Robert Exley
As you may or may not know, in order to build an increased-capacity stadium, Tottenham Hotspur have recently applied for public funds to make this pipe-dream a reality. As the Haringey Independent states, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy “had previously said the Northumberland Park scheme was too expensive, but an injection of public funds would be likely to change his mind…If approved, the money would help pay for a package of infrastructure improvements, including train station upgrades, new public spaces, restoring listed buildings, and fixing the roads. A major stalling point had been that the club would have to pay for much of this work”.
Of course, Arsenal, their North London neighbours, had done exactly that a decade earlier without public subsidy (if anyone contests this point, I’m more than willing to hear evidence to the contrary) and Arsenal’s works included upgrades to the local transport network, the relocation of a waste disposal unit and Holloway Royal Mail depot, as well as provision of 1400 affordable homes within the borough of Islington. There is obviously a moral argument against allowing Tottenham Hotspur public funds to build a source of increased income which, in the words of major shareholder and former chairman Lord Sugar, would avoid putting themselves “in a position where we’re paying loads of money to service a debt instead of buying players” when their North London neighbours, with whom they will be in competition for a lucrative Champions League spot, quite clearly had needed to do just that for their new stadium a few years back. It’s also hypocritical that Alan Sugar should be advocating such a position. Can you imagine his reaction if one of his contestants on the Apprentice asserted that Sugar owed them a living, though he quite clearly believes the tax payer owes Tottenham Hotspur one?
However, rather than allow the argument to be dominated by footballing rivalries, I would rather highlight that there is quite clearly a political case to object to allowing Tottenham Hotspur access to public funds to rebuild White Hart Lane. Now I’m fully aware that there may be some regular readers of the Online Gooner who will baulk at the level of political argument I’m about to put forward here on what is essentially a football website. For that, however, I am totally unapologetic, as questions surrounding who has access to public funds cannot be anything other than a political matter. The mentioning of politics on a football website may well seem to be out of place, but is there any place for a football club to lay claim to public funds when they’ve reaped billions every year from spending the last 19 seasons in the richest domestic league in the world? Also, while local Labour MP David Lammy has done his level best to extol the virtues of such a project in what is quite clearly an underprivileged corner of the metropolis, the extent to which the undeserving poor will benefit from this little enterprise is mere chicken-feed in comparison to how it will line the pockets of the undeserving rich - who have either indirectly profited from ill-judged UK government policy at the expense of UK taxpayers or have done their level best to avoid tax revenue being paid to the UK exchequer altogether.
Let’s not forget that Joe Lewis, the majority shareholder of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, is a billionaire and, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, the 22nd richest person in the UK. How did Lewis earn his fortune? Well, in 1979, three months after coming into power, the Thatcher government abolished exchange controls, allowing financial institutions and currency traders like Joe Lewis to make great wealth in currency speculation. However, the fall-out from allowing the value of the pound to soar was to dramatically hit the industrial base of the UK, by making the price of its produce uncompetitive on the global market.
In 1979, the unemployment level in the UK had been around one and a quarter million. This was a level that greatly shocked and unsettled a large amount of the UK population, as can be seen from the Saatchi & Saatchi-devised Conservative party election poster of ‘Labour Isn’t Working’. However, the only thing astonishing about such a level of unemployment over 30 years on is that it has never reached such a low figure since. Even during the boom years of Blair days, the UK unemployment figure never went beneath one and a half million, which also doesn’t take into account the numerous changes in how such a figure has been calculated in the years since – all usually to lower the figure to a level that projects the incumbent government in a more positive light.
The extent of normalising unemployment levels in excess of 2 million plus on the taxpayer is to see a drain on the public purse in welfare payments, and a shortfall lost in taxation from an extra million workers who would otherwise be taxed on their wage. However, the millions made by the likes of Joe Lewis would be taxed and thus redistributed, and hence trickle down to the rest of the population, right? Well, for that to happen, Joe would actually have to be resident here. Instead, for taxation purposes, he is a non-resident based in the tax haven of the Bahamas. Rather ironic that an individual who has spent several years avoiding paying tax to the UK exchequer should now be going cap in hand to the taxpayer requesting a hand-out to make his multi-million pound business more profitable.
