The moral high ground is a blood-soaked place, overrun by skirmish-hungry politicians and commentators hell bent on positioning themselves at the heart of the public good, or more commonly, public outrage. Moralising seems to have expanded to encompass almost every aspect of our lives including, it appears, that most dispassionate of subjects, tax law.
And so, it comes to Jimmy Carr, unwilling poster boy for avoidance schemes more commonly associated with the upper echelons of business fat cattery.
I must admit to more than a pang of disappointment in Jimmy, not for his avoidance behaviour but for the slightly sycophantic whining nature of his capitulation and apology. Jimmy's tax affairs, within the law as they are, are not accountable to the public and even less to the Prime Minister whose family fortune is built upon a creative relationship with legal tax obligations.
But more than this, Jimmy clouds the issue.
A friend of mine once told me a story of a man who stumbled onto the London comedy circuit, armed only with jokes, controversial in the post Connolly age of aggressive comedy. The man was not well received, battered by audiences in clubs with only a handful of confused tourists hooked off the Leicester Square in attendance. In gigs like these, five or more comedians share 'the door' and can expect to make as little as £15 for a night's work.
My friend was also a comedian who worked within this unforgiving world for many years until necessity drove him back to the government sanctioned, hard working, nine till five 'real world'. The man in my story had a different ending. He worked on his material over a period of ten years or more, broke the invisible barrier into television and became a comedy superstar, selling out arenas and raking in massive reward for his years of effort.
How did he succeed?
Talent for sure. A prolonged flirtation with the controversial perhaps? Hard work? Definitely. Comedy is a brutal and unforgiving mistress that tends to take of its suitors years at the bottom and allow only a chosen few the light of exposure and rewards of success. But whilst my friend did his years, honing his skill in that half-life of an existence suffered by those with the audacity to be broke in London, Carr was able to take ten years at this same comedy university, supported by the multi-millions of his now estranged accountant father.
Behind this case is the same equation that David Cameron fears so much.
Privilege opens doors. Privilege begets success...
Privilege gives you an advantage over those without it.
Nobody can stump on this argument. My granny, proud in her council house in Edinburgh's rough Craigmillar was always the first to say that 'there is always someone less fortunate than you', often when threatening to mail my vegetables to Africa if I didn't eat them.
Cameron has made a mistake in highlighting Carr as it is the accountants of the elite who are able to work the magic of the one percent tax bill. Carr's hypocrisy may rankle but Cameron's must ring louder and greater for one reason.
Jimmy Carr for all his talents has no power to reshape tax policy in this country. That power lies with another privileged Oxbridge graduate with a wealthy father, and unless David Cameron acts, he will see his tenuous grip on the moral high ground slip in a way that cannot be reclaimed.
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