The "Nothing To Do With Me" Defence.

There's little doubt that the "nothing to do with me" defence has been very fashionable of late. It was first trotted out by the bankers who seem to think that gambling with other people's money, and losing it, entitles them to state handouts and the protection of their bonuses. That was followed up by the cunning "we have pay that kind of money to get the right people," argument. Then we had the Murdoch's using the same argument. "I was shocked when I found out what the people I appointed and am responsible for turned out to be a bunch of crooks," James and Rupert tell us, expecting that we must believe them because they're important. George Osborne, impressed with the success of such whinning self-justification, felt emboldened to use the argument over tax-dodging. He too was shocked at the extent to which millionaires, including himself, avoid paying their fair share. His solution was to cut their tax burden - naturally. "It's a well known fact," he told us, "that raising taxes for rich people actually returns less money." Now we have David Cameron, faced with a Minister who had his hand in the cookie jar, telling us that having him investigated is "nothing to do with me." No, the right place to look into this is the Leveson Enquiry, despite the fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with investigating the Ministerial Code. So what exactly are the use of these bankers, executives and politicians? They seem to take no responsibility for anything they do and expect the glittering prizes no matter how incompetent and utterly useless they actually are. At the end of the day the only argument that they are really using is that they are "better" than us and deserve everything they can steal from us.