The Prime Minister keeps on insisting there is no such thing as a money tree. While she’s got the tense right, she’s wrong about every other element in the story. The Slog listens in as Theresa Mayormaynot goes back to school.
There’s very little more amusing in contemporary politics than Theresa May in full on ‘Jack and Jill learn about money, tax and economics’ mode.
“Right children, settle down….now today, we’re going to learn all about the Money tree, and why there isn’t one, and then tomorrow we’ll talk about why 5 hrs job – 40hrs job = 40 hrs job. Right Delbert, you go first…..”
As an incompetent infant schoolma’am, she works the role of repetition learning extremely well: so by the end of any election, negotiation or campaign, we’ve got our times-tables off-by-heart – A strong economy = more jobs, me in No 10 = strong and stable, 3 soft Brexits tying us in knots = 1 fairly hard Brexit, 1 money-tree = Nothing…..and so forth.
Her lexicon is pure IABATO, but that last money tree assertion is historically inaccurate. The Prime Minister needs to go back to School herself….
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“Do settle down Theresa and stop fiddling with your pencil. Philip, no whispering the answers….and Boris, wake up. Take that silly smirk of your face Jeremy or I’ll give you extra NHS budget homework…..all of you, pay attention.
“These initials on the blackboard – HMRC – stand for How Much Rent Collected – or sometimes, Hammond’s Money Racket Cops. Stop sniggering, Philip. You see, your electorate has no rights, and they’re not citizens – merely serfs: they pay rent to us for the privilege of living here in Britain, protected by us from all the terrible threats out there.
“To make the whole thing fair, those who earn more get to pay more rent….and that pertains until it comes to us, the teachers. Banks, global business concerns, senior Civil Servants and politicians are all teachers in their own way: how to empty the Treasury, how to live almost rent-free, how to blag unfunded pensions, and of course, how to promise one thing and do another. We’re Us, and they’re Them.
“You can see the evidence for this here:
“Even you can follow this one Boris, and WILL YOU PLEASE LEAVE AMBER ALONE? As you can see, all the very big companies and banks have seen their rents slashed by nearly 35% over the last decade. Or put another way, there are over a third less leaves on the money tree than there were.
“Unfortunately, while small business rents have risen steadily, their income from working hard to compete with globalist teaching academies has shrunk….
…by nearly 50% this century, and 40% in the same decade alone. People earning less pay lower rents, and so that’s more notes disappearing from the money tree. But then, although small businesses are the bedrock drivers of our economy, they’re really just serfs trying to climb out of the ditch, and we can’t have that….we didn’t stop all the poor people going to University just so they could climb the North Face of social demography using lots of ghastly new money.
“Keeping the serfs down is a policy that means we have to take very tough decisions, but as you can see from the opinion polls, we are not trying to win a popularity contest. That’s why, the minute we bought the school off our sleeping partner Nick Clegg in 2015, we doubled the rent-free allowance and abolished the rent paid on the first £5,000 of savings….having first of all ensured that no baby-boomer women or blue collar workers had anything like £500,000 to invest, because not many people can make £5,000 with Zirp interest rates introduced to save the banks:
“Unfortunately, although such people all vote for us, the lazy good-for-nothings breezing through life in the black economy now work even fewer hours for less per hour, or need more welfare to help them buy past-sell-by-date white bread. So because we believe in a fair society, they pay a lot less rent. And more leaves vanish from the money tree.
“In fact, when you look at the retail inflation rate over the last decade, the spending power of the idle renters has dropped by 22%:
“That jolly-well serves them right, but yet more leaves fall of the money tree. You see, this is how feckless lower-class laziness will soon kill the money tree if they don’t watch out.
“It’s not as if we haven’t been generous about rents while in power. See here how, when in power, we have steadily reduced both the top and bottom rates of tax – a trend that continued down to 19% after 2015:
“But would you believe it, despite that generosity, over the last decade the cost of their labour has gone up and up and up and up….meaning our exports cost more, our trade deficit rises, and thus new leaves do not replace the old ones vapourised on the money tree:
“Please Miss”
“Yes Vincent, what is it?”
“Well Miss, when you look at the inflation rate you showed us, their real spending power has dropped by 19%….”
“Ah, now look here young Livewire Cable, we don’t want to be getting ahead of ourselves, there’s a lot more to this than….”
“…..and my Dad sez that crafty weazel Osborne changed the RPI basket and really the loss of spending power is nearer 30%…”
“Yes, well thank you for that Vincent, but as you know Osborne was expelled last term for misbehaviour, so I think we should stick to the facts, don’t you? Now….who knows what defoliation means…?…..yes Jeremy Hunt…”
“Destroying the NHS bit by bit, Miss?”
“No Jeremy, that’s not the right answer….who else wants a go….yes Diane….”
“I’m sure it means the racist destruction of the immigrant community’s right to reproduce by the forced use of fgm, and if it doesn’t then when I come to power it will.”
“That’s a good try Diane, but…”
“Izzit ‘cos I is like black?”
“No darling, it’s because you are wrong. Now come on, who else….yes Boris?”
“It comes from the Latin folium Miss, folium leaf, de to remove but if I know those bloody eyeties they pinched it from the Greeks I see they’re at it again voting for bloody silly Parties that sound like petrol or something, and it means all the leaves falling off the money tree thanks to those grabbing vultures in Brussels and their kraut mates in Berlin and the sooner we tell Johnny Foreigner to naff off the better, including the Jocks, let them float off to Belgium, see if I care, we can focus more on putting all these murderous camel jockeys back in their cage and….”
“A little off message there Boris, but sort of on the right track….what about you, Theresa? You’ve been very quiet.”
“Er…well, as I said at Conference to the Police and the Waspis and the Nurses and the young doctors, there’s no such thing as a money tree, Miss.”
“Precisely dear…there used to be a very good one. But now it’s been defoliated by our understandable devotion to Profession Friedman. Yes Theresa?”
“Please Miss, um, what am I going to do?”
“Very good question. I suppose you could phone a friend”.
“I haven’t got any friends, Miss”.
“Oh dear. What does anyone else think..?..yes Philip….”
“She could always change her name to Patsy, Miss”.
(Much sniggering at the back)
“Philip we’re all sick and tired of your silly jokes. Right, that’s enough for today….next week, was the loaves and fishes story a myth? I’d like you to start us off on that discussion, Jeremy….what do you say, young Corbyn?”
The moral of the story: crony tax policies kill trees
The Slog 