Mark Thomas Presents the People's Manifesto - Mark Thomas [8]
In a world like this, thank God the Daily Mail stands up for the taxpaying earners of Middle England.
However, when it comes to actually paying tax in the UK, the Daily Mail itself is not as forthcoming as it could be. The Daily Mail Group Trust states that its ‘ultimate holding company and immediate parent company is Rothermere Continuation Ltd, a company incorporated in Bermuda’.6 We can assume the Bermuda in question is the same Bermuda as the offshore tax haven and not any high-tax-rate Bermuda that might exist.
In addition, Private Eye alleges that Lord Rothermere is a ‘non domicile’, a tax status where a person can live and work in Britain but avoids paying their full share of tax here. Rothermere has refused to comment on this.
None of this has much to do with the essence of the policy. I just thought you might like to read it.
9
TO RANDOMLY ARM
OAPS WITH GUNS
THERE IS ONLY one surefire way to improve the quality of life for Britain’s elderly population and that is to arm them, properly, with everything from Tasers and 9mm handguns through to AK47s. Want to try and rob an old dear of her pension? Think again! You could be staring down the barrel of an Uzi while a blue-rinse trills, ‘I don’t fucking think so, sweetie.’ Meals on Wheels, you better up your game: someone wants venison with a cranberry and port reduction – give it them or leaden death will come at you from under a tartan travel rug quicker than you can say ‘Bugger me with a Countdown dictionary’.
These scenarios have much to recommend them but the real reason to arm pensioners is that a state pension for a single elderly person is £95.25 a week or £4,797 a year. For an elderly couple it is £152.30 a week or £7,919.60 a year.7 Put it another way: Sir Fred Goodwin, ex-CEO of RBS, walked away with a pension of nearly £1,0008 a day. He gets in five days what an OAP on a state pension gets in a year.
Pensioners and various agencies have lobbied and campaigned to improve this. They have tried begging. They can’t borrow. So now it is time to steal. Arming the elderly is not so much about protecting them from muggers but giving them the means to become the muggers. This policy is nothing short of creating a pensioner bandit army.
Who will they rob? I would recommend the banks. ‘You can’t have pensioners stealing from banks,’ you may cry. Why not? The banks started it. We have subsidised them by over £1.3 trillion, public money that could be paying for pensions. Indeed, I would advocate the hunting of bankers by pensioners. Hordes of pensioners should descend upon the City (after 9.30am so they can use their bus pass).They will roam the streets of London’s financial enclave, dishing out death from trolley bags. They will tie one end of a rope to the back of their Shopmobility scooter and throw the noose end over a lamppost. Bankers will hand over their bonuses or dangle like marionettes.
The pop of champagne corks in the City bars will cease at the sound of the click-clack of knitting needles and the gentle hum of a Dame Vera Lynn song.
And pensioners will get an increased pension, by all means necessary.
10
THERE SHOULD BE
A MAXIMUM WAGE
SAY THE WORDS out loud, ‘maximum wage’, and that popping sound you hear will be Daily Telegraph readers’ capillaries bursting like blood-filled bubble wrap. The poor souls thought the world had ended when the minimum wage was reintroduced, so a maximum wage should finish them off.
‘You can’t introduce a maximum wage,’ they cry, ‘or the wealthy will leave the country.’ Really? Can we have that in a legally binding contract? It’s just that a lot of people have made these promises in the past and then let us down, so I propose a further amendment to this policy: anyone who says they will leave and then doesn’t can be sued for breach of contract.
Amidst these empty threats of departure it is worth noting that the UK loses £18.5 billion a year in tax revenue to offshore tax havens – in corporate tax ‘efficiencies’, rich individual tax avoidance and tax evasion – so when