Budget secrets

In the following sketch, John Fortune is a journalist interviewing businessman Sir George Parr (played by John Bird). The interview was broadcast on `Rory Bremner: Who Else?' in the week before Kenneth Clarke's 1995 Budget. It is a philosophical piece about democratic choice, or, as it is technically known, tax cuts.

Fortune: George Parr, you're very closely involved in the preparation of the Budget.

Bird: Yes, I've been working with the Chancellor and the Treasury team on its final stages.

Fortune: Now, I do realise that nothing at all could induce you to reveal secrets of the Budget.

Bird: Oh no, no. Well, very large sums of money, but otherwise no, because actually the final calculations haven't been made yet.

Fortune: I see. Of course, you're an economist.

Bird: No, no, I work for Euro Disney. I've been seconded to the Treasury for this period.

Fortune: I can't quite see the connection between a fantasy theme park and the Budget.

Bird: Can't you? I thought it was staring you in the face. Well, no, the connection is, people go to Euro Disney, and they see the enchanted palace and the crocodile pool and the Wild West saloon, but they don't think they've really been there until they see the 12ft-high figure with the long white whiskers and the big black ears.

Fortune: I see, yes.

Bird: You see? And in the same way, this Budget is just before a general election. Now during the general election you will hear a lot of discussion about education and health and unemployment.

Fortune: Hmmm.

Bird: But people won't feel they really know how to vote until they know what sort of tax cut they're going to have.

Fortune: So the tax cut is, so to speak, the mouse in your analogy.

Bird: It's the mouse, it's the cheese, it's the trap. It's the thing, you see, which is going to decide whether people vote for the Conservative Party or not.

Fortune: And you think that you're qualified to know what is going to make them vote in that way?

Bird: Well, I've spent the last few years getting people to travel hundreds of miles to a swamp outside Paris, to see a pointless farrago of overpriced trivia, and so I think I do know what the public are inclined to fall for.

Fortune: And in this case, of course, it's the tax cut.

Bird: Yes.

Fortune: But I mean, people are saying already, aren't they, that if the Chancellor cuts taxes, it's a simple bribe?

Bird: Well, as we all know, the general public are inclined to jump to wild conclusions in a hurry, but in this case they're right.

Fortune: So it is, it is just bribery?

Bird: It is just bribery, yes.

Fortune: But surely there must be ... I mean, a sort of fig leaf of economic argument which says that cutting taxes would actually improve the economy.

Bird: Well, there may be, I suppose. I don't know. We haven't discussed that in the Treasury, we've just discussed the bribing side of things.

Fortune: I see. But aren't the electorate going to despise a Government that just offers them bribes?

Bird: Well this is the calculation that we have to make. At the moment, you see, this is a fine calculation. Do they despise us more than we despise them? I mean, they know it's a bribe, and we know that they know it's a bribe, and they know that we know that they know it's a bribe, but it's a matter of pitching the bribe at just the right level. I mean, just let me shape the figures: if it's one pence in the pound off income tax, people will say: "Well, this is just a bribe, and I'm not going to vote for anything as shameless as that." But if it's three pence off the income tax, they say: "Well this is just a bribe, but it's a bloody good one." And so they vote for it. You see what I'm getting at?

Fortune: Yes, I do, I'm seeing the logic, yes.

Bird: Good.

Fortune: Except, then in that case, you might as well offer them anything, couldn't you, offer them the moon?

Bird: Oh, well, no, in that case the calculation goes: instead of do we despise them for being greedy, it's do we despise them for being stupid, because they know that if we cut the top rate income tax from 40 per cent to 5 per cent, say, which is what the very high earners pay anyway, then they'll know it's not going to work. I mean, they know that we think they're stupid, but it's important that they don't think we think they're as stupid as all that.

Fortune: And in any case, presumably, if the tax cuts don't help the economy, you're going to have to put up taxes again in a couple of years?

Bird: Well ...

Fortune: Which is what happened last time.

