Another Triumph For Repulsive Elitist Snobs

I remember back in 2007 when the English smoking ban came in, the reaction from politicians and health zealots was nauseating.

If it was truly about protecting bar workers' health, they may have said something like "we're really sorry smokers, we realise this is unfair on you but it's something we feel we have to do". But no, Health Secretary of the time Alan Johnson almost punched the air in delight announcing it; Cancer Research UK sent out newsletters to all its donors "rejoicing" in the news; and Deborah Arnott was excited about how smokers had been "exiled to the outdoors". ASH then published a report boasting about how they had connived, cheated and bullied government into abandoning manifesto commitments to accommodate smokers.

Today, we've seen exactly the same thing following this morning's court decision in Scotland to allow minimum alcohol pricing.

The moment it was announced, social media was swamped with arrogant middle class elitists jubilant at how they had stuck it to the working man. It was a landmark decision, a triumph, one 'public health' activist even published a gif of a stick man literally punching the air, while former Scottish CMO - a man I imagine to be quite rich - was said to be over the moon!

Sir Harry Burns, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, says he's "absolutely over the moon" at the Supreme Court decision on minimum pricing for alcohol.

— BBC Andrew Kerr (@BBCandrewkerr) November 15, 2017

Not one of them had any concern for low earning moderate drinkers who will now have to struggle to pay for a meagre pleasure, no fucks were given for them. The ecstatic outpourings were not muted to take into account that innocent people will suffer hardship, far from it, it was more like health campaigners were bathing in the poor's misery.

We saw the same ugly disregard when the sugar tax was passed by doughnut-brained MPs, who can forget the euphoria of super-rich Jamie Oliver dancing like he'd just won the lottery at the pleasure he derived from making people pay more for something that he personally doesn't like.

Jamie Oliver had a little #sugartax dance on BBC News https://t.co/mZa1XJLsVf #Budget2016 pic.twitter.com/ZhvV1p5G8p

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 16, 2016

All those celebrating these new immoral restrictions on liberty, property rights and self-autonomy are nothing but repulsive, elitist snobs.

You see, the smoking ban, sugar tax and minimum pricing all have something in common. They are all restrictions on pleasures that are mostly enjoyed by less prosperous families. The middle classes have been sneering at the enjoyment of the less well off for millennia, mostly by railing against the licentious and ungodly morals of the unwashed. But now they cloak it as some kind of care for health and think they can get away with it, but they can't.

Today's vile show of rapture from a wide array of bigots betrays what their real motives are. They are not sorry about the working guy because - in every 'public health' area - it is precisely that guy they set out to bully.

The smoking ban wasn't about bar staff, it was about making life more difficult for the builder who likes to enjoy a pint and a fag. They didn't temper their jubilation in respect for the fact that his life had just got worse, because they were glad his life got worse.

Jamie Oliver - and the ghastly middle class sheep that hang on his every odious utterance - didn't acknowledge that the sugar tax was effectively stealing pocket money from kids, because he was glad he was stealing pocket money from kids who he detests for choosing to drink something he disagrees with.

Likewise today. Health campaigners know very well that minimum pricing will have no effect whatsoever on harmful drinkers. It won't stop or slow down the consumption of alcohol for the small percentage of the population who drink far too much, it will just push some people into poverty.

But then it's not aimed at harmful drinkers, it is aimed at everyone. And with minimum pricing they have come up with a policy that targets only low earners. For these very well off elitists, this is just about perfect. A policy which turns their repugnant distate for the habits of working families into something that will harm the frightful working class ... but won't intrude on their own liking for a cheeky top of the range Merlot.

If Marie Antoinette had been able to create policy in this day and age, minimum alcohol pricing would be the policy she would have chosen.

And you know what the clincher is to prove that this is exactly the aim? Minimum pricing doesn't even deliver an extra penny to the state. All the cash generated goes straight into the pockets of mostly big businesses such as out-of-town supermarkets which 'public health' camapigners - overwhelmingly a left-leaning profession - usually like to demonise.

I have no axe to grind myself about minimum pricing, I will still buy my New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Peroni at a price that it won't touch, but I know and employ many people for whom it would cause a hardship. The campaigners behind hideous laws like it, though, generally tend to avoid consumers if they can possibly help it. They don't listen to their concerns, they talk at them rather than with them, and they exclude them from policy-making decisions, instead bypassing debate and going straight to government clutching junk science.

Just like the smoking ban and sugar tax before it, minimum alcohol pricing is just a big elitist party zone where the rich get to look down their noses at the poor and stop them doing things that the elite find a bit icky. They don't care that their actions are fundamentally immoral and are not ashamed at celebrating the misery of low earners because they revel in it. Making life less pleasurable for millions of people, predominantly those who don't have much money is exactly the point.

They are repugnant. May some higher being someday make them rot for eternity for being such a sick plague on society.

Jamie Oliver Is In Australia, Close The Border

Slack-jowelled uber-hypocrite Jamie Oliver has been in Australia this week but, before you get excited, sadly Essex's most esteemed serial arsehole is likely to be coming back.

It's curious that in the past we used to deport hungry poor people to the other side of the world for stealing a loaf of bread, while now mega-rich elitists like Oliver - who advocate policies which steal pocket money from kids - travel there in luxury and enjoy fawning articles promoting his snobbery masquerading as concern for health.

Articles like this one, for example.

Oliver, who has campaigned heavily for a sugary drinks tax in Britain, points to Coca-Cola as one of those big businesses that needs to be doing better. 

"Not that they're my arch enemy – although they probably are – but, if you look at Coke and say, 'Could they be a health food company in 100 years?' I believe they can." 

Well I'm baffled as to how Coca-Cola could be your arch enemy, Jamie, seeing as you sell their full sugar version for a very profitable £2.65 per 330ml can, but whatever.

"I donated 18 months to telling the sugar tax story in the UK, but it's all based on science and fact and the same science and fact applies to Australia."

Hmm, 'donated' is an odd word to use for regularly being in national headlines just prior to the launch of a new book, but as for "science and fact", huh? A consistent and decades long reduction in sugar consumption and a non-existent 'obesity epidemic' doesn't require a sugar tax, Jamie. If politicians stuck to science and fact instead of junk science and career lobbyist bullshit the idea would have been laughed out of parliament. I think the word you are actually searching for is propaganda.

"The conservative UK government didn't want to make that sugar tax policy, but we got it because, when it comes to the crunch, a modern day prime minister has to act on the data if the story is told correctly."

Or maybe the prime minister was a weak pussy and acted on the threat of bullying from people like Jamie and the hundreds of thousands of fellow vile ovine snobs who follow him, because the story sure as shit wasn't "told correctly" by the extremist lunatics who demanded it.

"I think the interesting thing about Australia is that not one major party is even debating or sniffing about it. But France, Portugal, Hungary, Ireland and the UK are all in. Australia will fall in line, too."

It is to Australia's immense credit that they haven't yet fallen for the lies bandied about concerning a sugar tax, and current thinking there is that it is daft and won't work, which is correct because it won't.

Critics of a sugar tax in Australia claim the government shouldn't be interfering with our freedom of choice.

Ya don't fucking say!

Similar to what happened with the introduction of plain packaging tobacco laws and push for pokie reforms, the term "nanny state" is thrown around a lot.

The obligatory reference to tobacco, but remember there is no slippery slope, oh no.

"Australia is a bit obsessed by the nanny state thing, isn't it?" says the chef. 

Probably because it is the most advanced nanny state in the world, Jamie. That would tend to get up many people's noses if they lived amongst it daily.

