Tax Bodgers

In another outstanding money-saving manoeuvre, which history may well rank alongside rail privatisation and Universal Credit for sheer Stupid Party brilliance, the Government has managed to save as much as ten million pounds a year by dispensing with car tax discs and all the nasty, nanny-state red tape that they entail. Of course, driving without vehicle excise duty has doubled and then some, and a few thousand non-offenders have had their cars clamped, and efficiency savings may have resulted in a few thousand more inadvertent offences because people haven't received their reminders to renew; but at least the absence of a visual indication means that the plebs in the police are having to work for a living these days. It is also possible that the Government has lost eight times more in revenue than it claims to have saved; but the abolition took place in October 2014, which means, of course, that the consequences are entirely the fault of the previous administration.