It's Like 'Cash In The Attic' Meets '1984'

I want to say something suitably acidic about Vince Cable's plan to tax elderly widows for the price of their wedding rings, but it's just too evil to do it justice, so instead here's a strangely apporpiate clip.

Vince Avoiding Tax

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the only time politicians aren't telling the rest of us how to run our lives is when they're busy denying all responsibility for anything in their own lives?

Shot In The Dark

What are the odds that the proposed compulsory dog insurance will be subject to insurance premium tax @ 1.5%?

More Freelance Activism

It baffles me why Cameron is being hailed as a great leader for the Tories' recent rise in the polls when it came about as a result of him adopting one of the very policies he set himself against, namely tax cuts.

As Guido reminds us, the impetus for this new policy didn't even come from anyone in the Nu Tory camp. Yes, the Tories eventually picked these ideas up, but then so did Brown and no one's trying to claim he's a born-again conservative. Instead, what we have here is activists setting the agenda, with the Tories arriving once the battles been won. Again. All of which is just by way of saying that as far as winning the battles of ideas in this country goes, the Tories are irrelevant.

If He's That Rich, How Come He Can't Buy A Clue ?

Actually, I'm pretty sure that - as with much modern liberalism - half the time this sort of thing is just a way of subtly boasting about being so rich you can even throw money down the drain and not notice it. Still, he might actually mean it, in which case I have no option but to cite P J O'Rourke:

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as caring and sensitive because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he is willing to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he will do good with his own money— if a gun is held to his head.