"But ask Aussie parents if they're cool with 15 cents on a can of sugary soft drink going to schools for food education and sports. When we said that in the UK, the sugar tax polled at 75 per cent approval. The nanny state argument from knobheads is bollocks. This is f--king common sense."

Not really, gobshite. Isn't the tax supposed to reduce consumption? How will significant amounts of money be generated and still reduce the sales of something you say is detrimental to health? You can't have it both ways.

To get a sugary drinks tax implemented in Australia means "mobilising Aussie parents to just tell the government what to do," says Oliver.

This is a quite stunning concept! So Jamie is saying that parents - you know, the people who decide what their kids can and can't eat and drink - should tell the government what to tell them their kids can and can't eat and drink? Erm, why don't those parents just cut out the middle man and stop their kids drinking sugary food and drinks if that's what they want?

The simple answer to that question is that they're not really bothered about their own kids are they? Nor is Jamie, I'm sure his only drink water and eat wholesome sugar-free stuff (as in, not anything Jamie cooks). They are talking about the proverbial and sinister "our children" which they have appropriated as their own to mask their repulsive bigotry.

Theirs is the type of irrational contempt once reserved for other minorities. But it's no longer acceptable - in fact, it's illegal - to discriminate on race, gender, disability, sexuality or religion, so the hateful compulsion to feel superior has to get shifted somewhere. It is, though, perfectly OK for Jamie and his horrible fans to sneer at those fat kids they see in the High Street, to disapprove when they see lower classes coming out of McDonald's, and to demand that government does something about it.

This is the kind of person who loves Jamie Oliver; the control freak whose life is so empty, dull and formulaic that they get their kicks out making other people's business their own without asking, and of thrusting themselves into the lives of others of whom they disapprove.

"But the genius of the sugary drinks tax is that when it happened in the UK, it was the first time I can remember the government standing up and giving the industry a spank. Every other part of the food industry witnessed it so, at a rate faster than I can tell you, the whole industry is reformulating shit out of the food chain. Cutting back on all the salt, fat and sugar. They haven't been asked to do it either — it all comes from that one action."

No, they weren't asked, Jamie, they were threatened, there's a very significant difference.

It won't matter to multi-millionaire Jamie that government adds a levy on Coca-Cola because he'll carry on selling it to rich affected twats who visit his overpriced, sugar-laden restaurants at an eye-watering mark-up. It won't matter to his interfering and snooty middle and upper class followers either, they can afford to pay a bit more for their kids' treats after they have finished their main course of steamed kale and pine nuts washed down with San Pellegrino. It will, though, punish those who Jamie and his repulsive fan base find so objectionable, the poor.

Or, as put brilliantly in the Telegraph at the time Osborne announced the UK's sumptuary sugar tax.

Virtue-signalling politicians, bureaucrats and celebrities feeling tremendously good about themselves because they’ve bossed the rest of us around, and imposed a stealth tax on those least able to afford it.

Indeed.

Oliver succeeds because he panders to the dark and anti-social nature of some of the most hideous people in our midst. He peddles pomposity and the right of self-centred individuals to impose their petty prejudices on others. He is a modern day Marie Antoinette so it is no surprise that his crusade draws on the tobacco control industry for inspiration because their reasoning is equally mired in junk science and their fans equally disgusting.

Australia, can we persuade you to keep him? Essex's, erm, loss could be your gain, after all. 

"Only Just Getting Started"

If you are one of the honking seals who happily claps along with anti-smoker sentiment - safe in the knowledge that the insatiable grant-ravenous 'public health' industry will never come after something you enjoy - you're either a monk, or you should never play Chess because you're so dim you'd probably fail to predict that your opponent might move a pawn first.

Y'see, as Snowdon wrote yesterday, it's pretty clear now that vile tobacco controllers have kicked open the gates of the citadel which used to safeguard liberty and free choice and, in doing so, have shown other repellent, self-centred, anti-social vandals how to smash everything else up as well. Of course, parasitical tax-gobbling charlatans wise tobacco control sages such as Debs Arnott and Simple Simon have denied this was ever going to happen but, in global Nanny State HQ Australia, they're all of a frenzy at the possibility of dictating everything you eat and drink from cradle to grave by way of the clunking fist of ignorant government.

Via the Daily Telegraph Oz:

Does junk food need the tobacco treatment?

Just let that sink in for a moment. Food. That you choose to eat.

OK? Right, let's continue.

OBESITY is the leading cause of poor health in this country yet little is being done to make junk food less appealing, affordable or accessible. 

Should we take a leaf from the anti-tobacco lobby?

So what do they mean by a leaf? Well, actually it is more like the whole rotten fucking tree!

[I]nstead of brightly coloured wrappers with mouth-wateringly tantalising descriptions, you faced shelf after shelf of sugary sweets wrapped in plain packaging with images of obese bodies emblazoned on the front. And imagine if adding a bottle of soft drink to your grocery haul meant asking an employee to get your chosen fizz from a locked cabinet behind a counter. Then, you find the bottle comes stamped with a picture of rotting teeth. Still thirsty?

In case you can't imagine that, the article kindly offers you a graphic that the joyless bastards in 'public health' will orgasm over.

Alarmist nonsense, I hear you say? Well not really, no.

“Overweight and obesity is the leading cause of disease and poor health in Australia,” Dr Gary Sacks, senior research fellow at the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, says. “It’s fair to compare junk food and tobacco and we can learn a lot from what’s been done with cigarettes.”

So much for "the domino theory is patently false", eh Debs? Isn't it about time you publicly declared you were orders of magnitude wrong on that?

But should that include treating junk food in the way we now treat tobacco products? That is: hike prices, make plain packaging mandatory and slap packets with gory images of what obesity looks like and does. It depends on who you ask.

It does indeed. You see, you'll have some 'public health' extremists who won't yet admit that is the eventual goal, and others who feel adequately emboldened already to go 'all in'.

One of the most effective measures for reducing smoking rates in Australia was the introduction of plain packaging and graphic health warnings to cigarette packets. 

Following a similar tack with junk food packaging would cause a significant drop in obesity rates, say some experts. 

“Plain packaging would definitely have an effect,” Ferrie says. “We don’t give much thought to just how much money, research and thinking goes into making those packs as appealing as possible. Chips are my favourite example. You’ll find limes, chillies and perfectly roasted chickens on the label but inside is just salt, flavouring and potato starch. As for warning images, I’m sure companies would do everything they could not to end up in the category that required an amputated leg on their packet, which could be a good thing.”

Yep, these people are actually considering policies which would adorn a packet of crisps with pictures of an amputated leg. Or maybe a takeaway bag with a graphic health warning to punish you for your cheek in buying a Big Mac.

We used to throw people with insane views like this in the loony bin, but now they're apparently called 'experts'.

“From a public health perspective, I would love all these measures to be introduced overnight but we need to stagger our approach,” [Professor Stephen Colagiuri, director of The Boden Institute in Sydney] says. 

“It’s important to remember that it’s taken 50 years to get where we are with tobacco and we’re really only just getting started with obesity.”

"Only just getting started".

Some of us have been warning of this for quite a while, but how silly we all were saying that plain packaging would lead to such barking craziness, eh? Oh yeah, and in case you think this can only happen in Australia, think again.

I've always said that the smoking ban - the true root of this societal cancer - was the most disgusting piece of legislation this country has ever seen; it has directly facilitated this kind of lunacy. Once you pander to the most intolerant and snobbish in a community and make them important, the destruction of calm enjoyment of life on a scale never before witnessed is assured. Never has it been more encouraged to be a revolting no-mark obsessed with poking one's nose into the lives of others; pandered to by an elite, highly-paid bunch of professional extremists who, in an ideal world, should be slapped in a straitjacket and carted off to the funny farm. Or jailed, either is good.