However it’s not just Joe Lewis who would be enriched by the White Hart Lane redevelopment project. It’s a little known fact that, since 2007 - when Joe Lewis lost a considerable sum with the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns, Tottenham Hotspur have been 4% owned by the 65th richest British citizen and former Conservative Party Deputy Chairman, Treasurer and financial benefactor, Lord Ashcroft. Like Joe Lewis, Ashcroft has for many years been a tax exile in a tiny Caribbean nation, that of the former British colony of Belize. In March, 2010 he revealed that he paid no tax whatsoever on overseas earnings in the UK. In fact, in Belize, with its loose tax laws, he has been exempt from many taxes for the last 30 years. For those who want to delve a little deeper into Ashcroft’s dealings, look no further than last year’s Panorama special. As well as his shares in Tottenham Hotspur, Ashcroft owns a majority share in Watford FC. Despite this, however, Ashcroft has by his own admission no interest in Football other than for investment purposes.
Therefore, rather ironically for a man who doesn’t seem to like taxation much, a publicly-funded redevelopment of White Hart Lane and a newly-built Underground station, plus a side not hampered in the transfer market, would make a tidy profit for Ashcroft when it comes to selling off his 4% share to an oligarch of his choosing. It’s also rather ironic that David Lammy encourages public funds to be used in this manner in the belief that it will generate wealth for London’s underprivileged in the wake of public sector cuts; however, these very public funds would be more likely to aid the bank balance of Lord Ashcroft, the man who actually bankrolled this cost-cutting Tory government on their road to power in the first place.
Since the Conservatives came to power 14 months ago, Haringey Council has been forced to close four residential care homes and six old people's day centres, halve park maintenance and cut three-quarters of its youth services. Haringey council was also previously the largest employer in the borough, though most forecasts predict that as many as one in five workers at Haringey Council will lose their jobs. That, therefore, makes Haringey vulnerable and requires them to bend over backwards to entice the hyper-capitalists to invest, or - in Spurs’ case - to actually stay in the borough. In the process, the hyper-rich will be looking at every opportunity to exploit this scenario for their own private gain.
As well as the White Hart Lane development, Lammy has mooted the idea of a Haringey enterprise zone and cites this vision as central to keeping Spurs in the borough. Such measures were all the rage in the 80s. However, one assessment of their effectiveness during this era totalled the up-front costs at £1.6bn in today's money, and actual jobs created at just 58,000 jobs. If Lammy thinks his aim of an enterprise zone with Tottenham Hotspur at its heart is really going to help the standard of living of Haringey’s poorest citizens while public sector cuts eat away at their employment, he would do well to study how ultimately unsuccessful the most famous enterprise zone of the Thatcher era was in halting the extremes of poverty in its local vicinity. The London Docklands Development Corporation brought a flood of the international super-rich into the East End, particularly Canary Wharf. However, two decades on, Tower Hamlets remained the poorest borough in the UK. Although exemption from property taxes and other incentives brought great wealth for those who were already wealthy, it did little to trickle down to the East London natives. In fact, in most cases it left most of the local populace priced out of the area and forced to relocate in run-down areas such as Newham or Barking & Dagenham. In fact, of the 100,000 workers at Canary Wharf, just 7% actually live in the borough of Tower Hamlets.
Also, while you hear people stressing how necessary these cuts are and how we are all in this mess together and hence must ultimately make sacrifices to curb this deficit, one figure should be imprinted on the minds of all UK citizens. When the Sunday Times published their annual rich list in 2010, the collective wealth of the 1000 richest UK citizens - who include Joe Lewis, Lord Sugar and Lord Ashcroft – had increased by a whopping 30%, the biggest rise in the history of the rich list. This here is conclusive proof that the aforementioned three deserve not one penny of our tax dollars to increase the value and ultimate sell-on price of their football club. Allowing public funds to be granted to Tottenham Hotspur to rebuild their stadium will not put food on the table of a single Haringey household living below the poverty line that would not have already been put there had its local authority not been forced to greatly reduce the number of those whom it currently employs. However, I’m more than aware that my left-leaning take on our nation’s macroeconomic situation might not be shared by the majority of Gooners. Though surely the unconscionable advantage that Tottenham Hotspur would gain over Arsenal in the transfer market alone will move the vast majority of Arsenal fans to round on David Lammy MP with six dreaded words this particular New Labour yes-man hasn’t heard since gave his wholehearted support for Tony Blair’s illegal occupation of Iraq. ‘NOT IN MY NAME, MR LAMMY!’
