Tax The Stupid

By Dick Mellor

I see that David Cameron is complaining about the cost of the new England football shirt being £90. He's right to complain too, as the pricing is all wrong; but not too high as Dave says, they should cost much more!

I'm sick of seeing fat-bellied, slack-jawed, cock-eyed mongrels wearing leisure wear as they go about their lack of business. We all know who buys football shirts: the scroungers, the chavs, the drug dealers, the kind of people you see walking around in tracky trousers spitting on pavements for no reason. The scum of the Earth, basically.

I would create a special tax just to put on football shirts. I would even call it the "tax on the stupid" because I know that most football fans are too retarded to notice and too lazy to have ever done a hard days work in their life or have paid any tax themselves, other than the tax they pay on fags and booze of course.

*Dick's review of the 2013-2014 tax year is now available for Kindle from Dick Mellor Publishing Corp.

Budget Special

With finance expert Ted Gash

How will the government's 2014 budget effect people in Stoke? Here's a handy guide.

Alcohol

There has been a 1p cut in the duty on beer. This means you will effectively get 1 free beer for every 200 or so you buy. Get drinking! The price of Scottish whisky will remain the same if you fancy something more manly.

Tobacco

The price of tobacco will rise by 2% above inflation. This may mean you want to seek out cheaper alternatives, like making the odd trip to Calais to stock up, or buying cigarettes from non-legal sources, like a guy who steals them from his workplace.

Benefits

Total benefits will be capped and only increase in line with inflation in the near future. This means you should claim as much as you can now to leave you better placed if there's lots more claimants in forthcoming years.

Woman Told To Work As Hooker Or Lose Benefits

A Stoke woman who turned down a job providing "services'' at a massage parlour in Cobridge faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced by the current government.

Kelly Holdcroft, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

Could this be a massage parlour?

She received a letter from the Jobcentre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman realise that she was calling a massage parlour.

Under the government's benefit reforms, anyone who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take any available job offered to them or lose their unemployment benefit.

When Ms Holdcroft looked into suing the Jobcentre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Jobcentres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

Cameron Reassures Stokies Over Pasty Supplies

Prime Minister David Cameron sought to reassure Stokies that pasties will not run out after a serious accident involving a woman trying to make her own pasty in her kitchen cast doubt on the government's decision to encourage the stockpiling of pasties.

Sharon Guff, from Brindley Ford, was in a "critical but chirpy" condition in hospital with 40% burns to her tongue after overcooking a pasty because her daughter needed one for her tea.

A local man enjoys a pasty

The accident happened on Thursday night, a day after Francis Maude the Cabinet Office minister, said the proposed pasty makers' strike meant that "making your own pasties is a sensible precaution to take". Some Labour figures blamed Maude personally for the accident and called for his resignation.

Cameron described the kitchen accident as "a desperate incident and a terrible thing" and he said that his heart went out to Guff and her family. Speaking after chairing a meeting of the emergency food committee, he insisted the government and pasty companies were doing all they could to address the shortages that have been caused by panic buying in some areas.

"The pasty companies are working flat out to resupply supermarkets," Cameron said. "It is frustrating, I know, when supermarkets have queues. Everything that can be done is being done, but it will take some time."