You know what, I find that I have to avoid things like Question Time, or Any Questions these days because as I get older it gets increasingly dangerous for me to have my blood boiled. Unfortunately, this evening while confined to my lovely kitchen preparing delicacies for tomorrow, I had the radio on quietly in the background, so that I could- (a) keep my finger vaguely on the artistic pulse of the Nation, and check if they had anything sensible to say about Kate Bush, (which they didnt) with Front Row, and- (b) find out if Shirley finally got her man, or whether they all succumbed to madness, TB and/or arson in the final installment of Shirley I neglected to switch off either the radio or my ears at 8, and ended up being ambushed by Any Questions. Some bloke, a right winger of some description, presumably, told us that in 1971, when the top tax rate was 96% (or something), the top 1% of earners paid 11% of the total amount of income tax; while today, the top 1% pay a whopping 13% of all income tax even though the rate is only 45%. While this, he implied, was obvious proof of our progressive tax system and the certain rightness of letting the wealth generators keep more of their hard-earned rewards, it seemed to me to be potential evidence of the massive inflation of the top 1%s earnings, and the grotesque widening of the wealth-gap between the top 1% and everyone else. Furthermore, he assured us that as tax receipts from these proppers-up of the country would fall significantly if the rate were to be raised back to 50%, due to their adoption of tax avoidance strategies, or their exiting en masse to live in Liechtenstein, it was only sensible right and fair to leave it where it was, at 45%. Thus we see how cheating is rewarded, but only if you are rich. If you are poor, and cheat the benefit system, they dont change the system to accommodate your cheating and let you keep the difference, they punish you by taking your money away. Not to mention the way that benefit cheats are pursued relentlessly in order that their ill-gotten-gains may be recouped, while the number of people employed to recoup the much larger sums lost through current tax avoidance/evasion are slashed. That does not strike me as sensible, right or fair in the least. They say that cheats do not prosper, but perhaps they do, if they cheat Big... Gazing upon a perfectly raised sponge cannot cool my blood this evening. Nor can a beautifully golden blind-baked pastry-case assuage me. Wheres the gin?
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 22:01:45 +0000