VAT's what we need
This mess isn't going to be fixed just by taking some civil servants bonuses away. Even a massive, savage slash at the Public Sector isn't going to keep the debt collectors from the door. There's gonna have to be some pain for the taxpayer. Never mind our children's children, we are going to have start paying off this massive debt.
One of the revenue raisers wee Georgie Osborne could use is an increase in VAT. CallMeDave Cameron keeps fudging the issue - will he, won't he? Does the ConDems "have plans" to raise VAT?
The main problem with the raising of VAT will be the absolutely deafening whining and screeching from the whole of the left, and from the imbeciles who now form the opposition.
'Not fair, not fair, not fair' they'll chant. 'Hardest on the poorest'. 'No-one can afford it'.
But hang on a minute, let's have a little look at the facts, as eevil bankers Citi have done, shall we?
Firstly, what those lefties won't tell you is that across the 27 European countries that use VAT or its equivalent, only 2 - Cyprus and Luxembourg - have a lower rate than we do, and even then it's not much less - 15% versus our 17.5.
So, 24 - also known as 'virtually all' - other European countries change more VAT than the UK - up to 25% in some cases.
Do they have impoverished peasants lying dead in the street? Have paupers begun to eat their own children? Probably not.
The boys at Citi reckon that if Georgie put VAT up to 20%, he'd raise 13 billion. Now that's a bit more like it. That makes all the scratching and scraping to find 6 billion look a bit feeble.
And then there's the 'applicability' of VAT - what gets VAT'd and what's exempt. In the UK, we 'zero rate' or exempt from VAT, among other things, books, children's clothes and food. How many other countries exempt all three of those things? Errrr ... none. Some of them do one or two, some of them VAT those things at a reduced rate but none of them zero-rate all three.
Again, if Georgie was bold, and put VAT at the reduced rate - 5% - on those items he'd raise another 8 billion. If he got really ballsy, and stuck the full 17.5% on them, ignoring the wailing and gnashing Guardianista's, he raise 27 billion.
So, Georgie could make himself, and the Coalition, very unpopular with the left, and with those who believe everything they read in the Daily Mirror, but knock a 40 billion pound chunk out of our deficit, just by copying what, say, Sweden has done with VAT. Sounds like a good deal.
It's not exactly the fucking blitz, is it? We'll survive.
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