Of Shoulders and Burdens

Vulnerable private members' clubs are being forced into desperate measures in order to protect themselves from the Stalinist horrors of national insurance. The Devonshire Club in London, where real people pay two hundred a month to take advantage of sixty-eight rooms, a restaurant, a champagne bar and some plebs, has requested (the Oldspeak equivalent need hardly be specified) the servants to take a pay cut to minimum wage level and rely on gratuities to top up their salaries. Since the members are so very upstanding, the gratuities cannot of course be guaranteed, but any fiscal inconvenience for the lower orders will be more than offset by liberation from such outdated fripperies as redundancy pay, the breeders' bounty and the state pension. Even more importantly, the Devonshire will pay less tax; and since the Devonshire is part-owned by no less a Belizean patriot than Lord Non-Dom the Dodgy, that can only be good for Britain.