Skip to main content

Plumbers and electricians go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200

So, Treasury minister David Gauke infoms the great British public today that paying a plumber in cash to get a discount is morally wrong.

It would appear that when you pay someone cash in hand to save on the paperwork or reduce the costs of fixing something, you are defrauding the state by taking money from the NHS and police force and reducing the money available for other public spending.

Yes Mr Gauke, I suppose it is.

But how about the billions of pounds that the wonderful Dave Hartnett from HMRC (Revenue and Customs) let Vodafone off the hook (pardon pun) with. Or the millions Goldman Sachs got away with.

Then there's the small matter of the sale of the actual Revenue and Customs buildings to a bunch of parasitic, off-shore tax dodgers in Bermuda. Very sensible that one.

Or the millions the government allow the private train companies to suck out of the economy in return for an appalling service - subsidies that allowed the Souter family to trouser £38million of public money that could otherwise be used towards providing the public with a better and cheaper service.

But think of all the money the government could make if they brought in a tax on incompetence - the useless and dishonest banks, lackadaisical security firms, totally wasteful outsourcings, PFI director and shareholder pocket-lining. The EDS's, Capitas and Fujitsus. All the government consultants who are more con than sultant. The national scandal that is a total waste of money in skys-the-limit fees to the legal profession who are so vastly overpaid as to be immoral (and they complain about the footballers - at least those £200k a week wastrels aren't paid out of the government coffers like the off-planet wig and gown brigade are). The civil servants who pay themselves via limited companies at single figure income tax rates.

The list is endless.

And we're still waiting for any of the banks to stand up and say sorry for the misery that have caused, and continue to cause, during the past 4 years. But no - they still pay their festering and useless directors huge sums of money in pay, bonuses and golden handshakes/handcuffs to do a job that a nine year old child could patently, from their performance over the past 5 years, do far better.

Yes Mr Gauke. By all means feel free to have a go at the cash-in-hand plumber or electrician.

But why not start at home in Parliament Square first?

Get your own house in order first, and then you can dictate to us, the hard-pressed public who installed you in Westminster, how to pay our plumber.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pirate Bay threatened with closure - doesn't affect me

Swedish file sharing website The Pirate Bay is now under threat following legal action by the British Phonographic Industry last December. They alleged that the website "infringes copyright on a massive scale” regarding the sharing of computer games, software, films and music. Point taken, and one can't for one minute deny that copyright is being infringed on quite a massive scale, not just on Pirate Bay, but all around the internet. However, with due respect to the originators of the shared files, I have never used Pirate Bay myself, except perhaps on very odd occasions for software, films and music. I never use Pirate Bay for software, because I prefer to pay an outlandish price for another seemingly pointless update to Microsoft Office that neither improves my speed nor productivity. And I am quite happy to part with hard earned cash to a company that has already earned a fortune from me - and others - with their updates over the years. And as for the recent update of Pho...
Post a Comment
Read more

Airport amusement

There is no doubt that airports can be quite amusing places. That is apart from being told by a burly security supervisor at the x-ray gate that thanks to the only contribution Yasser Arafat ever made to society, I had to remove my belt, shoes, watch and place my AK-47 in the tray provided. Watching people going around their travel ‘business’ in airports and on board the aircraft is hilarious. There are those who are plainly not very good at it, continually checking all manner of minutiae with the other members of the party. “Do we go to the gate?”, “Have we time for a beer?”, “I MUST get a pizza”. There are those who have plainly not done it much before and like their fellow travellers to be made fully aware of the exact opposite, as they point and gesture to the monitor shouting out their destination and boarding gate at every passing opportunity to one and all around them. There are those who think they are something special – despite the fact they are travelling via bu...
Post a Comment
Read more

Are Camelot dim, dysfunctional, liars or just plain greedy?

There can be no denying that UK lottery operators Camelot are on to a good thing. Especially the overpaid management. They have been reaping the benefits of the franchise for years now - a franchise that in essence, has been licenced by the government to print money. However, I can't quite make up my mind whether the management of the Lotto are dim, dysfunctional, liars or just plain greedy, although the cynic in me answers the question when I consider the chief Executive of Camelot was complaining last year that the annual bonus on her not inconsiderable 7-figure salary had been reduced (conveniently forgetting her 18 year sojourn to date at Camelot has produced a pension we mere mortals can only dream about. How about the poor soldiers, CEO Dianne Thompson, who come back from the far-east minus a leg and have to legally fight for compensation that doesn't even touch what you earn less than a month? And they don't receive CBE's for their troubles either !). Irres...
Post a Comment
Read more