Beware of pick-pocketing politicians
Beware of pick-pocketing politicians bearing fuel allowance gifts
Is there no limit to Gordon Brown's infinite mercy? In addition to the fuel allowance bounty he graciously bestows on everyone over the age of 60 (however prosperous they happen to be) he now apparently plans to offer a gift of £150 to every family with children to help them meet the rising cost of fuel bills. Out of the sheer goodness of his heart. Or, actually, out of their own pockets.
The "gift" will, as is always the case with government largesse, simply be a complex and expensive way of returning to some people some of the money they have paid either through income tax or, if it is funded by a windfall tax on energy companies, through the exorbitant prices that those families pay on heating fuel in the first place, which are as high as they are partly because of the rates of tax on the self-same fuel. Have you got that? First the Government makes a huge profit out of the tax revenue from energy provision, then the Prime Minister gets to play Father Christmas by presenting "gifts" to his favoured deserving recipients.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/11/do1101.xml
