A Certain British Someone Slams Heather Mills (JM)

Why should Heather Mills get £24 million?

Please accept that what I am about to write I do as someone who is a. A big fan of Paul McCartney and b. Entirely ignorant of divorce law.

Point A is thoroughly unsurprising, Point B is both unsurprising and, I am sure, likely about to be hilarious.

But I just have to ask - why does Heather Mills get £24 million for being married to McCartney for four years?

Because he is a gazillionaire who was stupid enough not to get a prenup?

Did she play a role in making the money? No, he earned his fortune before he met her.

This, of course, is entirely irrelevant. Could you imagine if we tried to calculate “Degree to Which Spouse Helped Earn Money” as a criteria of divorce settlements. How much was that backrub last night really worth?

Did she sacrifice her earnings or earning power while standin' by her man? No, she is certainly more marketable now than before she met McCartney. And any deterioration that has taken place in the last year has been as a result of her behaviour since the divorce.

This is probably true, irrelevant as a good standard for divorce law, but true.

Does she need £600,000 a year? No, nobody needs £600,000 a year. There might have been a case of her having become accustomed to it during their marriage, except for this - she was only married to him for a very short time.

First of all four years is a reasonably long time. Moreover, this is just an argument against inheritance, which would be good. But I know you Lord Finkelton, you probably love inheritance. You miss having a King and are still angry about the Magna Carta being signed. Nobody needs £600,000, but that includes Paul, who assuredly needs it way less.

Isn't it for the child? There is a separate sum - £35,000 plus nanny and school fees - for the child.

Yes, which is way less than £600,000. This, by the by, is perhaps the most salient part of the argument. In a divorce household with children it is patently unfair for one parent to have way more than the other. Creating this disparity in household and income is weird and detrimental to equal parental rights.

Far from mouthing off about the judge, Ms Mills should have been grateful that he upped the sum from Sir Paul's already very generous opening offer.

Perhaps you can come up with one good reason why she deserves the money.

Let’s be fair, does Paul even deserve this much money. I mean if it’s a question of just dessert it’s not like Paul worked harder than all of us and thus was a really good singer and super decent songwriter. He was born with the ability to sing and write well, I am sure he worked hard too, but I would hazard that he worked no harder than most illegal immigrants in the contemporary United States. Mostly, I just find this post to be profoundly weird, and I am quite unlikely to feel terribly bad for Paul McCartney.

Or maybe I should just retire and marry a Beatle.

A Play

Daniel Finkelstein: Ringo honey, I’m home.

Ringo Starr: Alright then, how was your day poopikins?

Daniel Finkelstein: I just read somewhere that the government has been using tax money to support multicultural education. It just gets my knickers in bunch.

Ringo Starr: Love, why does that bother you so much?

Daniel Finkelstein: Well, we have such a perfectly delightful British culture, why should we need anything else?

Ringo Starr: Man, when me and the Beatles were together we learned some far-out stuff about Indic cultures. It really changed our art!

Daniel Finkelstein: How dare you! I want a divorce, I am taking you for all you’re worth.

Ringo Starr: Daniel, we’re not married, gay marriage is illegal in this country.

Daniel Finkelstein: Bollocks! Well, what’s for dinner then?

Fin