No Taxation With Our Representation

Some representatives of Britain's most harassed and disadvantaged citizens have informed Daveybloke that enough is enough. The president of the Confabulation of Business Interests, Roger Carr, flanked by some of the country's most down-at-heel kleptocrats, has dropped in for a bit of a chat about why Daveybloke needs to stop urging them to mend their ways. "It is only in recent times that tax has become an issue on the public agenda," whined Carr earlier in the day at the Oxford Business School. As a result of that nonsense about all being in it together, we suffer "businesses that the general public know and believe they understand; businesses with a brand that become a perfect political football, the facts difficult to digest; public passions easy to inflame" and, it would appear, CBI presidents who can't string a proper sentence together. It is all very bad, no doubt; Carr even complained that the issue of tax avoidance "cannot be about morality", which shows a remarkable lack of appreciation for Daveybloke's continuing and strenuous efforts to ensure that it remains a matter of little else. Carr and his chums really ought to be grateful that Daveybloke has kept at bay such inconveniences as legislation, bailiffs, fines, the public interest and so forth; but gratitude has no place in today's market. "There are no absolutes," proclaimed Carr, quoting one of James Herbert's better novels; so if anyone would care to shoplift at Tesco or defraud the Prudential, now you know it makes sense.