Tax.

I don't know how accurate this is, but apparently Stephen King's take on the majority approach to paying tax is this:

“The majority would rather douse their dicks with lighter fluid, strike a match, and dance around singing Disco Inferno than pay one more cent in taxes to Uncle Sugar.”

He's probably about right there. You get nothing tangible for the missing loot, that's the problem. Unless you have a daily need for the armed forces it can seem that an awful lot of money just disappears without trace or explanation. It's not like you come away with a bag of food or some self-assembly furniture or even an invoice explaining why you've had your pocket picked. There's just the feeling that for every pound that goes on something useful and worthy, there's another going to massively overpaid civil servants or still being used to fund MP's moat cleaning and mars bars. For all that I begrudge those £100,000 per year civil servants, claiming that's what they need to be paid because that's the going rate, when most of them seem to struggle with expressing themselves in their first language, let alone making a real and effective contribution, more than someone wasting taxpayers' money on a duck island. At least that required imagination.

There's also the feeling that I'm forking out my fair share, arguably more than my fair share, while others are getting away with paying less than theirs. Red Ken Livingstone (now Blue Ken, or Pretty Green Ken?) has set up a company (Silveta). This allows him to pay 20% corporation tax on his earnings, rather less than the 50% he should be paying. If the ultra-leftie newt-fancier is dodging HMRC bullets, then who isn't at it? Am I the only one chipping into the country's coffers at the prescribed rate? Jeremy Hunt, Radio 4's favourite spoonerism (Secretary for Hulture, Jeremy ….) has transferred his company's office buildings to knock a cool £100,000 off his tax bill. I once received a Poll Tax bill with a statement on the rear allocating my payments against the local authority's heads of expense: police, fire service, bin men, street lighting, etc. The last item was non-payment by others (or something like that). Now if others don't pay, that's between the local authority and them. It can't fall to me to make up the shortfall. What if no-one else paid? I pay a fortune in taxes, but enough to run a borough council? I refused to pay that bit, for a while at least, as bit of a protest before caving in and forking out, yet again, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Cameron's suit v my car.

“Tough it out” messages from the PM and his vestigial twin yesterday. A hard sell this austerity stuff. I'm not buying it. I'm with the Greeks and the French. They voted out the austere, in with the spendthrifts. Let someone else sort it out after I'm gone, I say. We're up the creek without a canoe never mind the paddle, so making everyone dead skint and miserable isn't going to solve anything. The PM tells us he wants a country where the hard working can get on and earn rewards. I've worked like a madman for approaching thirty five years now, under administrations of various hues and with various political ideals, and they've all just bled me dry with all manner of taxes, never allowed me to get ahead, as it seems I'm charged with supporting the rich who dodge and the underclass who won't pay. Making proclamations wearing a suit that cost more than my car, and in shoes that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe does not cut it, really. That goes for all parties now. The last properly dressed politician was Michael Foot, sponsor of International Year of the Dishevelled.