ARCHIVE
THE RETURNS OF THE PRODIGAL
TAX EXILE
But the rehabilitation of celebrities was nothing compared to the rehabilitation of the country. It was Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who coaxed home many prodigal exiles, axing and bleeding and privatizing public services so that she could relieve taxation on the rich. If, as the Iron Lady famously declared, “there is no such thing as society,” then what need was there for public services? With the new order in place (and the postwar settlement in tatters), Michael Caine flew the red carpet back to Thatcher’s Britain. He would tell the Sunday Mirror (March 23, 2003) that he’d always lived here “except for the eight years I lived in LA, because the stupid government destroyed the movie industry in the UK. They called me a tax exile, but you don’t go to a country that has 50 percent tax if you’re a tax exile.” You do when you come from a country that nearly doubles that percentage, but that’s all in the past now. It took a personal dinner with Tony Blair in 1997 and another one with Conservative Prime Minister John Major, Sunday Mirror readers might recall (April 20, 1997), to settle one question on Michael Caine’s mind about the forthcoming election, and the British film industry had nothing to do with it: “I had dinner with Tony Blair and he promised me personally that he wouldn’t put tax up.” Taxation would not return to the equivalent of blowing up the payload van when you’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. Transatlantic translation: “Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?”
The redistribution of wealth was the tradition of Robin Hood, but it took the World War II generation to drive it through Parliament: Persuaded to fight abroad for freedom and justice, those soldiers who returned were determined to see justice done on their doorstep, and not even Churchill could stop them. The postwar reforms — most notably the monumental National Health Service — and the socialist measures to pay for them were reparation, but the principle faded away with that noble generation.
It’s a different country now. Socialism is exiled, the higher rate of tax is a coy 40 percent, and if you happen to be poor, even the rain burns a hole in your pocket. The gap between rich and poor has become so wide that it now seems the product of natural forces over aeons, like the Grand Canyon or the Yarlung Tsangpo. The cult of celebrity is the new ideology, and anything that drives celebrities away alienates public interest. Arise Sir Richard Branson, Sir Rex Harrison, Dame Joan Collins, Sir Dirk Bogarde, Sir Tom Jones, Sir Mick Jagger, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Sean Connery, and yes, our definitive Alfie, Sir Michael Caine.
Gary McMahon is the author of Camp In Literature (2006, McFarland)