IT'S the Budget this week and really there are still so many ways revenue can be raised.
Never mind all the fuss about spare bedrooms, what about furniture? Do you need all of it? What's happening to it right this minute? Ha! See? Those chairs are just sitting around, contributing nothing, aren't they? Don't they realise that we're all in this together. It's all very well to say Ukip on them – sorry, my little joke – but that's hardly helping reduce the deficit, is it? And some of them were made in Eastern Europe. It's a complete Nigel Farrago.
So a chair tax would, ahem, help cushion some of the cuts that need to be made elsewhere. These include reducing the number of panel show games on the television; reducing the number of times the BBC trails its website on the News (No, you mean there's more on these topics on the net? Never, you do surprise me); and reducing the number of horsemeat stories (it's in everything, we know that now – milk, eggs, cheese, bananas, lettuce, horses: riddled with it. Shall we just leave it?)
But back to raising revenue. First of all a Clare Balding tax should be introduced. We love the presenter. She's a national treasure, there's no doubt. But to help her say no to TV producers, she will have to pay a further percentage of her earnings to HMRC every time she is picked to present a programme.
Secondly, all makers of PPI phone calls should have to pay tax at 98p in the £1. Not only that, their addresses should be traced and, just as they sit down to tea, their houses should be attacked by Typhoon fighters, if we've got any left. If need be, extraordinary rendition can be used – and yes, this does mean George Osborne standing outside singing Total Eclipse of the Heart (apologies for putting that image into your head).
These aerial attacks will be streamed live on a new pay-to-view channel, PPI TV (Pure Pain Inflicted), thus raising more revenue for the Chancellor.
Lastly, and this one's controversial, it seems there are plans to give parking tickets to any warships overstaying on the Clyde – really big ones so the attendants can see them from the harbour. They have to walk back and back to take the picture and- oh dear, there goes another one.
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