff canteen or Tunde who comes round to hoover the carpet and empty bins after everyone’s gone home? I presume she herself isn’t on the same whack as Rusbridger?

Perhaps she thinks she should be…

Does their money come from the public purse, in contracts at which they fail but get paid anyway, because "that's how contracts work" (as Nick Buckles, the chief executive of G4S, told the home affairs select committee on Tuesday)? Does their wealth derive from banking?

So what? Are we allowed to tar everyone in banking with the same brush? I thought the ‘Guardian’ was agin’ that sort of thing.

People in the bracket of great wealth sometimes make the misapprehension that the world is envious because they envy one another; but actually envy is the last thing you'd feel towards someone whose fortune had contributed directly to your misfortune.

I’m unsure how anyone else’s ‘great wealth’ has somehow contributed to any misfortune I might suffer..? I mean, apart from my iPhone’s less-than-useful battery life, that is. Steve Jobs, that bastard...

Why does the 'Guardian' keep pushing a message of envy? Well, that's simple. Because it works.