Some more daft tax proposals from Labour...

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Lord Myners, forner Labour "City Minister" is cross about some companies that, he thinks, pay too little tax. So cross that he has taken leave of his senses. He is joined in this nonsense by another millionaire socialist, Margaret Hodge:

Lord Myners, the former City minister, and Margaret Hodge, the chairman of the PAC – which is carrying out its own inquiry into the issue – said the Government should look into a sales tax as a way of raising extra tax revenue from global companies. 

Now, I know I'm not as clever (or rich) as this pair but there are two things about this proposal that strikes me:

1. We already have a sales tax of sorts. It's called VAT.

2. Companies don't pay sales taxes, the customers of those companies (that's you and me folks) pay sales taxes

More to the point companies don't really pay tax at all. OK so they might write out big cheques that land up with the HMRC but the real cost- the actual tax - is paid by the company's employees, customers and shareholders. Always and everywhere, taxes fall on people.

And right now people pay too much tax.

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On rich socialists...inspired by Michael Foot

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My father, when confronted with one wealthy left wing toff or another, is wont to observe that “they can afford to be socialists”. Now I’ve always liked this little aphorism since I rather “get it” – socialism is founded on a great mound of patronising hypocrisy. And where better than the silver spoon chewing classes to find both those traits!

The posh leftie is a sort – we’ve all met them and marvelled at their ability to propose the regime of St Francis for the masses of ordinary middle class folk while enjoying their homes overlooking Hampstead Heath, the swanky parties with the luvvies and Summers at the villa in some warm part of Southern Europe.

It’s important for us to remember that, for all their vaunted intelligence, their charm and their wit, these rich socialists are takers not builders. They lecture us on the moral rightness of state control or the absolute need for higher duties on alcohol or the banning of smoking from pubs they never go into – and they do this from atop a monumental pile of cash earned in wicked capitalist ways by their forefathers.

These people have never had to find a mortgage payment, have never wondered how they were going to get the cash to pay for the school uniform, have never been made redundant and wouldn’t know the first thing about starting a business from scratch. Yet they take it upon themselves to lecture me about greed, or about poverty or public services.

Michael Foot was, I’m sure, a charming and delightful man who gave great pleasure to those who knew him. I'm sure he professed strong principles. But he was, to me, just another rich, posh socialist. Another man whose chosen mission was to hold forth on socialism to less clever, less lucky folk while clutching hypocritically onto a glorious upper middle class lifestyle funded entirely from the proceeds of capitalism. We can recall his speaking – which was good. His thoughtfulness. His public service. We can catalogue all his writing, all his good works. But let’s never forget that…

…he could afford to be a socialist.

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