The British Government Is Silently Stealing Everything You Own
I’m sitting in SE Asia, keeping tabs on Britain from a safe distance, and I swear the place looks like it’s being run by a gang of burglars who’ve discovered Excel. They don’t even need balaclavas. They’ve got suits, little badges, expense accounts and fucking departments. Nobody smashes my back window and runs off carrying the telly. That would be far too obvious. The British version is much cleverer. They let me buy the telly, tax the money I earned to buy it, tax me when I buy it, charge me for half the shit connected to owning a house containing it, then stand outside looking disappointed that I’ve still got something left. It’s burglary with stationery.
That’s what pisses me off about the whole thing. It’s never one massive hand reaching into my pocket. I’d notice that. It’s fifty tiny hands, each taking a couple of quid while another hand distracts me with some bollocks about responsibility. Income tax, council tax, VAT, fuel duty, stamp duty, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, fees, charges and whatever new little bastard they dream up after lunch. I’m surprised there isn’t a breathing levy. Give them time. Some minister will stand behind a lectern and explain that oxygen has placed unsustainable pressure on public finances, then I’ll get a fucking meter attached to my nostrils.
I work, they want a bit. I buy something, they want a bit. I save something, they start sniffing around it like a Labrador near a dropped sausage. I invest something and make money, another hand appears. I buy a house, another hand. I sell the house, somebody checks whether there’s anything worth having. I die, and the bastards still aren’t finished. That’s the part I admire. Death itself doesn’t get me out of the paperwork. I can picture myself lying in the coffin while some bloke from the government taps on the lid asking whether the watch on my wrist has been declared. Fucking hell mate, I’m dead. Can I at least keep the socks.
I keep hearing that taxes pay for civilisation, and of course they fucking do. I’m not expecting hospitals to run on positive vibes and a raffle. I’m not expecting teachers to get paid in Freddos. I’m not some bloke in a shed demanding that the fire brigade be funded by selling homemade chutney. I understand that a functioning country costs money. What I don’t understand is how the government can have its fingers in every financial pie I’ve ever baked and Britain can still feel like the roof’s leaking, the boiler’s fucked and somebody’s nicked the copper pipes. At some point I’m entitled to ask where all the fucking money went.
That’s what Britain looks like from Vietnam. I watch people getting squeezed from every direction while the people doing the squeezing explain that everybody needs to make difficult choices. I fucking love that phrase. Difficult choices. Politicians say it with the solemn face of a vet about to put down a Labrador. Funny how the difficult choice always seems to involve somebody else’s wallet. I’d love to make difficult choices with somebody else’s money. I’d be brilliant at it. I’d walk into the pub, order champagne for everyone, hand the bill to Dave and give a speech about fiscal responsibility while he’s outside selling his fucking bicycle.
The clever bit is how boring they make it. That’s the masterpiece. If somebody announced that they were taking a massive chunk of my stuff, I’d be furious. Instead everything gets sliced into tiny pieces and hidden behind words that sound like instructions for assembling an IKEA wardrobe. Thresholds, bands, allowances, duties, assessments, adjustments. Fuck me. Nothing makes robbery disappear faster than giving it a name that sounds like printer maintenance. I could wake up missing a kidney and some government department would call it a revised organ retention framework.
Then I’m supposed to feel lucky when they decide not to take something. That always makes me laugh. A politician announces some allowance or relief as though he’s personally reached into his own trousers and handed me twenty quid. Mate, it was my fucking money. You don’t get applause for leaving some of it behind. If a burglar empties my kitchen but leaves the toaster, I don’t shake his hand for supporting household appliance ownership. I don’t stand on the doorstep waving while he drives away with the fridge because he’s shown remarkable restraint.
Property makes the whole thing even more ridiculous. Britain spent decades telling people that owning a home was the sensible thing to do. Work hard, save, buy somewhere, pay the mortgage, build something for yourself. Fine. Then the moment people actually manage it, every fucker starts staring at the house like hungry relatives staring at the last roast potato. What’s it worth. When did you buy it. Are you selling it. Are you giving it to someone. Have you died in it. Could we possibly have another little nibble. Owning property in Britain sometimes feels less like possessing an asset and more like looking after the government’s cow until somebody arrives with a bucket.
Saving gets the same treatment. I’m told to prepare for the future because apparently nobody else is going to do it for me. Fair enough. So I save. Then the system starts examining the savings. I invest. It examines the investment. I make a return. Its ears prick up. It’s like trying to eat chips next to a seagull the size of a fucking horse. I know that bastard is watching me. I know it wants one. The difference is the seagull doesn’t send me a twelve page letter explaining why surrendering the chip promotes fairness.
And the greatest trick is making me argue with other ordinary people about who should lose what. Homeowners against renters, workers against pensioners, young against old, employees against the self employed, anybody with ten quid against anybody with eleven. We’re all fighting over the contents of the biscuit tin while the people running the country have somehow convinced us that the bloke with two Hobnobs is the fucking problem. That’s impressive. Britain could have an empty fridge, a broken oven and smoke pouring through the kitchen ceiling, and somebody in Westminster would announce an inquiry into whether Gary from Wolverhampton has been hoarding Custard Creams.
Watching from Vietnam makes the absurdity easier to see because I’m outside the daily fog of it. Britain seems obsessed with making ordinary life expensive, complicated and exhausting, then commissioning somebody to investigate why everyone’s pissed off. Everything needs a form, a fee, a department, a consultation, an assessment and some miserable bastard answering a telephone after forty seven minutes of hold music. Then another politician appears on television promising growth. Growth. Mate, you’ve wrapped the economy in cling film, sat on it and charged it council tax.
I don’t even think they need to steal everything in one go. That would ruin the trick. They just need to keep nibbling. A little here, a little there, another charge, another frozen threshold, another fee, another clever wheeze with a name nobody understands. It’s death by fucking teaspoon. Nobody notices the bucket getting emptied because everyone’s arguing about the teaspoon. Then one day I look inside and wonder where the water went, while some bloke in Westminster proudly announces that the bucket remains fully protected under existing legislation.
So I’ll keep watching Britain from Asia while the great national pickpocketing exhibition carries on. I’ll watch governments tell people to work harder, save more, invest for the future, buy a home and take responsibility for themselves, then follow them around with the financial enthusiasm of a starving seagull at Brighton Pier. I’ve stopped worrying about burglars. At least a burglar has the decency to fuck off after he’s nicked the television. The government will take the television, charge me for the empty space where it stood, send you a form asking what happened to it, then employ a consultant to investigate why British television ownership has collapsed.