A pox on all of them. Having said that, chalk one up for we jewel robbers on the side of the angels here, because we have been proved right. Yet again. 

Look What We've Deprived You Of

Chris Snowdon today highlighted some quite astonishing proposals by Health Nazis and others in Australia, it's definitely worth a read. He finishes with a chilling well-being warning.

Australian control freaks are only ever half a step ahead of the British nutters so brace yourself. 

This is true. Globalisation doesn't just apply to big business, you know. The fanatics who derive financial enrichment from destroying people's lives share their insane ideas at global conferences, on social media and via e-mail. If it is happening anywhere in the world, it is likely to happen here - and everywhere else too - before very long.

Australia also mirrors the UK in having a state-funded broadcaster willing to bend over backwards to defend the indefensible if the government is committed to it. In Australia, this means regular eye-watering 12.5% increases in tobacco taxes.

As enthusiastically publicised on Twitter by Simple Simon, here is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation doing its best to deny that there is any problem with them.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott told Liberal Party members in Tasmania that Bill Shorten's Labor Opposition plans to bring in "five new taxes" if elected. 

Mr Abbott identified these potential taxes as a housing tax, a wealth tax, a seniors tax, a carbon tax, as well as characterising Labor's proposed tobacco excise increases as a "workers tax". 

"There'll be a workers tax 'cos he's going to slug smokers," Mr Abbott said on March 4, 2016. 

"And as my grandfather used to say, 'it's the only pleasure I've got left, son'. I don't much like smoking, but nevertheless why single out one particular section of the community for yet another slug?" 

He repeated the claim on March 23, telling Sky News host Paul Murray that Labor's policies include "increased tax on workers having a smoko", which he later called "a tax on every worker having a smoko". 

Is Labor's planned tobacco excise increase really a "workers tax"?

It should be clear to anyone that the point being made is that it is a regressive tax which predominantly harms the less affluent. The oft-referenced 'workers' to whom Labor (and Labour here) always claim to represent.

The ABC goes through lot of theatrical nit-picking to say that tobacco hikes being a "workers tax" is technically incorrect, but can't evade the incontrovertible salient fact which they leave till the end of an intensely statistic-laden article where most people won't see it.

Tobacco taxes represent a greater proportion of a "worker's" income than that of a higher income earner. 

Michelle Scollo of Quit Victoria has acknowledged that "increases in tobacco taxes are most felt among poorer sub-groups" but says that this makes tax increases "an effective preventive tool".

In other words, impoverishing the poor is a deliberate strategy of tobacco controllers, for their own good. A hideous contravention of principles laid down by J S Mill in On Liberty and de facto prohibition.

“Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those whose means to not come up to the augmented price"

It's important to stress this point, particularly since the overwhelming majority of career 'public health' tax-troughers would describe themselves as left of centre. Yet they are quite happy to inflict policies on the public which actively attack the poor and which don't really affect the rich at all.

As if that isn't bad enough though, once they have impoverished the poor - which causes harm in its own right - those lovely left-leaning, caring, sharing 'public health' bansturbators then revel in boasting about how their policies have made those people poor.

1.1 million people in England are in poverty because of tax policies demanded by @ASH_LDN https://t.co/4Yvx03yUE1 pic.twitter.com/kG1fL91NxS

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) November 3, 2015

And even love to tease those they have impoverished by waving the goods they now can't afford in front of their faces.

Chutzpah, definition: Taxing people into poverty and then "caring" about what they cannot afford.@CDCTobaccoFree https://t.co/DjptwHcbyk

— Carl V Phillips (@carlvphillips) April 5, 2016

There really isn't anything more vile than an industry which claims to be looking after the less well off, while actively attacking them and then rubbing it in by explaining exactly what has been deliberately put beyond their financial reach. And all just to perpetuate the industry's own existence and to fill its own bank accounts with the proceeds of the taxes they lobbied for.

Remember, we're on the side of the angels here, they on the other hand are just repulsive.

A Triumph For Repulsive Anti-Social Snobbery

"... and I realised with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before", Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds

Back in 2006, government passed legislation to usher in a new age of intolerance and snobbery. It had taken around 30 years for the Godber Blueprint to take effect, that is “to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily”.

This, of course, was the smoking ban. Based on a pre-planned lie and brought to prominence by way of three decades of slogans such as "smokers stink", it played upon a latent dislike of smoking and smokers amongst the dregs of our society. It was an incessant onslaught which turned a nation comfortable with co-operation and tolerance into one where to openly hurl disgusting insults and threats at otherwise law-abiding and productive members of the public was actively encouraged.

It was a victory for the army of fanatical single issue state-funded tax-spongers who prey upon the borderline insane mentality of the revolting; the contemptuous; the arrogant; the pinch-lipped; the selfish; and the proudly anti-social.

A clusterfuck of the abhorrent; a circle-jerk of the hateful and nauseating.

These days, as Snowdon points out in City AM, it doesn't take anywhere near so long.

It has taken several years of the most ludicrous, unscientific hysteria about a single ingredient to get us to this point, but this is the result: a reverse Robin Hood tax with a dismal track record in every country in which it has been tried being presented to the public as a health policy. 

It would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.

The sugar tax is born out of the same vile and scum-infested middle class base as the smoking ban. The only difference being that back then it was smokers, now it is the overweight. The precedent was set a decade ago, a precedent which gave a green light for the most hideous in society to point fingers, criticise the choices of others, publicly vomit insults, and demand government force be brought to bear on people who they feel offended at seeing. That's all, just seeing!

All that's required is a section of the population eaten up by bigotry, and a handy figurehead to produce junk science, spit vitriol, and wildly exaggerate. With sugar it was this guy.

I have some previous with Prof [Graham] MacGregor. Earlier this year, I went head-to-head with him on Andrew Pierce’s LBC show. The topic: a proposed sugar tax. I went first and made the case that it was our responsibility to look after our own health and that it is the responsibility of parents to look after the health of their children. This opened the floodgates of condescension. I was talking rubbish. He had worked with poor people in deprived areas and they cannot look after themselves. It was the responsibility of people like him to look after them as he knows better. 

At the start of questioning by MPs on the Health Committee, I knew what was coming. Naturally, he favours a sugar tax, and he fully expects it to start low and increase year-on-year. Don’t be surprised when Prof MacGregor calls for 700 per cent, roughly the same as cigarettes. 

This was just the start, though. As he started moving up through the gears, Prof MacGregor revealed that he doesn’t just want sugary drinks taxed, he wants those with artificial sweeteners taxed too. Even though a sugar tax would be regressive, he attacked Jeremy Hunt for calling it that, and described it as a “desperate ploy” on the Health Secretary’s behalf. He openly displayed his hatred of the food industry. He wants all advertising of unhealthy food banned, and thinks the food industry kills more than tobacco manufacturers. 

As he was cruising in top gear, he also came out with this gem. Prof MacGregor has worked in Tooting amongst the socially deprived, and he claimed that everyone living on the estates in Tooting is obese. Not just some, the majority, no, everyone.

To the vast majority of us MacGregor is a crank who makes shit up about his personal irrational prejudice about a pretty minor problem because he's a revolting, froth-mouthed cocksnorter of biblical proportion, but when heard by fellow gut-wrenchingly repellent snobs, it's an invitation to be the most vile they can be.

Jamie Oliver, a man perfectly described by the Speccie as "a chef whose own waistline has expanded as fast as his ego", exemplified this ugly triumphalism over those he feels are inferior to him when interviewed by the BBC.

