If it moves, tax it; if it doesn't tax it anyway

WELL HELLO there, Mr Holier-than-Thou. You must be feeling pretty chipper this week, what with your wind turbine on your roof, your multi-coloured recycling bins and your energy-efficient light bulbs.

Not sure about the electric car in the driveway though. What happens when you want to drive more than 30 miles in one go? And just how are you going to recycle those enormous batteries?

It’s one of the hazards of penning this weekly diatribe that you’re forced to face your demons every seven days. This can lead to misery, depression, and excessive alcohol consumption. But mostly I just shrug it off and get on with the bar-room rant and tasteless jokes. This week, however, has left me feeling more battered than usual. (Mind you, I had spent the day dipping boiled sprouts into chocolate in readiness for that Trick or Treat nonsense.)

I think it’s the senseless inevitability of it all that leaves me low. One economist comes out with one report about global warming and the world goes mad. Within seconds we’ve got NuLabour apparatchiks coming out with a whole raft of new taxes designed to bully and berate the average citizen and no-one – NO-ONE - stops to say “Hey, hang on a minute, is this bloke right and, even if he is, is taxation the right way to tackle the problem?”

And meanwhile we’re told that those of us lucky enough to have worked hard all our lives to provide our families with a nice house in a nice area are going to be taxed for that “privilege”. Furthermore, a Council Clipboard Clown will soon be banging on our front door demanding entry just in case we’ve got above ourselves by installing a fancy bathroom or a conservatory.

Usually we just bow our heads and accept that we’re about to get another kicking. Well I’m sorry, but up with this I will not put. I’ve had enough. Middle class civil disobedience starts here.

Let’s start with this global warming nonsense. And let’s introduce a few facts to the argument – an unusual approach in these knee-jerk, tokenism times.

For our sins, Great Britain accounts for just two percent of the world’s total carbon emissions, and that figure will shortly fall as India and China metaphorically put their foot on the gas. If every single one of us in this country stopped driving our cars today until the end of time, the benefits to the environment would be outweighed by just 12 months of China’s current (yes, current) emissions.

The Chinese economy is expanding so fast that they’re opening a new, coal-fired power station every 10 days. Yes, every 10 days. They have 30,000 coal mines, with new ones opening every month. China is literally eating the planet, and however many energy-efficient light bulbs Mr Holier-than-Thou buys isn’t going to change that. So we’re agreed: whatever we do simply isn’t going to matter in the grand scale of things. Our self-flagellation is pointless and meaningless.

Now let’s look at this taxation nonsense. Why is there an assumption that increased taxation is the only way to deal with the perceived problem? And what is the money going to be spent on anyway? Vast acres of eagle-mincing wind farms? Solar panels to drive the pizza-frying microwaves of the underclass? Tidal defences to protect the millions of houses that that nice Mr Prescott has ordered to be built on our flood plains?

If it was for building a dozen new nuclear power stations (preferably in Scotland and Wales) then I could understand it, because however many zillions you throw at the problem, you can’t manufacture coal seams and oil fields.

And anyway, if the government is really serious about this, why don’t they just ban cars with engines bigger than two litres? Why don’t they just remove the licences of low-cost airlines? Why don’t they turn the street lights off at midnight?

I suspect you already know the answer. This is not about solving a problem; it’s more to do with finding new ways to extort even more cash from a guilt-wracked and gullible public. Cash that will no doubt help fund the ever-growing ranks of the useless and unnecessary public servants in Mr Blah’s Turkey Army.

And there’s a nasty element of class warfare in there. Let’s bash the rich, with their four-wheel-drives and their five holidays a year. The irony of the situation is that these punitive measures won’t even touch the well-off. An extra £300 on road tax won’t trouble a bloke who’s spent £50,000 on a Range Rover. And massive taxes on air fares won’t stop the wealthy flying off to Venice, but they will stop Mr Average spending the occasional weekend in Amsterdam, or buying a second-hand Freelander because he lives at the end of a country lane.

(Hang on a minute. If the problem with “gas-guzzlers” is that they use too much fuel, doesn’t that mean that the owners are already paying a disproportionate amount of tax anyway?)

And as for the Council Clipboard Clown? Well he’s not coming in. They can fine me that rumoured £200 a day, but I’m not having it. I might have just installed a new chrome toilet roll holder, but I’m damned if I’m going to pay Gordon Brown for the privilege.

PERHAPS ANOTHER destination for the proceeds of this crime might be the trough into which most MPs appear to be dipping their snouts in the last days of the Blah Empire. I have to inform you that the bill for expenses claimed by Members of Parliament increased by £13 million last year.

Yes, that’s increased. The total now exceeds an astonishing £131 million annually. Thank God there’s only 646 of them. Much of this State-approved benevolence is dispensed in expenses meant to cover the cost of a second home, the assumption being that MPs will have to rent or buy a London base. If I told you that MPs whose constituency home is less than 30 miles from Westminster still see the need to claim this allowance, you’ll get the picture.

Now to the best of my knowledge, the average cost of an average house – including mortgage repayments, council tax and utility bills – is around £9,000 a year. Yet many, if not most, MPs managed to claim more than twice that. There is also an ongoing scandal regarding travel and postage expenses, but that will have to wait for another day.

I’m off for a lie down. And a good cry.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, or of anyone who hasn't got time to write this bit because they're due at the airport in half an hour. Bye.