Budget box or Gladstone box, c. 1860

Will austerity force Osborne to sell the new Box and revert to the original?

THERE IS NO TRUTH WHATSOEVER IN THE FOLLOWING RUMOURS!

Leaks
George Osborne got so emotional while he was working on next week’s budget (Wed 20 Mar), because of the misery his austerity measures are and will have on the poor, that he cried so much that his tears filled his red Budget Box (it is not clear if they were tears of happiness or not). He didn’t realize that his Budget Box leaks, so all his budget papers on his desk got water damage and were useless. The Chancellor has got a meager memory and a bad head for figures, so he was pretty well stuffed about resurrecting his Budget.

He was told by officials that urgent ‘recovery’ was required, but he didn’t fully understand that word – anyway he worked-up some new ideas. It should be noted that these do not constitute a Plan B. There can never be such a plan because Osborne had never learnt his alphabet when he was a child and his nanny only taught him the letter A. As he got an unimpressive degree in History from Oxford University and knew nothing about finance or business, he was an ideal choice for Chancellor of the Exchequer by David Cameron, because he took-on the job with no preconceived ideas about how to run an economy [the appointment was an astute one for Cameron as it not only repaid his mate for getting him elected as Leader of the Tory Party, but it also meant that his Chancellor was as out of his depth as he was himself, so he couldn’t be upstaged].

George finally got the message that revenues from taxes actually had to be greater than expenditure for the deficit to be reduced (not the other way round), as he had been going in the wrong direction all along, and the Cabinet had had to agree to lie about it.

He has come up with some novel methods though of raking the money in:

• * Bedroom Tax
  Tax Proposal: All properties will now be subject to a bedroom tax – people will have to pay the tax on all bedrooms (whether slept-in or not.
  Osborne is not sure where he got the idea from, but he had heard mention of such a tax when he was dozing one day in the House of Commons and they were on about Welfare cuts. Because households have already admitted how many bedrooms they had in the recent 2011 census, this can be brought-in immediately. It will scrape up a small fortune because people can’t easily get rid of bedrooms – well not without expensive demolition work anyway [so he won’t get the problem experienced historically with the ‘window tax’ when people simply bricked them in].
  Exemptions: Mansions will not be subject to this new tax – this will act as the opposite of ‘take out of poverty’, and instead ‘put in to surplus’ a substantial number of rich people, as they already have a cross to bear in resentment by the poor. This concession is to be equally fair to all and compensate mansion owners for not getting Council Tax relief.
  [There is one exception to this exemption and that is it doesn’t apply to any male born in St Pancras London on Dec 24 1969 or EM’s family & friends].

  [This tax proposal was the real reason that the government was able to announce concessions this week on cuts to housing benefit in respect of ‘extra’ bedrooms]

• * Double Duty on Alcohol
  Tax Proposal: All alcohol will now attract double the current eye-watering rate of tax (even the undrinkable French stuff – the rotters keep all their half decent wine for themselves or their mates).
  This is Osborne’s way of punishing the supermarkets (as the biggest sellers of alcohol) for mis-selling horsemeat, while at the same time getting in a hamper full of tax – he knows the Brits will never give up their booze, no matter what the tax, and they can scream their bheads off all they want for all he cares.

Exemptions: There will be no tax whatsoever on the brand of champagne drunk by David Cameron. The loss of revenue on this allowance will be offset by quadrupling the tax on the brand of champagne favoured by Nick Clegg (they both quaff the same amount, and this gets Clegg back for reneging on the boundary changes).

[This tax proposal was the real reason for the PM’s surprise backtrack this week on his pledge to introduce a minimum unit charge for booze – this will do the trick instead]

• * Bus Travel Tax
  Tax Proposal: A travel tax will be introduced on all bus journeys and this will be a percentage of the ticket price.
  This tax will be a godsend as bus fares are so high nowadays (because they are uncontrolled), and this income will justify a previous Tory administration’s decision to deregulate buses, which drove ticket prices up as the big boys cornered the market.
  Exemptions: This tax will not be applied to London as fares are low (because the buses were not deregulated there) and the current Mayor may be the next Leader.

  [Osborn is introducing this in light of the fact that Tory supporters do not use buses, so this will be very popular and is seen as fair to offset costs and pay for pensioners free bus passes and schoolkids’ travel – all of no use to the Conservative electorate].

• * Caravan Park Taxes
  Tax Proposal: All static caravans will incur an annual tax to be paid by the owner and collected by the park. In addition, all caravan holidays will attract a daily charge per van.
  Caravan Parks are increasingly being used by the masses which is at least reducing congestion on South of France beaches, so this phenomena can be used to tax the blighters
  Exemptions: The new regulations will not apply to any Parks owned by people with hereditary titles.

• * MP Voting Penalties
  Proposal: A new non-criminal offence is to be introduced of ‘failing to vote with the Government’.
  Any parliamentarian of whatever persuasion who votes against a government motion will be subject to a substantial financial penalty. This will allow the shaky Coalition Government to move forward quickly on its legislative programme, while pulling in some much needed cash (The Chancellor is confident that Labour will not vote with the government except if that stuffs the LibDems).
  Exemptions: This regulation will not apply in the House of Lords to Conservative lords

  [The Chancellor is making this exemption provision for when he himself is elevated and the Tories are out of power, as he can see no way of getting elected again or even carrying on as a MP.
  This proposal was the real reason for the PM’s sudden withdrawal this week from the all-party chats on Press regulation – the Editors have agreed to support the new regulation, so in return…]

Give-aways & Pill-sweetners

In all Budgets there has to be a few naughty things to bring a bit of cheer to the country – Osborne’s 2013 Budget will be no different:

• 
  * Ski Holiday Tax Relief
  Proposal: All luxury ski holidays will be tax deductable
  [There is one exception to this proposal and that is it doesn’t apply to any male born in St Pancras London on Dec 24 1969 or his family & friends].
• 
  * School Fees Refund
  Proposal: Fifty percent of all fees paid for Public School or other private education will be refunded by the government
  [There is one exception to this proposal and that is it doesn’t apply to any male born in St Pancras London on Dec 24 1969 or family & friends].
• 
  * Corporation Tax Change & Charity Status
  Proposal: The business of ‘luxury wallpaper and furnishings’ will no longer attract corporation tax if it moves into profit at last, some companies are to be granted charity status on application to the Treasury, and at least one will be given lottery funding.
  These changes are in recognition of the adverse climate the proprietors have been working-in over the last 3 years, and in at least one case there has been an adverse financial association.

  [George Osborne has agreed to deal with at least one application personally]

 Following last year’s fiasco when everything was pre-publicised (like they do on the soaps) and then budget proposals ended up very smelly, the Treasury are keen to prevent leaks and bad decisions, so are taking advice from Dyno Rod.

The Treasury cannot confirm how many people are tripped-up by the ‘exceptions’ noted above. However, we have positively identified one person, a certain D. Miliband, who falls into the declared category.