Bird: Well, of course, that's the risk you take. It's like the Lottery really; it is a lottery in fact; people know they're not going to have much chance of winning the Lottery, but they know that unless they buy the card they're not going to have any chance at all. In the same way, they know the tax cuts probably won't work, but they're not going to get them unless they vote Conservative. You follow me, you are following me?

Fortune: Yes, I'm ... yes. We seem to have stumbled into a world of complete cynicism here, have we?

Bird: Unfortunately, we all know that it is a very cynical world, and rightly or wrongly, everybody despises politicians. But that's a tremendous advantage to us. Because, you're not keeping up here, because the Chancellor knows that people already despise him because he's a politician, so they aren't going to start despising him because he gives money away in bribes, are they? Let me draw you an analogy. The Chancellor, in this case, is a drug dealer. And the voter is an addict, you see. Now, the addict may despise the drug dealer.

Fortune: Lowest form of human life.

Bird: Yes. But he's still quite glad to see him coming round the corner with his little bag of white powder, isn't he? You see? ... I'm not saying of course that the Chancellor is a drug dealer ...

Fortune: No no, no no ...

Bird: I have no way of knowing whether he is or not.

Fortune: No. But is it, am I being just, I'm sorry, sort of hopelessly idealistic ...

Bird: Hmmm.

Fortune: ... to think that the electorate would actually prefer politicians who had some principles, and who stuck to the promises that they made?

Bird: That would be disastrous.

Fortune: Would it?

Bird: Oh yes, that isn't what it takes. Look, Britain at the moment is in a relatively good economic position. We've got growth at 2 per cent and a relatively low rate of inflation. Now, the reason that we are in that good position is because in 1992 we left the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and devalued the pound. Both of which things John Major, the Prime Minister, said he would never do; he promised he would never do it and if he did do it, it would be a complete betrayal of the country.

Fortune: So it's only because John Major did betray the country that we're as well off as we are now?

Bird: Yes, you're getting there, yes.

Fortune: So this means, I'm gradually learning this argument, this means that we should vote for the party which is most likely to break its promises on principle?

Bird: (laughs) If only it was as simple as that the world would be a much better place. No, you can't do that because you never know in advance which principles you have to break, you see, that's the thing.

Fortune: It's not until you've abandoned a principle that you know whether it's going to ...

Bird: ... whether it's going to work or not. Yes, exactly right.

Fortune: And of course I suppose in some senses the electorate, too, can't be relied on to ...

Bird: Well no, we say that the voters despise the Government for not keeping its promises, but then the voters don't keep their promises either, do they?

Fortune: No. Because in the last election people said they'd be prepared to pay more tax for better public services, and then when it came to it they actually voted for lower taxes.

Bird: Yes. They said they would vote Labour, they told the opinion polls that they'd vote Labour, and then of course they went and voted Conservative, and you know, this is very, makes it very difficult for somebody ...

Fortune: It's very difficult to predict anything.

Bird: ... for somebody like me, yes. Because if you can't rely on these people in this way ... and the thing that worries us is that Mr Blair is bringing the Labour Party to the point where I think it might well be possible, he may have already achieved this, that people will be ashamed to say they're going to vote for the Labour Party as well. Which will be a big step forward for them.

Fortune: But that's democracy, isn't it?

Bird: That is democracy, yes. After all, it's a secret ballot.

Fortune: It's a secret ballot, yes, and people have the right to vote for something they're deeply ashamed of.

Bird: But it does make it difficult.

Fortune: And of course you could have a situation where people took the bribe, took the tax cuts and still voted Labour, couldn't you?

Bird: I suppose so ...

Fortune: How would you feel about that?

Bird: Well I don't know, I'd give up, then, really. It would make me lose all my faith in human nature if that happened. I'd be inclined to go and live abroad if that was the case. Actually, I do live abroad. And you never get this problem in the Cayman Islands, because you don't pay tax anyway.

Fortune: George Parr, thank you very much indeed.

Bird: That's all right, it's a pleasure.

This interview is extracted from `The Long Johns' (Hutchison, pounds 9.99). The book is a transcript of the part-improvised spoof interviews between John Bird and John Fortune, originally performed on Channel 4's `Rory Bremner: Who Else?'