That white fluffy stuff appearing over your eyes is wool

Still, nice try on the part of George Osbourne.

The Chancellor said he remained focused on reducing the UK's budget deficit, which stands at about £122bn this year, as he spoke at a meeting of European finance ministers and central bank governors in Hungary.
"I made it clear that unlike the Irish case the UK will not be making a bilateral loan to Portugal. British taxpayers' money will not be lent directly to Portugal," he said.

I hope everyone has spotted that the operative word Georgie Boy is using there is 'directly'. He has to say that because he know sdamn well that he has no ability, none whatsoever, to prevent British taxpayers' money going to Portugal indirectly as long as the UK hands over £9 billion a year to the European Union, the entity now hosing money at Portugal and whose income of course comes from the taxes of member states' citizens. £9 bn is about 7 or 8 per cent of your budget deficit there, George, and you're giving it to people who are in turn going to 'lend' about £90 bn to Portugal. Or to look at it another way, the money will go to Portugal over the next three years and Britain's EU contributions during that time will be getting close to £30 billion, or a third of the value of the loan.

But it's okay because George says that there will be no direct loan from Britain to Portugal. Any money that comes from the £30 billion that he'll have taken at gunpoint from British citizens and given to the EU is indirect and somehow doesn't count. And in a way I suppose it doesn't since once it's gone it's gone and it makes little practical difference where it ends up. Doesn't help the deficit much, let alone the actual nation debt, but presumably Georgie is hoping to save a few quid by closing some tax avoidance loopholes reducing the number of perfectly legal methods of minimising tax liabilities (with an exception clause for disHonourable Members of Parliament, natch).

New tax year, same old MPs. After Budget promises to tackle tax avoidance, Parliament is passing legislation to block several loopholes – but an obscure clause specifically exempts MPs from these new restrictions.
...

“HM Revenue & Customs says that this legislation is only there to stop ‘tax avoidance’. However, Section 554E(8) specifically exempts members of the House of Commons and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority from the new legislation in situations where they are actually caught by it.”

Do go read the whole thing, and if you were one of the 25 million or so who voted for the usual suspects last year I hope it's a wake up call - nothing significant has changed. Oh, about 150 troughers didn't bother to stand again and a bunch more lost their seats, a few of them are going to prison, Labour has gone into opposition, the Speaker was replaced even before the election, and Britain now has the LibConservial Dimotive Cobbleition running things, but all the same nothing significant has changed. Just look around. The government is still spending money it hasn't got at an ever accelerating rate (just accelerating less rapidly than under the snot munching madman), it's still intending to make current and, in the case of the national debt, future tax payers foot the bills, and both it and the political class from which it comes are conspiring to give themselves breaks and advantages so they can continue to avoid the pain they're going to inflict on the proles. I'm not even going to begin to cover the continuing nannying of almost every fucking thing imaginable or, in contrast to pre-election talk, the decidedly lukewarm attitude to personal liberty. There is, as I've said before, not three main parties but one with three wings, and with a few notable exceptions all three wings are composed entirely of cunts who can neither be trusted to look after your businesses, your welfare or your wallet.

So if you voted for the usual mob, especially if you did it to keep one of the 'other two' out and even more so if it was something along the lines of your parents always voted that way, I do hope you're thoroughly fucking proud of yourself now.* This time round you had any number of independents, micro parties, and mini-parties to choose from, UKIP being only the most well known and LPUK being the one that would bring you the most freedom, but 25 million of you still chose to vote for Labour, Conservatives or the inappropriately named Liberal Democrats.*

As the man in the mask put it, if you want to know who to blame you need only look in a mirror. In the meantime if the fact that George Osbourne is removing your opportunity to pay less tax at the same time as handing over more of it to the EU so they can give it to member states whose governments have been even more profligate than any of Britain's, I can recommend a cast iron strategy for legally avoiding UK tax entirely:

Just get the fuck out of there.


* The same applies if you voted for your parents' party's opponents. Fair enough if you were one of the fortunate few with a decent offering from the usual lot, and the same applies if there really wasn't any decent independent or minor party option and you were left with the choice of the least worst candidate or not voting at all. Personally I'd spoil the ballot paper first but in any case I'm not talking to you but to the vast numbers who voted for similarity in the expectation of change, often for very poor reasons that they really hadn't thought much about.