Michael Caine - in two minds

Wading through ankle deep through the shite that is the Sun, I came across an article dated 21 March by Michael Caine.
It's about the he was filming then, about an old widower ex-marine whos' only friend gets murdered by drug gangs and then take the law into his own hands and starts killing the gang members one by one in revenge.

The title in the URL is 'Michael Caine on Broken Britian', and the tie in there is that the film is based on reality. Apparently the makers, just like those of Slumdog Millionaire that used children from the real slum of Mumbai, used real youngsters from London estates. Whether those kids were real gangsters, which to make the comparison with Slumdog would need to be the case is not mentioned.

Anyway, apart from pointing out how wrong Michael is about the gangster of days gone by being gentlemen and not using guns and knives, there is a point to this post that your reading.

Michael, in March, says...

"You don't have to go to Mumbai to find slums.

"I am always looking for something to stretch me as an actor, and this film does it. It is also about something that interests me - the kids on the sink estates. We are all sort of responsible for them being there.

"Their family let them down, the education system let them down, the Government let them down.

"In other words, we all let them down, and that's why they are like they are."

"We all let them down"

In April Michael is all for throwing in the towel and turning his back on the place...

“We’ve got three and a half million layabouts on benefits and I’m 76 and getting up at 6am to go to work to keep them,” says the star of Billion Dollar Brain.

Sir Michael will move to America rather than pay more than half his earnings in tax to bail out these scroungers.

If Michael cares that much about the youngsters of these estates, why would he bugger off and desert them because of a mere 5% rise in tax. He might have a £45m fortune, but he is not going to be taxed at 50% on all of that as it isn't income. Also, if he isn't funnelling as much as he can through a tax haven, then he's probably the only millionaire that isn't.

S'funny how people can change their view so much in a month, isn't it.