Jamie Oliver had a little #sugartax dance on BBC News https://t.co/mZa1XJLsVf #Budget2016 pic.twitter.com/ZhvV1p5G8p

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 16, 2016

With these two sickening people leading the charge, is it any wonder the foul and the loathsome come crawling out of the woodwork.

Anyone who drinks fizzy drinks, diet or otherwise, every day is an idiot. Water is what hydrates us, anything else is a waste of money.

— Kirstie Mary Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) March 17, 2016

The #SugarTax is not a tax on the poor. It's a tax on poor parenting. If you don't want to pay it, don't give your kids fizzy drinks. Simple

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) March 16, 2016

@jamieoliver @hmtreasury should have put a levy on stupid people who allow kids to drink this rubbish!

— Nick Bamford (@nickbamford) March 16, 2016

You're not making a choice anymore, instead you're a shit parent; stupid; an idiot ... for knowing your family better than the judgemental and the obnoxious. You are lazy, and they are damn well going to tell you so because, well, they're the apocryphal perfect people whose snobbery and crass ignorance makes them think they are entitled to 'cast the first stone'.

Well, they're not, they're absurd self-regarding shitgoblins, but slack-waisted Jamie is their God and they're on a roll now. So why not demand more, eh?

@cjsnowdon no, this is just the start of the war on unhealthy food. That's why it's being fought so hard.

— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) March 16, 2016

@sarahwollaston @Childrensfood @actiononsugar cutting some sugar in colas is good news but we need to cut it more. Good 1st step, long road

— Professor Tim Lang (@ProfTimLang) March 16, 2016

#sugartax is all well and good but why no minimum alcohol pricing?. Alcohol related disease major burden on society it ruins lives.

— A.Farooq (@AbdulFarooq95) March 16, 2016

Osborne didn't usher in any new success for 'public health' yesterday - for the simple fact that a sugar tax has never worked and, as admitted by those who favour it, never will - but he certainly delivered multiple orgasms to the most deranged and repugnant in our country; the type you would hide behind the sofa to pretend you were out if you saw them park outside your house. If pandering to the vile and intolerant was the purpose, the upper class boy Osborne did exceptionally! He enthralled his fellow pompous and snooty middle class minions and stuck it to the less well off good, so he did.

Or, as Alex Deane succinctly describes it in The Telegraph.

Virtue-signalling politicians, bureaucrats and celebrities feeling tremendously good about themselves because they’ve bossed the rest of us around, and imposed a stealth tax on those least able to afford it.

It's not a step forward for the health of the nation, but instead a triumph for repulsive anti-social snobbery and the most obnoxious human faecal matter we have the abject misfortune to share our everyday lives with.

The worst thing by far about the sugar tax is how happy it made some ghastly people.

— Jackart (@VeryBritishDude) March 17, 2016

Quite. It's like 2006 all over again.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting perspective from a statistician.

But whatever they spend it on, they would have preferred to spend it on sugary drinks, so we are again making them worse off in terms of the things that they value. 

All these considerations are trivial for people on high incomes. They may not be for people on low incomes. What seems certain is that the costs of the sugar tax will fall disproportionately on the poor. 

You may think that’s a good idea. George Osborne obviously does. But personally, I’m not a fan of regressive taxation.

Unlike all those odious snobs above.

Stop With The Bullying, George

ASH often say that they "do not attack smokers or condemn smoking", but - with a budget coming up - it's that time of year where ASH always attack smokers.

They'll be pulling every string they can think of to sway the Chancellor into massively increasing duty on tobacco, which - as J S Mill observed - is a form of prohibition.

“Every increase of cost is a prohibition, to those whose means do not come up to the augmented price"

Tobacco duty rises over and above inflation are nothing less than bullying - a particularly vile brand of bullying which especially targets the poor - and are fully backed by groups like ASH. Indeed, if the Chancellor doesn't attack smokers financially in his budget, ASH will be furious about it. So yes, ASH certainly do attack smokers, and will be overjoyed if/when George Osborne caves in to their pleading.

So I'm happy to back Forest's campaign to axe the tobacco duty escalator. Simon Clark explains it here.

Axe The Escalator is a long-term campaign designed to combat these demands. We do however need your immediate support. 

The next Budget is on March 16 and it's important consumers make their voices heard sooner rather than later in case the Chancellor is tempted to. 

Please visit the Axe The Escalator website (accessible by clicking the link under the sidebar image on the right of this blog - DP) or go direct to the 'Tell Your MP' page. 

Enter your postcode and a letter will appear addressed to your MP. If you agree with it follow the instructions and we'll send it to your MP on your behalf. It should take no more than a minute or two.

Do make your views known on this, if only to point out that the escalator is a nasty club to hit smokers with and perhaps not the best approach, as suggested this week in an interesting National Post article.

They’re desperate. This is why they’re falling back on ever more heavy-handed interventions. Instead of looking for creative ways to help people quit smoking or find methods to minimize smoking’s harm, the public health establishment is seeking to make smoking highly impractical and difficult, if not impossible. 

While there’s an undeniable logic to this method, believing it can succeed hardly seems in keeping with what we know about human nature. It’s already very expensive, socially ostracizing and logistically difficult to smoke. But some people keep doing it anyway. That’s an indication that all the “sticks” in the world won’t be enough to motivate these smokers to quit (though they will steer smokers to cheaper contraband products); so why not try some “carrots”? 

I support the public health establishment’s campaign to cut down on smoking deaths. I just disagree with the method they’ve chosen to cling to, even when that method has exhausted its usefulness. No one who still smokes cigarettes in 2016 is going to be moved by punitive measures. The race to ban more and tax more tobacco products isn’t just ineffective, it’s getting in the way of voluntary entrepreneurial products that could be doing massive good.

Quite. So I encourage you to click the link and see what response you get from your MP about ceasing bullying and trying encouragement instead. Or, you know, perhaps just leaving smokers alone to make their own choices in life, an alien concept for our politicians to grasp, it would seem.

Fake Charities/Quangos And The Freedom Of Information Act

Via Guido, it appears that the Freedom of Information Act may be widened to include private companies which are in receipt of public money.

Freedom of information law is to be extended to private companies carrying out public contracts, a Justice Minister has said. 

Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes said the change would be written into the contracts of companies after the publication of a new code of practice, which he said should be in place by the end of this year. 

"We do intend to extend [freedom of information] further as soon as it will be practical," he told MPs at Justice Questions in the House of Commons. 

"We intend to publish a revised code of practice to make sure that those private companies that carry out public functions have freedom of information requirements in their contracts, and go further than that, and we hope that will be in place by the end of this year."

Sounds fair enough. If a company receives taxpayer funding, the taxpayer should be entitled to ask questions about what is being done with it. An obvious downside is that said company will incur a cost in complying and will pass that cost onto its customers (i.e. the taxpayer) but the principle is sound.

By the same token, though, there are other organisations which happily receive a lot of tax receipts from government who are exempt from the FOIA and - by the same token - should also be included in any extended FOI rules. 

Step forward ASH who received £150k of their annual budget from the Department of Health last year. Or how about ASH Wales who derive 73% of their income from state bodies? Or perhaps Smokefree South West who are 100% tax-funded and currently spending their way through £1.4 million of your money in this financial year?

There are many, many others we could mention, all of which enjoy taking your cash but who are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and can safely ignore you if you chose to ask for, say, correspondence between themselves and their 'supporting charities'. Shouldn't they be subject to scrutiny too, Mr Hughes?

Fair's fair, I say.

Turning Off The Tax Tap

Via Taking Liberties, if you listen carefully, you might just hear a gravy train coming off the rails down in the South West.

