14 Aug 2012 23:55:41
Mark Haddon, the award-winning author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, has written to his MP arguing that he and other wealthy people should pay more tax to save others being hit by government spending cuts.
Haddon, whose book has sold more than 2m copies, spawned a stage version and is being adapted as a film by Brad Pitt, said he was "not asking just an economic question but a moral one, too".
He said he had put his opinions in a letter to his MP, sent in February, which read: "I'm a wealthy person. Austerity measures introduced by the coalition have caused real suffering to many people, but my comfortable life hasn't changed in the slightest. Why have I, and people like me, been asked to contribute nothing?"
Haddon told the Sunday Times he had annoyed his accountant by insisting on paying all tax that was due rather than seeking to avoid it. "I should be paying more tax," he said. He revealed the letter was partly inspired by the US billionaire investor Warren Buffet, who has said he should pay more tax, as should other members of America's "super-rich". Taking a swipe at the ex-Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond, Haddon said: "There seem to be more Bob Diamonds than Warren Buffetts."
Haddon has accused the government as being "a cabal of very wealthy people", out of touch with ordinary life, saying his experience of attending boarding school and Oxford University had shown him "how easy it is for certain groups of people to become wholly insulated from ordinary life".
A known critic of the government, the novelist rejected an invitation to see the prime minister talking at a conference billed as "ideas worth spreading" in 2010, writing on his blog: "David Cameron having a big idea? … I'm not sure whether it's margarine or manure which comes most quickly to mind."
