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.
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