On Wednesday a producer rang to tell me that councils in Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset have been reviewing their financial support for Smokefree South West. 

One council has decided to stop funding the group, another has cut its funding, and a third is considering its position.

I'm sure your heart, like mine, bleeds at news of this tax tap being slowly turned off.

Simon Clark continues ...

It's council tax payers' money, after all. I think they have a right to know [how much money Smokefree South West get], even though the Sunday Politics film made a point of saying that the cost to the local community is just 30p per person. 

Add it up across the region, though, and it's a tidy sum. Exactly how much I don't know because the Smokefree South West website doesn't say, but I'm sure, with a few FOI requests, we could find out.

I can give you a ballpark, though, because I asked just that question to all Smokefree South West's funders - "15 Public Health teams based in local authorities across the region", according to their website - back in 2012. For 2010/11, these were the amounts.

Swindon £86,627
Bournemouth £149,019
Dorset £181,371
Torbay £66,601
Plymouth £124,051
Cornwall & Scilly £263,184
South Gloucs £127,197
Bristol £184,718.70 (and 70p?!?)
Bath & NE Somerset £87,814
NHS Somerset £259,318
North Somerset £100,702
Wiltshire £224,356
Gloucestershire £260,384

That's without counting Devon who acknowledged my request but somehow forgot to reply. So the yearly sum was somewhere just shy of a cool £2.5 million! Whether it has increased since then, we don't know but I'd expect not.

Never mind the floods down there at the moment, Smokefree South West are swimming in cash compared to the same reply I received from North East PCTs detailing funds of a comparatively small £733,000. Little wonder, then, that much of the UK tobacco control industry's activity is coordinated by their poster child in the South West, eh? You may remember that the plain packs campaign was led by SFSW thanks to their ability to pull £486,462.06 from their usual funding to lobby the government with their (or our) own money.

As Clark says, congratulations to the councils concerned for recognising that this is something which shouldn't be consuming such a large proportion of our taxes. Seeing as so many other groups have so much to say on tobacco control, let them put their own money up instead of ripping off the public and getting their pharma industry lobbying done at our expense.

Bravo Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset, let's hope other regions follow their lead and cut hard; cut deep.

The Benevolent State Comes To Puddlecote Inc

We're used to some arms of the state at Puddlecote Inc, but then we're a private business so are a ripe target for regulations, inspections, and intransigent bureaucracy - all chargeable, of course - plus taxes, and governments using our money to bribe voters.

But those who follow me on social media might have seen that the state visited today under a different guise; that of confiscating a citizen's car for non-payment of road tax.

DVLA just turned up to impound car of woman in old people's home opposite Puddlecote Inc, we told them she couldn't pay because ... (1/2)
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) January 29, 2014

(2/2) ... she died recently. No dice, they're towing it anyway
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) January 29, 2014

Now, we're used to jumping through an incredible number of state hoops on a daily basis. In fact, increasingly it's just about all we do, with actually developing the business and creating employment taking up a minority of our time after having satisfied the never-ending new regulations being applied (we've yet to see a single one repealed, by the way, Dave, despite what you like to grandstand to your pals in Davos).

So, despite a fleet of 70 vehicles of our own, a tow-truck turning up was something of a novelty as we are on the ball or we're finished. Today we saw first-hand that others experience far more trouble complying.

For background, we'd noticed one of our neighbours' cars - a nicely-kept 2001 4WD - had been clamped and found out that the owner had died before her road tax was due in November. But, since she was in council accommodation we were sure they would be organising her affairs.

Apparently not.

Our Fleet Manager was incensed that the late woman's car was to be confiscated and crushed so went out to let them know that she was dead, backed up by a couple of the home's residents. Surely a death would call the dogs off until the situation could be sorted out?

It made no impression, they had their work sheet and it had to be towed unless the back penalties of £260 were paid. So our guy came back in and we immediately authorised payment from our company card to stave them off.

The car was left alone and the clamp removed, with the tow truck driver advising us to "get it SORNed quick, so we don't have to come back again". And this is where we came up against the other side of a state we're not used to dealing with in such circumstances - what a palaver!

Stupidly, we rang DVLA to explain to them that this vehicle was parked on private land but that the owner had died; that it was therefore quite obvious that this was eligible for a SORN, so could they note that on their records.

"Do you have the V5 document?", they asked. We replied no, and that we had paid to preserve the late resident's car and were making enquiries as to their next of kin. "Sorry, we can't do that then, because it would be an illegal submission.". Seriously.

So next call was to the council who housed her. "Sorry", they said, but an individual's affairs were up to them to organise. We pointed out that the car was parked in their private car park and that she was in their care when she died, but that cut no ice either. But did they have contact details for the next of kin? No, they couldn't give us those because the warden at the home is responsible for that. So we asked for his details and rang there instead.

The first response once our FM explained the situation was for the warden to fiercely deny that he had reported the vehicle. Strange first response, we thought, but our FM soldiered on. "Sorry", said the warden (we were starting to realise that the computer says no a lot for the public sector), "I can't give you contact details because of data protection".

So, as things stood, we'd paid out £260 to save a vehicle from destruction which should have been the job of someone paid by our taxes to care for her, but after an hour had got absolutely nowhere in trying to avoid the same thing re-occurring.

The warden assured us that he would contact the family and get them to give us a call. "Best I can do", he said.

Three hours later we did receive a call, and the daughter was gushing in gratitude for what we'd done. She thought that the car was safe because - get this - she'd been told by the Council that it was parked on private land so she wasn't required to do anything. Yes! One arm of the state was oblivious to the fact that another arm of the state had ordered that even if your vehicle has no engine and is parked in the middle of a privately-owned field, it still required SORN or else the DVLA will pinch it and crush the thing if need be.

It seems that - in the government's zeal to squeeze every last penny out of us citizens to pay for their ceaseless waste - they're even confusing their own public sector bodies with the avalanche of red tape. Fancy that!

The family are calling us tomorrow to organise something more permanent for the car and are extremely grateful that we stepped in to sort things out. But, as things stand, the state now has £260 in fines from a dead woman, caused by the incompetence of another branch of the state.

Where would we be without these oh-so-benevolent tax-funded folk, eh?

Touché

Put-down of the week comes from Andrew Griffiths, Tory MP for Burton, in reply to a Labour member's hypocrisy about helping pubs.

"I am always prepared to listen to anything that might support the great British pub, but as the hon. Gentleman is from the party that introduced the hated beer duty escalator and the smoking ban, he needs to think long and hard about what he can do to support British pubs."

Quite.

Never forget. Never forgive.

Eric Schmidt The Cross Border Shopper

Kudos to Google's Eric Schmidt today for standing his ground so bluntly on tax avoidance (emphasis mine).

Schmidt: "Taxes are not a choice." 

Q (from Krishnan Guru-Murthy): "The way you use transfer pricing, Ed Miliband says that's wrong. You've taken a decision to put a lot of money in Bermuda, and you take moral positions in lots of other areas." 

Schmidt: "If the international tax regime changes we will too." 

Q: "But is that moral?" 

Schmidt:"Virtually all the American companies have tax structures like this, and UK companies operating in the US do too. But if we pay more taxes in one area then we pay less in another."

And that is the beginning, middle and end of it.

Miliband and Cameron are playing a confidence trick on the public in a competition to appear the most 'concerned'. But the truth - which is obstinately refusing to move out of the way of political massaging of voter envy - is that politicians like Miliband and Cameron made the rules which Google are adhering to.

The EU is a free trade area for all 27 member states, meaning that a multi-national company has to choose where to base its operation. Only a business with someone astoundingly incompetent at the helm would choose a nation which didn't benefit their business the most.

