A plutocrat problem

So the Chancellor of the Exchequer is dismissing scrutiny into his wife’s use of tax avoidance strategies as 'unpleasant smears'. These strategies are, of course, available only to very, very rich people. And they help them avoid paying taxes which could make no possible difference to their personal well-being: if you are managing to avoid paying £20m in tax then you are very, very wealthy whether or not you pay it. Indeed you are probably paying more money for the advice which helps you avoid paying this tax than almost everyone earns. On the other hand avoiding paying this tax does make the vast majority of people that little bit poorer: people who are already seriously financially stressed by things like energy and food prices – things you don't ever need to worry about of course. And being poorer is certainly going to make a difference to those people's well-being: not that you care about that, do you?

Here's the thing, Rishi: much as you might like to pretend otherwise, we are not offended by what your wife (with, almost certainly, your full knowledge, and perhaps on your advice, eh?) has done because she's a woman, or because she's not white. This is not an 'unpleasant smear': it is ordinary, decent human beings finding the behaviour of entitled kleptocratsplutocrats like you and your wife grossly offensive, particularly when these entitled kleptocratsplutocrats are either in government or very very close to people in government.

Perhaps, you know, it is not unreasonable to expect people in government and their close relations to pay their taxes, like the rest of us do? Or is this yet one more case where the rules somehow do not apply to people in government and their friends and relations? Yet one more step in the destruction of democracy and decency in the UK in which you are so gleefully participating and from which you and your friends and relations will, like your friendsenemies in Russia, make so much money?