There are some people you just could not invent. Well, perhaps if you were a Thackeray you might manage it, but even that savage creator of some of English literature's most vile humbugs would, I suspect, have drawn back lest he be accused of excessive satire in realising a figure of Will Hutton's vast hypocrisy and stupidity. For the last 30-odd years this bland, plump, smooth-talking ignoramus has preached and prated to us all - The Word! And The Word is - a sort of soppy Marxism milked down with some low-fat democratic socialism with a dash of Keynes but a simply enormous dollop of hypocrisy. This is a man who never ceases to rail against what he calls 'Britain's Landlord culture' with its 'prohibitively high rents' and bemoans the lack of affordable housing. Those words emanate from his arse, but muttered sideways out of the corner of his mouth we learn that his wife is a director and 25% shareholder in a London-based property development company - or, a landlord, as you and I might put it.
He is in the vanguard of those 'that's-an-awfully-decent-claret' socialists who become white-lipped with fury at the efforts of some wealthy people to avoid paying tax which is not specifically called for under the law of the land, not least, I suspect, because to volunteer tax that is not required might see them sectioned off by their relatives! By now, having picked up the rather subtle, sub-textian thrust of this discreet little essay, it will come as no suprise to you that 'Landlord' Hutton is also on the board of The Scott Trust which, in effect, owns The Guardian and was set up specifically to avoid taxation. (Oh come on, I did warn you that sick bags might be needed and anyway I haven't finished yet!)
This monstrous, molasses-for-brains pontificator never ceases to wag his whiggish finger at British industry so it is with especial delight, and not inconsiderable spite, that I am able to tell you that The Work Foundation, a - and please don't giggle - Think Tank of which hapless Hutton, the Wonker-in Chief, has been the £180k pa Chief Executive since 2000 - has just gone belly-up with a £27m pension hole in its accounts which, incidentally, do not appear to have been published! Anyway, so much for Mr. Hutton's concern and care for his own pensioners! It has been taken over by Lancaster University so I do hope that government ministers will take that into account whilst working on University costs and charges in the future.
There is only one question outstanding and that is a very simple one. Can anyone think of a single reason why Mr. Will Hutton, should he ever show his face in public again (and he will, oh yes, he will!) should not be pelted with rotten veg and asked to show us all his willy?
I am obliged, I think, to Guido for tipping me off and thus giving me severe dyspepsia and a blinding headache!
Mr Hutton has always given me the impression of being somewhat baffled by life's complexities, but resolved to ignore all that and peddle his simplistic nostrums anyway.
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 27 October 2010 at 23:46
I could have put it ruder but not better!
Posted by: David Duff | Thursday, 28 October 2010 at 20:38
In other words, taxpayers have bailed out a fake charity and, by the by, have saved Mr Hutton's £180,000 salary* and his pension. As it happens, for an institution devoted to teaching our future business leaders Lancaster University Management School has spent our money in a very unbusinesslike way. Had LUMS any idea how to run a business it would have let the WF go into administration and picked up the bits that it deemed valuable. Since the value of an outfit like the WF leaves the office at 5:30 pm most weekdays, it could have hired those it wanted (including, if necessary, Mr Hutton probably at a level of remuneration more suited to a lecturer at a jumped up provincial technical college**) and not been obliged to fill in the £27 million pension fund hole. But remember this is only "government" money. In Mr Hutton's eyes such money literally grows on trees and has no connection with the poor sods who have to work for a living (unlike Mr and Mrs Hutton) only to see a considerable slug of their income confiscated to support this kind of nonsense.
* This might be in abeyance at the moment since one of Cameron's - or was it Osborne's - first appointments was Hutton as a government adviser. Are there no depths to the "Conservatives'" stupidity?
** Significantly, despite its high place in some rankings of universities, the LUMS's mother institution - the University of Lancaster - is not a member of the prestigious Russell Group
Posted by: Umbongo | Thursday, 28 October 2010 at 23:30
"Are there no depths to the "Conservatives'" stupidity?"
Can't say, Bongers, haven't managed to reach the bottom yet!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 29 October 2010 at 14:34