George Osborne plays Artful Dodger as he "simplifies" your pockets.

George Osborne has discovered a wonderful new word: simplification.

Each new tax burden is now described by this modern day Artful Dodger as an opportunity for the Treasury to simplify things and not content with his far-reaching "Granny Tax" he has also taken a swipe at the over 65's in Yorkshire!  This artful move has been accomplished by targeting a traditional Black Beer known as Mather's Black Beer: An excellent article on this was printed in the Telegraph on 22nd March:

Will Treasury "simplify" Black Beer to the point of extinction?

CWF  (Continental Wines and Fortified Aperitifs) are the only distributor of this beer now and sell approximately just 35,000 bottles a year mainly to the over 65's in Yorkshire.

The Treasury actually admit that the revenue from imposing excise duty on Mather's will be negligible, but nevertheless they are going to go ahead anyway and probably destroy a product that has been known about since Captain Cook's time when it was seen as a remedy against scurvy.

Perhaps they should consider that once sales are reduced to a level that becomes unviable commercially there will be no revenue anyway.

"Granny Tax" petition reaches 40,000 signatures within a week.

Arthur Streatfield's  E-Petition against the "Granny Tax" proposals in the recent Budget has now reached over 40,000 signatures within the week.
This is despite a cynical move from the Government to take the site down for "maintenance" for most of this day today (28th March).

The rate of signing has been shown at between 300 - 400 signatures an hour, which is just tremendous!

Please sign here if you are in support of the "Granny Tax" measures being repealed.
Restoration of age-related tax allowances

Suffolk in Wonderland: Book 1 The Libraries

Rumours are spreading that a group of headless chickens are spearheading an attempt to take over Suffolk's ailing library system:

"We cannot make a worst job of this than the IPS: the Increasingly Perilous Service is failing book lovers. We want the service to remain "INCOOP"   instead of in the Co-operative. We are appalled that a FOX has been chosen to manage this service when history has shown so often that this is a) unwise and b) the main cause of headlessness in chickens.

We have consulted with chickens that do have heads and there is 100% support for our INCOOP proposals; this is not about feathering our own nests; we are willing to contribute towards the perch-asing of new books and promise not to crow if INCOOP proves successful.