The problem for the UK is that we are not competitive enough for Google to stick their name plate up on a head office in London, and it is arrogant for British politicians to automatically assume Schmidt should do so whether the UK is competitive or not.

The alternative - which I really do believe some sad people are suggesting - is that Google should have head offices in every EU state where they do business. But then, they are a multi-national with all the associated economics of scale which help to create jobs, lower prices for their advertisers and (ahem) allow them to offer services 100% free to the public; and the EU is run like a great big nation with businesses based all around it according to their choice. Like, as Schmidt rightly compares, the USA.

Schmidt: "Personal answer: when you have high differential tax rates you will have widely divergent outcomes, you have this in the US where you have lots of different rates. There's some feeling this is good because it makes governments moderate ... this is a big fight in the economics community.

So, if Miliband and Cameron want Google's cash, work for it. Make the UK the most attractive EU nation to base itself. The fact they don't means that Miliband and Cameron are failing in not attracting the receipts, not that Google are 'immoral' for not rewarding that failure.

Of course, we could always leave the EU, thereby solving the problem, but none of the three main parties can officially contemplate that so - IMO - they really should zip their traps.

Besides, again in my humble opinion, it's everyone's democratic duty to avoid tax as I commented at Longrider's the other day.

The state is made up of legislators and employees whose only job is to legislate and spend. Human nature – and historical experience – shows that they will legislate and spend as much as they possibly can unless checked. 

We are now at such high levels of taxation compared with GDP (over 50% in many developed nations) that legislators have trouble legislating for more money to spend as it is politically damaging to their re-election. They know this which is why we have seen many policies since 2000 which seek to bribe the public with spending of *other* people’s money. For example, minimum wage, paternity pay, auto-enrolment pensions, plus talk of a living wage etc. 

The control of excessive legislation on taxes is fear of electoral defeat; the control on excessive spending (which they’d naturally wish to do) is to deprive the state of excessive money to spend, thereby forcing them to live within their means or have to explain themselves for accumulating debt. 

Governments have reached the limit of what they can get away with from the electorate with taxation in relation to GDP; they have almost exhausted other people’s money that they can spend; so they are now scrambling around trying to claim that it is “immoral” to follow their own rules and use perfectly acceptable avoidance methods. Just to hoover up more money to spend. 

Avoiding tax is therefore a part of democratic process, and we should be proud to be part of checks and balances on out-of-control government by doing so.

We jewel robbers should understand this very well.

Hands up who refuses to pay UK duty on cigarettes and utilises the EU market to buy them abroad instead. It's our way of sending a message that the state has gone too far and is no longer competitive compared with Belgium or, I dunno, Bulgaria. It is our little bit of tax avoidance and follows the same principle as that of Google. If the UK government refuses to change its rates of duty, they would have a fucking cheek to harangue us about taking our duty payments elsewhere.

Likewise, vapers have seen what politicians do when they are given too much of our tax - they inevitably waste it by producing ridiculous documents like the Tobacco Products Directive which effectively bans e-cigs.

Trying to make Google, Amazon, Starbucks etc into patsies is an attempt to conceal the obvious fact that the UK government has spent so much of our money that they have nowhere left to go to raise funds to waste, as again Longrider neatly describes today.

Clegg and Miliband ... will merely piss it up the wall, lining the pockets of their fat cat cronies in the NGOs, fake charities, quangos and the makers of inane public information films. 

It is you and I who have to dig deeper into our wallets to fund the largesse of politicians who think our money is their money to give to their friends and co-conspirators in the third sector and the public sector.

Quite.

There is one last curiosity which all three leaders have brutally exposed in the past week too.

When all three parties talk tough about limiting banker bonuses, the industry replies that, in the global internet-led world, the bankers would simply up sticks and move to where their rewards - and the huge taxation which comes with them - are better appreciated.

When there is talk of taxing banking transactions (the Robin Hood tax), banks reply that many companies would simply relocate to Singapore and take their corporation tax contributions with them.

"Good riddance" is the general bravado from advocates of both policies, "if they think like that, we don't want 'em".

Yet when companies like Google and Amazon do exactly that to avoid unhelpful tax rates, politicians whine like a McLaren F1 car.

I wish they'd make their minds up.

Budgetballs

Overall, I actually quite liked the budget from what I've seen of it - busy days seem to be coming thick and fast these days, and getting ever busier in themselves.

As a business owner I'm of course pleased with the National Insurance relief and bringing forward a 1% Corporation Tax reduction, and pleased that our staff will pay even less tax with the £10k free pay threshold being rushed in.

The beer duty escalator scrapped and even reversed was a delight (I really must check out Alcohol Concern's Twitter feed) and I reckon a mere 2% over inflation on snout was about the best we could hope for from the current mindset of fake charity enthralled politicos (must check ASH's too). Not that I've paid UK tobacco duty for quite some time, it has to be said.

Here are, for me, a couple of stand-out quotes from today's BBC coverage.

[Mike Benner, chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), said:] "Since the duty escalator was introduced in 2008, 5,800 pubs have been forced to call last orders for good. What could have been the final nail in the coffin for our pubs has been decisively avoided by the chancellor in a move that will spark celebration in pubs across the UK."

A bit of over-enthusiasm for show is it, Mike mate? Chances are they won't even notice it - after 100 pints they'll be able to buy one extra product in Poundland, it's not exactly Whisky Galore, is it?

And about those 5,800 pub losses, I think you know very well what caused the majority of them. Clue: it ain't the beer tax.

"We've now frozen fuel duty for two years," Mr Osborne said. "This has not been easy. The government has foregone £6bn in revenues to date."

My heart bleeds, Georgie-boy. It must be horrendous to be forced by public opinion to only steal the same amount from us this year as you did last. How Al Capone's Chicago shopkeepers must have similarly wept for his deprivation when he generously froze their eye-watering protection racket premiums.

Around The World In Beer Control

I'll mostly be trundling up to Whitehall today for a few gentle drinks to celebrate the month of Drinkuary.

To coincide, I thought those of you who like a beer might be interested in a recent round-up of articles which assess how your particular vice is being attacked considered around the world.

In the US, the fiscal cliff has afforded over-spending politicians a perfect opportunity to screw the small brewer into his own floorboards.

Do we really think that these small American brewers will be able to compete effectively  (and grow and hire more workers) if the federal excise tax they pay increases from $7 per barrel to, say, $50 per barrel, as would be likely under the Jacobsen-Hacker proposal? A few might. But I guarantee you, most would not. In fact, many would be forced to shutter their breweries altogether and lay off their workers. Meanwhile, the large multinational brewers – AB InBev and MillerCoors – likely would be strengthened by such a change through reduction in competition.

The amount of revenue raised from small brewers by the Jacobsen-Hacker proposal is simply not justified by the economic harm such a proposal would cause.

Wow! That's a huge increase.

The new year has seen the same in France minus Gerard Depardieu, too.

Recovering from the infamous New Year Hangover was all the harder for us in France this year when we discovered, after dragging ourselves to the pub for an indispensable hair of the dog, that the most thirst-quenching of hangover solutions had just become that little bit more expensive.

The hike had been decided on in early December (happy Christmas!), when the French parliament approved a bill to raise beer tax by an excruciating 160%. 

Analysts predict that the cost of a pint will increase by 20 – 25%. With the current price – frankly extortionate for the poor standard of beer provided – at around €7 in Paris, we could be looking at €8.50 - €9 from now on.

Crikey! How on Earth do their politicians think that this is merited?

