Tory sources point out that government’s withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners on incomes of £35,000 and above actually creates an absurd marginal tax rate for any OAP whose income happens to be exactly £35,000. Presumably nobody in Whitehall has noticed this…
Since the payment isn’t tapered, the cliff-edge means creates a marginal rate of about 10,020% on the next £1 earned for those who hit the £35,000 bullseye. They’d be better off earning £34,999 and keeping their radiators warm with the generosity of taxpayer cash. Of course there’s also the issue of HMRC’s ancient record-keeping resulting in thousands of pensioners losing the payment unfairly because they’re on the wrong tax code. And good luck getting a human being to answer the phones over at HM Revenue and Customs…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”