Quote of the Day: Andrew Lloyd Webber on UK Brain Drain

In a nice companion piece to Sir Michael Caine's opinion, music man Andrew Lloyd Webber warns that tax hikes will prompt massive brain drain from the UK.

Look, it only makes sense. Suppose I live in a given place. Its government raises my taxes to the skies -- until I find them so onerous I can't carry on effectively. What will I do? I can sit there and suffer and I can try to improve my situation. I will look for somewhere else to live where taxes are lower and living conditions better. DUH, obviously. (What's the government going to do? Forbid the wealthy from emigrating so they can continue to soak them for taxes? Actually...)

What I also find dreadfully disturbing is the ugly spectacle of elite-driven class envy and class warfare (what an oxymoron, no?), as wealthy corrupt/incompetent government windbag after wealthy corrupt/incompetent government windbag on both sides of the Pond rail against "the evil rich" -- that is, people who get wealthy but are not in government -- and whip up public opinion against these actually productive people. Hey, when was the last time a poor man offered you a job? Seriously.

So to all those howling "eat the rich!" -- what are you going to do when you're out of the rich? Eat the middle class -- by redefining what it means to be rich? Hey, how about this definition: if you have enough income to get taxed on it, then you must be rich!

OK, end of rant. Here are some Webber words:

The opinion polls have uttered. The country loves the new 50 per cent top rate of income tax. Soak the rich. Smash the bankers. So Government spin doctors are in second heaven. The Conservatives' silence redefines a tomb. And I suppose there'd be quite a turnout for the public flogging of Sir Fred the Shred.

But before you book your tickets, hold hard. And before you lynch me as a rich b*****d flying a kite for my own cause, let me beg you to believe that I am not.

I believe that this new top rate of tax could be the final nail in the coffin of Britain.

. . . Here's the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That's not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income of any developed country.

I write this article because I fear the inevitable exodus of the talent that can dig us out of the hole we find ourselves in. It is inevitable, given that other countries are bidding for entrepreneurs. The Government must modify its proposals.

Good luck with that.