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.