Taking the moral high ground is always a risky business. Thankfully, the stringent recruiting protocols at BBM Towers ensure that no one with even a sniff of morality is allowed to work here.
With us, it’s no-brow humour and sick, sick jokes all day every day. If only Britain’s Business Secretary Vince Cable had taken a leaf out of our book, not only would the UK be a far smuttier place to live, but poor old Vince would also have avoided an embarrassing tax scandal.
To give you some background, Vince is seen as the Lib Dem champion of bashing tax dodgers. He hates ‘em. Two years ago, he declared, “The evidence of systematic tax avoidance by rich individuals and UK-based companies strikes a particularly ugly note in these straitened times.” During campaigning for last year’s election, Cable also attacked “billionaire tax-dodgers” who had undue influence on the government and “have the effrontery to tell us how to vote and how to run our tax policies.”
Well guess what Mr Goody-goody tax return man has been done for? He’s been fined £500 by customs after he admitted failing to pay up to £25,000 of outstanding VAT. “I made no attempt to avoid tax – in fact I made every effort to pay what was outstanding as soon as it became clear I was liable for VAT,” he said. “I approached HMRC unprompted. The tax was paid in full and the matter closed within four weeks. It’s a bit embarrassing that this wasn’t spotted earlier.”
Ahh, so it’s Customs fault for not finding out about the missing money earlier. That makes much more sense than Vince just didn’t want to hand £25,000 over to the tax department. How silly of us.
