Surely there has to be so fairness, some reasonableness, some equality in how different people are rewarded, even in a market society?

Isn't the point that the differences in how people are rewarded for their work is outrageously unfair and unjust?

Who decides what people are worth? Is Caine really worth more than a nurse or a bus driver, or a miner?

Some would argue that the "market" should be allowed to decide, but what is the "market" really? The market, as my grandfather used to say, is what we say it is, and he meant what his class decided was "fair" because, after all, they owned and controlled the marketplace, which was anything but free.

In the United States 25 hedgefund managers have pocketed over 30 billion dollars. That's more than 500 teachers get for teaching 14 million American kids. Now, what exactly is the rational argument that this collosal difference is justified? Are we really supposed to accept that these twenty five men contribute more to society than 500,000 teachers? That they are literally worth more?

If this is true, what kind of perverse, corrupt and degenerate society have we allowed to be created?

This campaign is so depressing already, yet not for the reason I thought it would be. Both sides set out some policy material and the media subject them to banal questions, commentary on their shoes, whether someone is wearing a tie or not etc, without mentioning the policy at all.

Any comments on the policy, James?

Sir Michael Caine is, as am I, a member of what used to be known as the upwardly-mobile working class, the real target of Labour's class warfare. Such folk are considered class traitors by wealthy socialists because they refused to accept their designated station as bottom feeders and used their talents to improve themselves and their families life-chances. Sir Michael famously offered a job to a workless individual, who told him that it was wrong that one person should have so much. Thats the sort of working class you and your fellow exponents of misery approve of - people who would rather throw stones at Rollers than work for one and buy it. All your piece does is confirm the poverty of Labour by appealing to the politics of envy, rather applauding the efforts of one man's success in life. I would add that you should be ashamed, except that moral and ethical bases are not a demonstrable Labour core value.

atropos:
What you and right wing people like you love to call "the politics of Envy", is what I call the politics of "Justice and Common Decency".
The existence of billionnaires in our Western societies is an obscenity and contributes to the making of that "broken society" Cameron is so keen to talk about.
The happiest societies are those where the gap between the rich and the poor is equitable, the difference being due to merit, not to privilege or to the insane rewards some people get for just being a celebrity with or without talent.
I assume your "politics of envy" argument also applies to the Bankers's obscene bonuses. I don't suppose you mind those either.
Tell me how do you justify such excess? such unfairness?
When Labour went wrong, was to allow this gap between rich and poor to widen.The Conservatives will carry on widening it even further and Cameron will cause society to disintegrate further still.

beak:
Never said that. Read my post again.But we probably have different criteria for success.
For me success must be on merit, success must mean you are fulfilling a useful role in society, in medicine, the Arts, anything of real value.If you are good at what you do and you work extra hard, of course you should be rewarded and have a comfortable life.
What you mean by successful, I suspect, is anyone who has managed to con his/her way into making millions any which way, and that probably includes the crooks who pass for bankers who have ruined and corrupted this country.
Also NO ONE needs or deserves billions of pounds while others struggle to keep a roof over their heads through no fault of their own.

Rises again

Michael Caine must be in need of a new accountant, because if he is really worried about having to pay the new tax rate, or anywhere near that level, on his income; then there's something seriously amiss with the advice he's been given.

If one receives payment for work done abroad, like acting, the income never enters the UK, like my royalties don't from foreign sales. The money isn't even in Europe. It doesn't exist for UK tax purposes. There are myriad ways of getting around paying full UK taxes on ones income if it's earned abroad, so how Caine is unaware of this is extraordinary.

Oviously he's playing a role here, and not very well. Gosh, has anyone been in as many awful films as Michael Caine? But that's another story. Luck, as much as talent, if not more than talent, plays an enormous role in ones success as an actor.

I should be a Tory, I'm very well qualified, through family, education, wealth; but because we've had it all for so long, "it" has lost it's attraction for me. There is soemthing about the newly rich, like Thatcher and Caine, that simply cannot stand, maybe it's their obvious lack of "class", in the American sense of the term.

Michael Caine is okay...as an actor. He might be terrible with accents (The Cider House Rules effort has to be heard to be believed).

The fact that the Government has brought in a 50p tax rate is long overdue. For the longest time the wealthiest in our Country have not being paying their fair share.

The fact that after 13 years of a "Labour" Government we are still the second most unequal major developed nation is a disgrace.

Now that he has spoken for the Tory Party, maybe Lord Cashcroft could get him a spot in Belize for the money he has made from all those duff movies...

I, like the correspondent Atropos am a member of what used to be known as the working class and his analysis is entirely correct. The Fabian model of top down paternalistic governance is becoming increasingly unpopular and difficult to sustain; if only for the reason that the internet dismantles hierarchies and encourages transparency; everybody knows what everybody else is thinking. Certainly in the future, it is the unions which are going to be the major player in the debate; they after all have all the money.

This debate is not likely to be resolved in the short term for the simple reason that the unions themselves will undergo an evolutionary change due to changes in technology. These sorts of ideas are highly unpopular in some quarters, but speaking as an engineer I know this to be true; technology is a global matrix and its influence cannot be resisted, but it can be used. This has to be faced, like it or not, it is no use wishing that the future did not exist; this is Realpolitik, not What I Would Like in my Stocking for Christmas. The billions wasted on state IT projects is a failure of governance not of technology.

Unions will eventually face the fact that their representation in the public services is likely to be reduced in the medium and long term due to advances in computing, probability modelling, quantum computing, materials, nanotechnology, biotechnology and cognitive science; the world will change in ways we cannot hope to predict. But I believe that unionism will rise to the challenge and become the overriding ethos of left wing politics and also become more representative in the private sector, providing services that people value and need.

It doesn't matter if all the 3.5 million got up even before Michael Caine because it wouldn't make one iota of difference. If you look at the UK's real unemployment figure there is still about one vacancy for every 20 plus unemployed. No one in their right mind should believe the monthly unemployment figure as it is based on a political definition of unemployment not an actuarial one.

All this chatter and obsessing about income tax is... so trivial, compared to the larger picture of who pays most tax, when ALL taxes are taken into consideration.

And the answer is blatantly clear and painfully obvious unless one is lobotomized by ones ideological/sectatian predjudices.

The poor pay the most tax and the rich the least, as a proportion of their vastly different incomes. The UK tax system isn't progressive. It is regressive. Look at indirect taxes, for example, VAT. Surely no one can argue that this regressive tax favours the poor and hits the rich? What are you talking about?

I, and others like me, pay far less tax as proportion of our earnings, than poor people do. One of the reasons so many new types of indirect taxes were introduced was specifically to hide the true level of taxation and direct the total burden towards the poor, and redistribute income upwards, Robin Hood in reverse.

Those who don't understand this basic principle simply haven't been paying attention, or, as I said, are lobotomized.