Class Wars, Episode II - Attack of The Prawns

In 1997, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were involved in what came to be called the prawn cocktail offensive, during which they sought to win over a load of City fat cats.  It resulted not just in sucking up to Murdoch, but the revolting site of Digby Jones being invited into government as a business minister, though he has always been desperate to point out that he was never a member of any party. Today, by contrast, we have seen a different kind of offensive, as the Tories have been quick to get a number of these prawns to launch into a media attack on just how terrible a Labour Government would be.

Over the last few weeks we have seen Myleen Klass tell us that the Mansion Tax would be terrible for very rich people like her, because they cannot find anything better than a garage to live in for £3 million in London.  Angelina Jolie has promised us that she will not inflict herself on us, however, if a Mansion Tax is introduced, because it would mean paying a few thousand pounds a year in tax, out of the millions of pounds a year that she earns.  Similarly, Griff Rhys Jones has given a further incentive for its introduction, by promising to leave the country if the Mansion Tax is introduced.

Now we have, boss of Boots, Stefano Pessina, complaining that a Labour Government would be a catastrophe no less, though he didn't seem to have much idea of what policies exactly would be a disaster.  Given that he lives in Monaco, and pays taxes there, not here, no doubt for him the Mansion Tax would be a catastrophe, as for other non-doms, because it would mean that they could not escape paying at least some tax, to the UK, for any luxury properties they owned here.  As for more general economic policies, it is the growing likelihood of the Tories taking the UK out of Europe that he should have seen as a potential catastrophe.

Now we have had Tory Peer, Stuart Rose chirping up, what a surprise to complain about the danger of a Labour Government.  Its an indication of just how removed from the real world the Tories are that they think that having these rich buffoons and bureaucrats coming along to complain about how badly done to they are, because they have only had a 40% rise in their pay, whilst workers have seen theirs cut, will in any way do them any good in the minds of ordinary voters.

These are the same fat cats that got us into the financial mess the country is in.  Yes, we do need British businesses to do well, and to make profits that can be used for other purposes, but its not these capitalist bureaucrats that make that possible - its the workers in those companies that create the goods and services we buy, and its those workers that also create the profits.  Just look at the performance of the worker-owned and controlled businesses in Britain compared to the performance of the FTSE 100 companies run by those bureaucrats.  On average the worker-owned and controlled companies perform 10% better!  So, why do these bureaucrats insist that they must be paid mega millions for their below average services?

Labour should hope that the Tories keep putting up these fat cats, and tax dodgers, because it sets out starkly just who it is that the Tories and their Liberal allies represent.