The Telegraph lights into Tracey Emin for complaining about the top tax rate in the UK. In the process, they score a few good points:
Tracey Emin – of unmade bed fame – has declared in an interview that she’s had it with high taxes and she’s “very seriously considering” leaving Britain for France. “I’m simply not prepared to pay tax at 50 per cent,” she says with beautiful simplicity. “At least in France their politicians have always understood the importance of culture and they have traditionally helped out artists with subsidy and some tax advantages.”
It’s hard to know how much more top-level appreciation Tracey Emin could have got here. She represented Britain at the Venice Biennale; she’s a Royal Academician, if you please; next week she’ll be taking Ed Vaizey, the shadow arts minister, round the Frieze exhibition. She’s moved from being the enfant terrible of the White Cube Gallery to grande dame of the arts establishment without passing through an intervening period of artistic maturity. Thousands of pounds of public money have been spent by institutions like Tate Britain on buying her works with their purchase grants. And now the ungrateful minx is considering making for France, where the top tax rate is 40 per cent.
Tracey’s Final Outrageous Act Might Be To Turn Into a Tory (Telegraph)