I suppose that an inherited sense of cultural entitlement tends to make you see the world a little differently from everyone else.
There is a certain disassociation from reality that occurs when you insulate yourself from the mores of normal society.
The very rich, I suppose, can be forgiven for this belief.
Little, if anything, about their life is ordinary.
However, it more perplexing when British people of humble means advocate tax avoidance, especially as the UK is forced to cut everything from helicopters to home helps.
Even Gideon thinks it is unacceptable.
Last week, in the aftermath of the FTT result on the Big Tax Case, we witnessed The People being fed a diet of homilies by the usual suspects in the succulent lamb crew.
The klan was told, in easily digestible morsels, that the FTT ruling exonerated Rangers (1872-2012) of everything.
There was much air punching from The People as they were “informed” by the tabloids that Rangers had “won” the BTC.
This must have seemed very odd behaviour to the tax paying classes in other parts of the UK where the liquidated club are no big deal.
The current zeitgeist within British civic society is that these tax loopholes, even if they are technically legal, are morally indefensible within a fiscal crisis where schools and hospitals are being subjected to debilitating cuts.
Companies like Amazon, Google and Starbucks do seem to have this tax avoidance thing down to a fine art.
Their “explanations” for these strategies are nauseating for most decent people.
This is where the role of the press is important in positioning a society’s moral compass.
Once more the hacks in Glasgow largely failed.
Certainly the reportage of this outside the West of Scotland media bubble was rather different.
One would have thought that the fans that followed the quintessentially British football club, before it died earlier this year, would be more attuned to the mood of the nation.
Like most advanced economies the UK put their faith in the “masters of the universe” in the 1990s.
There was an almost quasi-religious belief among the ruling elites that the financial services “industry” could create wealth out of nothing.
That chimera was smashed by the reality of the banking crash of 2008.
That was also the global event that started to derail the David Murray road show.
His company MIH eventually had to do a debt for equity swap with the bank.
The UK can, unlike Eurozone countries, print their own money. I know that “quantitative easing” sounds almost rude, but a canny Raith Rovers fan kept the UK out of the Euro.
Britain currently keeps the Royal Mint presses on overtime to get the economy going.
It didn’t really work out for the Weimar Republic, but these are desperate times.
The bank bailout made the financial crisis into a fiscal disaster.
Subsequently, everyone must pay their fair share in taxes.
Moreover, I wonder if the cast of Rangers’ Cluedo really feel they have done their bit.
I believe that people who were in leadership positions at Ibrox in the first decade of the millennium should answer some questions.
They may wish to explain how they view their conduct apropos the HMRC investigation from 2004 onwards.
Certainly the optics of documents being “actively concealed” does not reflect well on those who were doing the concealing.
I accept that The People do not think that societal norms apply to them; Manchester May 2008 pretty much nailed that one.
Subsequently, I do not believe that they can be reached on a moral level.
I believe that there is genuine and justified anger in Britain in 2012 about the poorest in society disproportionately shouldering the greatest burden.
People on disabilities are being told that they are fit for work.
Those cuts are part of the fiscal crisis.
It does seem that the societal cost of the cash flow crisis is being unevenly shared.
Moreover, the wealthy appear to be able to deploy resources to largely stay out of the tax net.
We know that the HMRC’s legal representative was outnumbered five to one in the FTT.
Once more the image conjured up is of people who can afford to deploy a defensive wall of highly paid lawyers that can win the legal argument.
The average decent person, their tax deducted at source, looks on in some bewilderment.
It remains to be seen if HMRC will appeal this majority decision of the FTT and take their case to the Upper Tribunal.
If they do then most fair minded people will support them.
Only The People will curse them and demand to know the identities of those who are toiling in the public interest.
I cannot think of any other group in British society that would be talking such a stance on tax avoidance.
Only The People seem strangely amoral about all of this.
Given that they claim the exclusive rights to the use of the word “dignity” only serves to make their puffed up self-image even more risible.