The reason France is able to get away with such a painful increase (the European Brewers’ Association described it as “the largest in history”) is because neighbouring governments collect a much prettier penny from their own punters. As President François Hollande pointed out in December, France’s increased rate is still piddly compared with those of the UK and Ireland, the treasuries of which garner 55p and 39p per pint respectively.

Ah yes, the ratchet only goes one way, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, in Russia plus Gerard Depardieu.

Beer in Russia will become an alcoholic drink for the first time on New Year's Day. 

Beer's new status as alcohol, however, will prevent retail sales from street outlets such as kiosks, railway stations, bus stops and petrol stations – which account for up to 30 per cent of sales – as well as preventing sales between 11pm and 8am, and introducing a ban on television advertising of beer. 

The new restrictions were signed off by then President Dmitry Medvedev in 2011 as part of an attempt to counter alcohol abuse, which he earlier called a "national calamity".

Do you think part of the "calamity" might be that they haven't been able to tax it before? Hmm, whaddya reckon?

Vodka remains the most popular – and most damaging – alcoholic drink in Russia but beer has been steadily advancing on it in recent years. 

Isaac Sheps, the chairman of the Union of Russian Brewers, claimed that cutting access to beer – including attempts by some regional governments to ban sales after 7pm or 8pm rather than 11pm – could be damaging to health. 

"It will be tougher if you want to buy a beer on the way home from work, or pop down from your apartment," he told the Daily Telegraph. 

"So you have to stock at home. And stocking beer is more problematic than stocking vodka. It's bulky, it's big, there's no room for it in small homes. It's much easier to buy two bottles of vodka and manage for your instant need for alcohol. 

"So it's quite ironic that this attempt to improve health and lower alcoholism could have the opposite effect and cause people to drink more harmful spirits."

Hey, Isaac, it's never been about health. You've got a lot to learn sunshine.

Still, beer will be OK in the long run, eh? I mean, it's not like there's a game-changer like the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) - which did for tobacco - on the horizon any time soon. Not au fait with the MSA? Well, it was a court case which inflicted billions in costs on a number of tobacco companies after it asserted that tobacco was 'addictive'. These payments were, crucially, distributed to health groups ... so they could manufacture even more 'studies' on the damaging effect of smoking.

If only the anti-alcohol crew were able to call on such a binding judgement, eh? Just imagine the fun (and funds) they could enjoy if someone were to be successful.

Brown and four other inmates at Idaho’s Kuna facility are suing major beer companies, blaming their crimes on alcoholism and claiming that the companies are responsible because they don’t warn consumers that their products are addictive. 

Reminiscent of lawsuits filed against major tobacco companies in the mid-1990s, the litigation targets many of the same companies named in a lawsuit filed last February by an Indian tribe in South Dakota. In that case, the Oglala Sioux accused beer companies and a nearby store of contributing to rampant alcoholism on the reservation by disregarding the tribe’s no-alcohol policy. 

“I have spent a great deal of that time in prison because of situations that have arose because of people being drunk, or because of situations in which alcohol played a major role,” Brown wrote. “At no time in my life, prior to me becoming an alcoholic, was I ever informed that alcohol was habit forming and addictive.” 

That argument was the crux of class-action lawsuits against major tobacco companies in the 1990s, which led to stronger warning labels and restrictions on advertising for cigarettes and other tobacco products. 

Jeremy Brown, 34, is serving a 20- to 30-year sentence for a 2001 shooting in Latah County that seriously injured a man. He said that he was drunk at the time and that if he’d not been an alcoholic, “the shooting would never happened.” 

He said he never would have started drinking if he knew it was habit forming.

Those war drums are banging in the distance, beer guys. Take your earmuffs off, just in case.

Education For Life, Not Just For Christmas

I do hope Christmas is going down as well with you as it is in Puddlecoteville.

Yesterday, a dozen of us descended on one of those licensed restaurants - which used to be called pubs - for a meal where we could just leave the plates and bugger off when we'd had our fill of turkey and Sancerre. On returning home (via a few hours at a house containing a Wii machine to knacker the little Ps with Just Dance), Mrs P and I enjoyed a joyous but intangible Christmas present.

I'm not sure exactly when the practice started, but we've taken to pinching small portions of the little uns' bits and bobs every now and then. For example, a few chips from a Maccy D's meal, a spoonful of their after dinner dessert, a couple of sour sweets from the pick'n'mix. You know, that sort of thing.

We call it 'tax'.

They've reluctantly become accustomed to it, and it was helpful in explaining the concept of taxation in their younger years. You should have seen the look on their faces when we first described how many things the government applies this to. They were particularly amazed at road tax, fuel duty and VAT on top of it with relation to transport ... and that was before going on to explain toll roads, insurance duty and fees for some to park outside their own home.

They each received a Galaxy selection box, amongst other things, yesterday morning and we - with tongues firmly in cheek - announced that the tax would be a Ripple bar from one and a bag of Minstrels from the other. It was heartening to find out later that the very sweets in question had, without our noticing, been spirited away into hiding places in their rooms.

Oh joy! They already know about tax, but now they have developed a practical understanding of tax avoidance too.

Now that's something they won't learn in the state education system, eh?

An HMRC 'Wise Guy' Calls

The oddest thing happened this morning.

Sitting at my desk, some woman just wandered in through our warehouse and asked to talk to a director. I replied that I'm one so how can I help. She tersely declared that she works for HMRC and demanded a payment of £15,000 for overdue corporation tax.

I was taken aback for a moment as she looked about 60 and was dressed in jeans and a sweat shirt - it's not the kind of thing one would expect her to come out with.

As it happened, the people who deal with our accounts were both at a funeral at the time, so I said I'd have to talk to them first. She, however, insisted that as I was a director I would be able to sign a cheque right there and then. Of course I could, but there was no way I would even consider doing that, especially for someone who just breezes in arrogantly from the street.

She fixed me with a surprised glare (perhaps for not shitting myself when faced with a rep of the government, I dunno), before handing me her card and telling me all the nasty things that might happen if it's not paid in the next week. Now, I've often said that tax is effectively extortion with menaces, but I've never seen it illustrated in such a blatant manner.

On later talking to our credit controller, she said that we'd paid a huge amount up front and were just waiting for some communication of the balance due before settling it - that's what one would expect from a government agency, after all. However, we'd not received a single letter or phone call to tell us what we were supposed to pay. Wouldn't it have been much more professional - and less costly in time and, therefore, money - to ring or write rather than sending some late middle-ager round to ask for a cheque out of the blue?

And when did employing similar intimidatory methods to 1930s mafia protection racketeers become an acceptable state policy?

UPDATE: By coincidence, Ken Frost has today provided another example of eager HMRC debt collectors turning up unannounced and demanding cash.

The One-Sided Equation Trick

Drinks industry correspondent Phil Mellows has written a very good piece explaining how the debate about alcohol has departed from proper cost/benefit analysis, and instead become a political numbers game. It's worth reading in full, but this particular observation jumped out of the page.

One of the odd things that always struck me about the Sheffield modelling study, on which claims for the potential efficacy of minimum unit pricing is almost exclusively based, is the compulsive costing of everything, and it attracts particular attention from Makela. 

To take the most staggering example, Makela points out you can’t calculate the cost to society of people with alcohol problems becoming unemployed because someone else comes off the dole and takes the job. There’s a heavy loss to the individual but no loss to society. 

Yet in the Sheffield modelling no less than 75% of society’s gain from a 40p minimum price comes from a fictitious reduction in unemployment. 

Perhaps minimum pricing will work. Perhaps there is an ethical case for it. But spurious cost savings aren’t going to convince me.

