Page 49 - Phonebox Magazine June 2013

Have you ever wandered into a coffee shop and wondered why VAT is charged on food if you want to eat in, and no VAT if you take it away to
eat? So have I.
VAT – as we know it - was introduced into this country in 1973 as a condition of joining the EEC, now known as the EU and supported only by a few swivel eyed loonies, such as Cameron, Milliband and Clegg, none of whom can possibly be accused of being representative of the majority of normal UK citizens.
Take the new EU directive, which is to outlaw Olive Oil in open bowls at restaurants from the 1st January 2014. What the EU want is for Olive Oil to be pre-packed, so that you know what you are dipping into, although in reality it’s to close down small suppliers of Olive Oil. And you can’t dip bread into a pre-pack.
The EU detest individualism and that includes any small business who just want to make a day to day living. They want everything to be run by large multinational companies, which they can no doubt buy shares in. It means that the large suppliers can set the prices and no- one can do anything about it. The intention of the EU is for us all to live in a huge Tesco where everything looks ‘nice’ but you have no choice.
OK, my initial feeling is why on earth should anyone want to dip bread into Olive Oil in the rst place when you can go to a café and have a perfectly good steak and kidney pud with spuds and peas, but that isn’t the point. We
surely have the right to dip if we feel the need. Back to the VAT on eat-in food. Who on earth sits down and works out these ludicrous laws? I can see them sitting around a table.
Loony 1: “What can we do now to confuse small businesses?”
Loony 2: “Oh yes, I know. Let’s make shops charge VAT on food to be eaten on the premises,butnotifit’sbeingtakenouttoeat.” Loony1: Oh, that’s good, very good! Why not let hot takeaway food be vatable, but not cold takeaway food”
Loony 2: Yes! Oh I know, I’ve got another one. Let’s allow nuts in their shells to be VAT free, but nuts that are shelled, roasted or salted be vatable.”
Loony 1: “Well it’s confused me. OK, that’s our work done for the day. Pass the sherry. It’s over there under our expenses forms.”
I should point out that the above conversation is not a comedy skit. It should be, but it isn’t. All the facts are true.
Our government, such as they are, may argue that the UK make their own VAT laws, and I’m not sure if that’s so, but whoever makes them should be led away to the Newport Pagnell Home for the Bewildered as quickly as possible.
It’s all tied up with this wretched EU when all is said and done.
As for EU talk of Peace in Our Time, well I’ve never heard anything as daft. The way to start war is surely by taking away independence so that one day the people will rise to ght to get it back.
Personally I feel that Cameron is looking for early retirement and getting onto the After Dinner Speaking circuit, and the idea that his sad little coalition has the nerve to call other people swivel eyed loonies is - like Cameron and Clegg – a bit rich.
I like Nigel Farage, not least because he can deliver a joke, and it may please Mr Cameron to know that I’m not going to vote for UKIP as a protest vote against the Tories. Or indeed Labour. I will vote for them because I want out. I’m off to a Blue Plaque event for Ray Galton and Alan Simpson whose scripts of ‘Steptoe and Son’ and ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ my company represent, so I’ll write a bit about that next month probably, as that will be great fun.
Whichever way I turn I just can’t get away from comedians.
Bye for now, David Pibworth
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n Wiza
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Phonebox Magazine 49
VAT’S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!!!