Another voice

Exodus

Auberon Waugh

Genuine moral indignation is a rare and beautiful sight. How else can one describe the reaction of the Matthews Press, as Beaverbrook must surely be called now it has joined the Fingers Portfolio, to the 'news' that a re-elected Labour government will introduce a wealth tax in its first parliamentary session? Listen to the Daily Express: 'Wealth, whatever the socialists say, does not exist in nature. It has to be created by the human mind. Even if it was inherited, it still has to be created by somebody. A wealth tax, then, will be a tax on what mind and effort can create.

'Can that be right morally?'

Well, I don't know. If it isn't morally acceptable, it seems to rule out nearly all forms of taxation — income tax, VAT, capital gains and transfer taxes, company taxes and every other means of raising revenue, except possibly dog licences. Is it reasonable to expect the nation's doggies to bear the whole burden? I will have to ask Father O'Bubblegum about that one: 'If you attack the rich. . . you destroy the incentive to invest and thereby do the ordinary man out of a job.

'A wealth tax, then, will not only be thoroughly immoral in principle, it will, in practice, injure the poor . . .'

Is it terror of doing the ordinary man (especially if he's poor) out of a job which explains this fine moral rage against the wealth tax? In the quiet hours of the night, as I lie contemplating the nation's problems, I feel that it must indeed be a pretty hellish thing to be an ordinary man; to be done out of a job on top would plainly be the last straw. It might make any of us feel strongly against his so-called wealth tax. A better name for it would surely be the Ordinary Man (Job Deprivation) Immoral Measure.

The Shadow Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, attacked the tax as 'gravely damaging in its effects on family businesses, on investments, on employment, on savings and on the national heritage'. The Association of British Chambers of Commerce is worried that the tax will inhibit the creation of new jobs, while my beloved Daily Mail is worried about its effect on small firms. 'Major sufferers will be the small firms,' it says.

Oh dear. I'm not a small firm myself, but I can see it wouldn't be much fun, especially if one is to be a major sufferer. So it seems that the proposed measure is thoroughly immoral and undesirable from ' the following points of view: The ordinary man ' The poor The national heritage I Small firms The wealth creators New jobs Miraculously, the list doesn't seem to include me. I don't like to think of myself as an ordinary man, I'm certainly not poor nor can I honestly describe myself as a wealth creator; I am not a small firm, not looking for a new job and I think it would be asking for ribald comments if! tried passing myself off as part of the national heritage, like Westminster Abbey or the Beaufort Hunt. In fact, if I wriggle a bit, divorce my dear wife and burn a few pictures, I might escape the tax altogether. It almost makes one begin to wonder whether there might not be something to be said for the tax, after all.

I think there is, and the first point in its favour is the moral indignation it generates. From the point of view of destroying the capitalist system, events have already made it unnecessary. The conditions for capitalism no longer exist in Britain. Rates of inflation, equity growth, personal income tax on investment income, capital gains and transfer taxes ensure that it is no longerpossible to derive any benefit from saving money.

Since the capitalist system entirely depends on people's readiness to save rather than spend their savings it must only be a matter of time before the system collapses. We are now enjoying what Enoch has identified as the time-lag between a historical development and general awareness of it. The process is stretched while the nation, individually and collectively, spends its savings, and prolonged still further by a few fools who continue to invest, by corporate investors — insurance companies and pension funds —who have no choice, and by government intervention, but it is nevertheless inexorable. Britain no longer provides a sound base for capital investment, so there can be no question of the capitalist system surviving without some violent change in our political and social institutions.

And that, of course, is what I am writing about. The socialists are too stupid, too impatient and too mean to wait for everything to fall into their laps. They have to force the pace. In point of fact, as the latest volume of ',lie Central Statistical Office's Social Trends shows, nearly everything has already fallen into their laps. By far the largest part of the wealth of the country is in housing (43 per cent) followed by life policies (15 per cent) and building society deposits (7.5 per cent). Ordinary shares come a very poor fourth at 5.4 per cent. Total income from rent, dividends and net interest has so fallen in the last ten years (while social security benefits have so risen) that social security benefits have now overtaken it as a proportion of total income, the figures being 9.5 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. So much for the capitalist system.

But by aiming a last, vicious kick at that disappearing nine per cent of total personal income which still derives from rent, dividends and net interest, the socialists achieve two things. They create a small area of highly articulate, highly motivated resentment, and they spread a general awareness of what is happening in the country. The greatest danger, it has always seemed to me, is that nobody notices what is happening as we slowly, imperceptibly slide into moral, material and intellectual mediocrity: Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires And, unawares, Morality expires Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine Nor human spark is left nor glimpse divine.

My own realisation came during the Christmas festivities. We saw the Shadow Chancellor trying to sing what he thought was an amusing parody of 'Twelve Days of Christmas' on Television News. He sang badly and the jokes were feeble. Next we saw the real Chancellor of the Exchequer appearing with Cyril Smith and Norman Stevas on a BBC Nationwide pantomime called 'The Wizard of Oz'. Here, the jokes were not so much feeble as non-existent, the production was shoddier than any village pantomime of my youth, and for the first time I really began to feel sad about my country.

But once our eyes are opened, the evidence is everywhere. In the absence of Peter Jay, Sir David Hunt has emerged as the BBC's Mastermind of Britain. He is the ugly, dim FCO functionary who, as High Commissioner in Lagos, advised the Wilson government of 1966-1970 on its policy for the Nigerian civil war which implicated our country in the genocide of two million Ibo civilians, mostly children. Now he goes on to a `Supermind' contest, meeting winners of the 'Forces' Chance' and 'Top of the Form' radio series. This is what has been left behind in the general exodus.

A photograph in the Daily Express last week drew attention to the legs of an actress appearing in a rubbishy film about fishes. 'There's nothing fishy about lovely Lea Brodie's legs', drooled the caption writer — how I sympathise with him, having myself once been a caption-writer for pin-up photographs in the Sunday Mirror. 'Should make a splash!' he concludes. But Lea Brodie's legs are no better than my own. All the best British legs, one must conclude, have gone to Las Vegas or Qatar or the British Embassy in Washington. Roll on the wealth tax, roll on the Glorious CounterRevolution!