Budget Special – exclusive revelations
Our team of newshounds stalk the corridors, comb the columns and earwig the airways to bring you the latest news, comment and criticism.
Our reporter was able to pose as an illegal immigrant and work as a cleaner at the Treasury with after-hours access to the private office of the Chancellor. In the wastepaper basket several screwed up piece of paper revealed a handwritten draft of a speech that Alasspoor Darling planned to deliver to the House on the occasion of the forthcoming budget. In our latest scoop we are pleased to reproduce the text, word for word. Only the identity of our reporter has been omitted for security reasons. This is what the Chancellor scribbled:
Mr Speaker, everybody agrees that the burden of taxation falls on those least able to pay. Tax has reached epidemic proportions. It is a heavy burden that reduces thousands of families onto the bread line or into abject poverty. Taxes are taken from wages. They are added to the price of everything we buy – even the basic essentials.
But the poor have carried this burden – unfair and unjust as it is – for many years. They live in hope that the burden will be reduced – transferred to people who earn over £150,000 a year. In all fairness, the rich are not equipped to deal with this sudden, unexpected burden. But the poor have been strengthened by the burden of taxation. Their shoulders are broad. They can cope. To remove the burden now – suddenly – could cause a knee-jerk reaction and inflict an injury to their back muscles – creating a sudden demand on the already overstretched Health Service.
To levy tax on those earning an above average salary would merely have the effect of increasing the poor and needy in our society. And nobody wants that, I am sure. I think you will agree this is the last thing we need at the present time when we are practically insolvent and bankrupt.
No choice
So, after considerable deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I have no choice but to announce a raft of swingeing new taxes on the poor. In making this announcement this afternoon, I know I can rely on the patriotism of the working class. They give their lives when duty calls. So I will be doubling the duty on all essentials – including food, clothing, fuel, beer and, of course, fags.
And I know you have it in you to bear more – that you can dig deep into your hidden reserves of British strength, into your pockets and into your wage packets and meet these extra taxes with determination and fortitude in the knowledge that we, the elected government, will do our best to waste them on quangos, consultants, silly booklets and, of course, our expense claims.
I know that you will be thinking that this crisis has not been of your making. It was caused by government incompetence, financial greed in the City and the Americans. You may think that those in authority may have been shortsighted. But equally, I know you are long suffering. And so, in conclusion, I would like to remind you of the old saying – “From those who have the least shall the most be taken away.”
Mr Speaker, I commend this budget to the House.