Well, folks, here it is as promised – Headlined “A Tax Too Far” and illustrated with a photograph of two men holding up their tax demands towards the camera.

“ARE POLITICIANS – Greek and European – deaf, dumb and blind or just plumb crazy that they can’t see the wood for the trees?

Do members of the government not realise that the more they pile on the taxes, the less people will buy and, together with all the small businesses that have been forced to close, the tax base will be further eroded?

The property tax will more than likely be the last straw. I know that I, for one, when the time comes and living on a small UK pension, will simply not be in a position to pay it. What will happen? Will my electricity – now more expensive than ever anyway –be cut off? And if this should apply to not hundreds but thousands of people in the same boat whose income has been reduced or who have been made redundant and their electricity is cut off, what a fine old mess that is going to be.

Of course the very rich have no cause to worry, but for the ordinary working man this could very well be a tax too far, as it were.

Secondly has this nonsensical idea of obtaining shopping receipts using a swipe card been thought through? It’s fine for the big supermarkets that accept credit cards but there are thousands of small businesses that don’t. They simply won’t accept anything but cash.

And what about the itinerant peddler who sells his wares from the back of a truck? Or farmers for example? Or the baker who, apart from his shop, does a bread round in a van, a boon to the elderly? Or the stall holders in street markets? Or the sellers of plastic furniture and nurserymen selling plants, wood merchants and more? I’ve seen a fishmonger’s van, someone selling tools from the boot of his car, Chinese merchants flogging tat and even live chickens for sale. Are they all going to use swipe cards? Do me a favour.

Another point –multiple households. In this house there are three people, each with his own tax number. Now if one goes shopping on behalf of all three (which is in fact the case) can you imagine a supermarket teller’s reaction when the shopper says, ‘This purchase goes on this card, this one on the second card, and these others on the third. The whole idea is absurd.”

A short Blog today, pithy and to the point … I hope.