JIMMY CARR: PUERILE MISANTHROPE AND LIAR

Some media outlets are reporting that the tediously unfunny Jimmy Carr was on the wrong end of a proper tongue lashing last night. Not so. Hosting his first edition of his tediously unfunny panel game show since being caught using a very grubby tax avoidance scheme, Carr was given a remarkably easy time of it by the panellists. They made jokes that failed to put him properly on the spot, allowing him to repeat his insincere non-apology and non-admission of guilt.

At one point, Carr was asked what he had been thinking when agreeing to take advantage of the K2 scheme. He indicated that he hadn't been thinking at all. So you're supposed to think that his agreeing to pay just on per cent tax on over three million quid is some sort of oversight. You're meant to believe that it's only with hindsight that he came to realise he had made what he's now calling an error of judgement. Palpable nonsense. While Carr's stand-up schtick (knob gags, soulless jokes about rape and disabilities) is not very intelligent stuff, he speaks articulately enough to suggest he is not a wholly unintelligent person. It also takes some degree of savvy to make millions of pounds out of a long stream of context-free jokes which cause some to bray with animal laughter but which make no connection with the real world or the people in it. So any suggestion that he did not know what he was getting into with the K2 ruse simply beggars belief. 

A truer version of events, surely, is something more like this:

Jimmy Carr knew full well that he would be paying one per cent tax on his earnings. He is clever enough to know that taxes, whether or not you pay them willingly, and whether or not the government of the day spends the money wisely and fairly, are used to build and maintain the vital infrastructure of a civilised and well-ordered country. Given that he once recorded a comedy sketch condemning the deplorable tax arrangements of Barclays Bank, we know that he trades on the idea that tax avoidance is wrong and that companies and individuals should pay their fare share. Assuming there was any sincerity in this, we have since seen that his knowing and deliberate personal tax avoidance suggests he harbours a sociopath's view of himself - as someone above and outside the expectations he would have of everybody else. So when Carr decided to pay almost no tax on the money he makes from telling jokes, he was, surely, saying a silent 'fuck you' to those of us stupid enough to pay our way via PAYE.

Those on the panel on last night's show, then, and those hecklers in the audience at his recent show in Stockport, could have taken a far tougher line:

"Jimmy, be honest. You thought you were above paying income tax and that the rest of us are fucking mugs for paying, right?"

"Jimmy, you know that schools, roads, hospitals, the police, the subsidised railways and just about everything else everyone depends on are paid for out of tax that everyone has to pay and you just thought 'fuck that, I'm not paying', didn't you?"

"Jimmy, you've only made a half-hearted apology 'cos you got caught, right? If you hadn't got caught, you'd still be happily and knowingly paying almost no tax, wouldn't you? You'd still be laughing privately about having got away with a good little wheeze, yeah? With mugging off every decent person in the country. Am I right, Jimmy?"

Oh, and Jimmy, if you or your lawyers read this. IT'S ONLY A JOKE. Anything's fair game for a joke, right?