He's right, of course. Public health is in the habit of grabbing any kind of dubious statistic to suit whichever cause they are advocating for at any one time, so it isn't surprising to know that Sheffield Uni are engaging in the time-honoured practice of the one-sided equation. There's more about their flawed 'science' here, and a little bit about their incompetence here.

"Spurious cost savings" is a very good description, especially since we've seen the same in reverse from the tobacco control lobby.

You see, while Sheffield are declaring that loss of earnings is a total disaster for the country, Policy Exchange in 2010 were pulling all manner of contortions to discount the same in their appalling "Cough Up" report. As I mentioned at the time.

Page 16 concludes that all these smokers giving up, while deletorious to the tobacco industry, will have an impact on the economy of £nil as the money will be spent elsewhere (the economic 'free lunch', benefits without corresponding cost). Conversely, however, the cost of cleaning up cigarette litter is valued at £342m with no reasonable assumption that the streets will still need to be swept anyway (unless there are dedicated fag butt sweepers paid £342m pa that I didn't know about).

You see, both cannot possibly be correct at the same time. What we are seeing is the one-sided equation when it suits them, and a two-sided one when that is the better option for their pre-conceived conclusion. Either Sheffield bods are negligent in not acknowledging that unemployment will lead to societal opportunities elsewhere, or Policy Exchange were negligent in stating that opportunities will occur elsewhere (while also stating that they, err, wouldn't).

Furthermore, Policy Exchange discounted profits made outside the UK - despite the fact that they are taxed here - and also ignored indirect costs (presumably because they didn't fit the agenda) in some places but included them in others.

It all points to the one conclusion, though. Public health will twist statistics to their own advantage, including or not including whatever they believe will gull politicians in favour of their case.

They're not interested in impartial analysis - never have been - just what statistical lies they can get away with.

If it were truly about health, they'd be honest, scrupulous and consistent in their methodology. The fact they aren't, proves that it isn't.

Saying No To Tax And Silliness

It's been a busy week at Puddlecote Inc. but it ended on a high with a most satisfying Friday.

Some may remember previous articles where I touch upon taxation, and how I'm buggered if I'm letting those Westminster chimps get any more than is absolutely necessary. Hey, I didn't start this. Blame Nick. Well, we signed off our accounts today and our accountant saved us, legally, double his original estimate in the first year.

A result like this must, of course, be followed with a celebratory smokey-drinky, which is where I'm off to very soon. It was a Ruby and Sancerre on Wednesday, so perhaps Chinese and Elegant Frog tonight.

Talking of alcohol, you will notice I have a new widget in the sidebar.


It is rather self-explanatory, but the Pub Curmudgeon points out that the corresponding e-petition isn't gaining much traction. I'm sure we could add a few signatures to it, especially if the link is spread around a bit. The logo and HTML can be found here if you'd like to join in on a blog or other medium.

The interesting thing about this is that it perfectly confirms the futility of the e-petitions site. There is much grumbling about how the petition to amend the smoking ban had attracted far less support than expected considering the widespread dissatisfaction we all know exists, and anti-smokers took this as proof there wasn't dissent at all.

The minimum alcohol petition shows this to be misguided. It was crystal clear when Cameron announced the daft idea, that minimum pricing was derided by a huge majority of the country, from all political backgrounds. If the e-petitions initiative was working, we'd see the numbers sky-rocketing.

The lack of signatures on these petitions doesn't prove they are not valid campaigns, merely that no-one trusts the process itself; that no-one trusts the government to act on public opinion; and that merely harvesting public opinion from online sources is deeply flawed.

The campaigns aren't failing - politicians are. Probably purposely.

I Hope You're Suitably Grateful For Not Being Mugged Again

While I'm on, I couldn't help but zero in on this quote from George Osborne in today's Autumn Statement.

As a result [of freezing fuel duty], Mr Osborne said the average family would save £144 a year on filling up their car.

This is the world of the gut-wrenchingly absurd politician. By not punishing us further, he is actually saving us money. D'you see?

How very fucking generous.

Thanks to This is Money for showing us how very much politicians have 'saved' us in the past decade.

They've been stealing your earnings for years - funding hare-brained schemes and disgustingly illiberal shite - but have now decided to keep their thieving fingers to themselves for a few months ...

... and we're meant to be grateful?

If they don't disgust you, why not? Serious question.

Box-Ticking Again

Christ! It never ceases, does it?

Fresh from dancing to the tune of VOSA, up pops HMRC.

We've just been notified that we're one of the lucky companies drawn out of the tax authority's annual lottery - the prize is a comprehensive fact-checking exercise.

We're only talking simple stuff, mind, like (all for 2009/10):

- Details of every item of expenditure for the tax year
- All petty cash records
- Full analysis of all direct costs (£1m worth)
- Explanation, get this, of a decrease in disclosed premises costs
- Breakdown of all vehicle repairs expenditure (we operate over 60 of them)
- Reason for increased admin costs (err, HMRC know we hired 20 new staff, they have their tax records)
- Breakdown of increased advertising items (staff don't just pitch up on the doorstep)
- Provide original documents for legal and professional fees (I'll get to that later)
- List all monthly HP charges incurred (again, for 60 odd vehicles)
- Sources of all capital introduced and reasons why

Fortunately, we just sit around scratching our arses day in day out so can spend a week pulling all this info out. It's not like we're running a business which employs 100 people or anything. Sheesh.

Of all those demands, though, I laughed out loud at the legal and professional fees one. You see, we're now going to have to liaise with our accountants - who have already been paid for collating the records for submission last year - in order that they can help us collate it all again. At their usual hourly rate.

Add that to the increase in paying fees to public sector bodies for never-ending additions to regulations we are forced to follow, and I'd be surprised if many companies in the UK have not seen an increase in such fees.

In other news, UK unemployment total reaches 17-year high.

Wow! How did that happen considering the utopian business environment this country affords, eh?

Good grief.

Haven't You Forgotten Something, Nick?

The Taxpayers' Alliance yesterday lauded Nick Clegg's proposals to extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

[...] it was extremely welcome news this morning that the coalition is planning to extend the UK’s Freedom of Information laws. Nick Clegg has announced plans to make bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Advertising Standards Agency, Network Rail and the Local Government Association subject to the legislation.

But hold on, there's a large tranche of government handouts missing from that list, isn't there?

Our report on Taxpayer funded lobbying and political campaigning found that many organisations like Alcohol Concern were dependent on the Department of Health for the vast majority of their funding. Nick Clegg should be commended for this move but it’s crucial that bodies such as these are included in the broadened scope of the Act if taxpayers are to be given full information on public spending.

Ah, that's better.

Indeed, we're talking here of the ever-increasing state-funded fake charity phenomenon. Since 1997, we have seen a massive expansion of 'the third sector' as Labour actively shovelled funds their way to perform tasks that the civil service or other public sector bodies used to do. That's why you see Cancer Research UK employees seconded to the Department of Health, for example.

You pay for this through your taxes, yet such organisations can ignore any and all requests for information on how they spend it.

Why Clegg is so shy about mentioning charities at this point would seem to be a mystery until one takes into account the much-trumpeted 'Big Society'. Cos that's all based on voluntary work, isn't it, and charities would fall into that category (well, not the ones we talk about here, natch, but they're conveniently snuggled under that umbrella).

OK, we know Clegg is full of horse shit, but this is one area where he cannot be allowed to wriggle free so easily.

They receive our money. They spend our money. They should be accountable as to how they use it. There are no two ways about it.

So, either they allow the average taxpayer - err, me, for example - the power to demand answers from those who tend to routinely ignore inconvenient correspondence, or the organisations should be allowed to keep their privacy ... by getting their grubby mitts out of the public purse.

What could be fairer than that, eh?