A BBC investigation has revealed that illegal cigarettes, sold under the counter at many innocent-looking convenience stores, are every bit as dangerous as the legal ones they also sell.
“This is absolutely disgraceful,” said a Home Office minister. “Many people, often poor and ill-educated, are destroying their health with these evil, addictive products, and the Treasury isn’t making a penny out of it.”
When an aide suggested that might sound a bit callous, the minister explained “Look, it costs the NHS a fortune every year to treat completely unnecessary illnesses caused by smoking. Unless we also make a fortune in tax when people buy the fags, the maths just doesn’t add up.
”Besides, the tobacco companies give us millions every year, and they won’t be happy if we don’t clamp down on this… hang on, is this microphone still on?”
The minister then took a call from a water supplier, who complained it was very expensive to treat raw sewage, and asked whether they could just feed it back into the water supply instead. “Hmmm,” said the minister, “is there any way we could tax it?”
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John Healey's first announcement as Chancellor is that he is introducing a tax on mud.
A statement explained, 'I have long been concerned by the inequality of mud throughout the UK, the wealthy have a lot of it and those in the margins of society have very little. To tax people on the amount of mud they own is an innovative and socialist policy which will deliver exactly the sort of wealth distribution this country needs.
'Further, in my time as defence Secretary, I saw that the Army has an awful lot of mud, and rolling around in it is a core part of basic training for our world class soldiers. The tax the Army pays on all its mud will go a long way to help us fund the NATO defence spending target of 5% of GDP.'
Kemi Badenoch retort was written in mud. 'This is yet another socialist policy aimed at stifling commercial research and development. We have a great innovation culture in this country founded on the principle of throwing mud at a wall and seeing what sticks. Any policy which drives up costs is bad for business and my Tory voting constituents.'
Tax advisor Ivor Lottagold said 'This will inevitably lead to the wealthy moving their mud offshore. The obvious choice of this is the Isle of Man which could ultimately see itself becoming part of the mainland.
Thames Water has approached the Government for clarification that poo does not constitute mud. A spokesman for DEFRA said 'Thames Water does indeed have a lot of poo, despite its unsuccessful plan of trying to hide it all in the Thames. Further, if poo were classed as mud under the new tax, then the renationalisation of Thames Water would be prohibitively expensive.'
'It would really muddy the waters.'
Image: Lichtsammler - Pixabay
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