You would have had to be living under a stone this past week, not to have been exposed to an ear-bashing from Bob Geldof, imploring you to download the latest version of Do They Know It’s Christmas’ in aid of tackling the Ebola outbreak. As I write this, the record is at number one, and a good sum of money has been raised, but something just doesn’t feel right this time.
I say ‘this time’ because I’m old enough to remember the first version of the song, recorded in aid of famine victims back in 1984.. Back then, the idea of a charity record was relatively new and the people behind it were young and not particularly wealthy. Fast forward 30 years, and Geldof (net worth £32 Million according to The Sunday Times) is a comparative pauper next to the other prime mover, Bono, whose net worth is now thought to exceed £400m.
Both have made a secondary career out of haranguing both the UK government and UK public into giving more money to worthy causes, but here’s the thing – despite their huge wealth, neither man pays any tax in the UK and both enjoy non dom status. Do they pay tax at all – anywhere? Do they give any of their own money to charities? Nobody really knows, but Geldof recently flew into a rage when questioned on the subject by a journalist from a National newspaper, and suggested that giving his time was a tax. I must try that one next time I get a brown envelope on a Saturday morning (why do they always come on Saturday morning?) from HMRC.
Now I’m probably the last person to question how someone spends their own money. I think if you’ve earned it, it’s nobody’s business but yours. Nor do I think you are obliged to pay any more tax than is required by law. But…and it’s a big but…it doesn’t seem right to me that extremely wealthy individuals attempt to shame governments into giving money to worthy causes when they have decided not to contribute to the pot from which that money comes. Nor is it right that they implore ordinary folk to give the little money they have while hanging on to their own. And these two things are inextricably related.
When Geldof or Bono ask the UK government to give more money to their pet cause, they are asking you and me to give more money, just as surely as if they ask us to download their latest charity single. The government doesn’t have any money other than that which it raises from taxes. It’s a finite pot of money, and one to which neither Geldof nor Bono contribute.
Geldof and Bono aren’t alone in this of course, and this latest campaign is typical of a society is which wealthy show business and sports personalities ‘give their time’ to persuade poor people to hand over their cash to charity…charity records…Children In Need…Comic Relief…Sports Relief…the list goes on and on. Meanwhile, those ‘giving their time’ freely, benefit financially from the valuable exposure their participation brings.
You could easily argue that it’s a win-win situation, (and I’d have some sympathy with that) but l I’ve got a better idea. Let’s just cut out the middle man. Instead of ‘giving your time’, use that time to do what you’re good at and give your hard currency instead. One Direction (one of the main attractions on the latest single) earned £47 Million last year. Just one week of their earnings would go a long way.
I just checked and the latest charity single sold 340,000 copies the first week at 99 pence each. Even if it eventually sells ten times that number, that probably amounts to less than the people performing on the record earn in a day.
So what the hell is the point in inflicting another version of that song on us?
Well said John, it does seem like a bit of a extreme case of double standards to me.
Elton John on the other hand has always been upfront about and (to my knowledge) never tried to shy away from paying his fair share of tax.
Guess who’s music I’ll be looking to buy next.
I could not agree more . I just read about some of the great investors like warren buffet recently. Some of them who have departed this world also parted with a great deal of personal cash for worthy causes. One of them sent kids from a poor neighbourhood to a private school on scholarships. they did not appear to team up with the likes of sinatra etc to do a song for them instead.
I remember the original and bought it , have happy memories of the decade. I was skint most of it but no one was singing for me and plenty others with no brass farthings!
This time it feels different and stop spouting if you dont pay into the system and are a tax exile
Very good point well made. That’s Celebrity for you, they think they are bigger and better than the people who put them there in the first place. I personally have no interest in Celebrity culture and the hyper inflated ego’s that that adorn it.
” I must try that one next time I get a brown envelope on a Saturday morning (why do they always come on Saturday morning?) from HMRC.”
Because 2nd class post tends to get 1st class service when sent on Fridays 🙂
“Now I’m probably the last person to question how someone spends their own money. I think if you’ve earned it, it’s nobody’s business but yours. Nor do I think you are obliged to pay any more tax than is required by law. ”
Well, there is no law that says that tax is mandatory……. Do a little research and I think you’ll find none. All that happens is that regulations are used, along with bullying tactics, to convince you that you must pay or be penalised in some manner. The whole system stinks.
A well written and poignant article that cuts to the chase. One element that you omitted to reference was what about the admin costs?
How much of the money raised actually hits the ground?
Excellent point well made.What I particularly admire about Bono is his ability to keep a straight face telling others to reduce their global footprint as he flies round the world preaching
Hear, hear! Is there any way you can send your missive to BBC Breakfast and get them to air your point of view. I’m with you and some of your other correspondents – most of these so called celebrities make me sick, especially those non tax paying preachers your refer to.
Very well said indeed however your words echo much of the sentiment I had first time around. Our mate Bob came out of that one extremely wealthy. Him and his band were disappearing into obscurity back in the eighties and now he’s worth a small fortune. Band Aid’s been more beneficial to him than any person or country the money was being raised for.
I am so pleased that someone such as yourself has had the guts to post this.
My points are :-
1) Did the money from the first record make any difference? If so there would now be less starving families in far off lands needing charitable support and aid from various governments. My guess is things are now worse not better than they were all those years ago.
2) When one acts like a grown up and does not take everything the media pumps out at face value, but checks other sources of information, it seems that yet again we have a well hyped up issue with the Ebola scare. This is probably infecting less people than many other diseases. And leading back to my first comment; if all the charitable money pumped into the 3rd world had been used effectively over the years, those inhabitants would by now have a much raised standard of living and therefore generally be healthier. I think this is not the case!
3) So much of the planets wealth has been sucked into the hands of a relatively few elite families, celebrities and others by several methods over the years. Therefore my opinion is that they are the ones that should now be giving back to the poorest parts of the world. They won’t, because to them the more money they can retain the more power they wield to feed their greedy, selfish, egotistical lives and above all they are biggest Hypocrites on the planet.
The time has long passed for the adults in this world to act with maturity, it’s not difficult to see through the endless scams, perpetrated by the powers that, be to suck even more of our hard earned wealth from our bank accounts. There is so much else that needs input of our attention and wealth to help make changes for the better.
Finally to show it isn’t a pipe dream check out a man by the name of Andrew Reynolds an ordinary guy who found a business formula that made him wealthy and what does he do? Well he spends some of that wealth by going out to a poor nation (can’t remember exactly where), where he identified a local group who were providing food for starving children and as far I know he is still sending currency to support the project. No registered charity required, if everyone with more money than they needed did something like this, poverty would probably by now be a thing of the past!
Up until recently in the US more people had been married to Kim kim Kardashian than had been diagnosed with Ebola.
And in the UK, there have been more cases of people marrying Katy Price (aka Jordan) than catching Ebola – a poor sod back in 1976 was accidentally contaminated with an infected needle – however he / she subsequently recovered and so once again it looks like celeb’s are even worse for your health than Ebola!
They’re certainly more contagious.
That’s exactly what’s wrong with this world. These tax dodgers and this capitalist system are the causes of why this world are in such a mess, and then these people who are well and truly part of it stand on their soapboxes and tell us, the little people who are the victims of it, that we should be putting our hands in our pockets when we are the ones who are paying our taxes and being penalised heavily to make this mess right again!! These people need to put their money where their mouths are and prove they are doing it.
Well done to John Harrison that has been my thinking for a long time .
And a lot of people are thinking the same we just have to hope that some of the money goes to a good cause after all the people who run this charity and others have had their pull.
Graham