It's hard to know where you stand, as a tax avoider, in the eyes of David Cameron. On the one hand, he thinks tax avoidance is bad. On the other hand, though, he doesn't think it's any cause for real concern, and certainly doesn't think anyone should do anything hasty, like give back an OBE. Is the PM just trying to stick it to Margaret Hodge, whose idea it was for Gary Barlow to give back the honour in the first place? Or does Cameron really think it's fine for society to honour people who routinely stick two fingers up to society? In which case, what would Barlow have to do to get his OBE taken away?
The argument against taking away his OBE is that these are two separate events; the charitable giving netted him the honour; the tax avoidance was a completely separate thing. "Do you want to test people with OBEs every year, to check that they haven't done anything that you think is dishonourable?" Matthew Parris asked me on Radio 4's PM this afternoon, in what I think is the most absurd slippery-slope argument I've ever heard and, being on Twitter, those are what I hear most of the day.
In fact, paying tax and giving to charity are connected, and if you avoid the former, you leave a gaping hole in the social fabric that must be darned by the latter. It's like overlooking all the landmines a person planted, then giving them an MBE for money raised in the service of prosthetic limbs. Of course, Cameron may feel uncomfortable making that argument – perhaps he'd end up unpopular at cocktail parties – so here are some other precedents from past honour-strippings he could use.
The Fred Goodwin precedent
This is where you haven't done anything technically illegal, but everybody hates you. Some hand-flapping, "Well, it was for services for banking, and it turned out he hadn't provided much of a service" is bogus: everybody from Alistair Darling to the Institute of Directors argued against removing the title, partly on the basis that he hadn't done anything different to his banker peers. Like so many political decisions, it wasn't taken until it became clear that, unless it was, the whole country was going to go ballistic. So this, for brevity, can be characterised as the "Everybody hates you" title-stripping, which would work just as well for Barlow.
The Baron Kagan precedent
In 1980, the Baron was arrested for attempting "to defraud the public revenue" (four counts of theft, as it had to be framed, to extradite him from Paris, whereto he'd hightailed it). Evasion, as we keep being bloody told, is worse than avoidance (the former is illegal, the latter legal); but the amount Kagan was fined – £375k – was far smaller than the amount Barlow is likely to have to repay, even accounting for inflation. So let's call this one: "Just pay your bloody tax, what's wrong with you, that you would want other people to live in penury just so that you can have more than one person could ever spend?"
The Phil Taylor precedent
In 2002, the leading darts player had his MBE annulled before it was officially awarded, having been fined for groping two female fans. Even though his MBE was for services to darts, and nothing illegal had occurred, it was deemed that the Queen would be "embarrassed". This is the "You're an embarrassment" honour-removal. Again, easily adaptable for Garrington Barlow esquire.
