Sunday, July 06, 2008

Kerry McCarthy: still wallowing in whining ignorance...

We have met the tedious whinging of Kerry McCarthy, MP, before: she was, if you recall, whining that because of house prices, she wasn't able to buy as big a house in London with our money as some older MPs.

Your humble Devil was unsympathetic, to say the least.

I thought I'd pop back in and see how the silly cow was getting on. As per usual, she was attempting to justify voting against reform of MPs' expenses and, yet again, moaning about how she can't afford to buy a bigger London flat (with our money, natch).
P.S. Of course this has been portrayed in the press as MPs' voting for the 'John Lewis list'. I'm not going to be claiming anything from that. But again, it shows up the unsatisfactory nature of the current system - someone like me, once they've got a sofa and a bed and some storage, simply wouldn't have room, even if they did want to buy more. Yet another MP could have a family-sized house in both the constituency and London, and kit one of them out in full at the taxpayer's expense. Also, someone like David Cameron can choose to have a top-of-the-market second home, and blow his entire allowance on paying interest on the mortgage - and then be given credit for not claiming for his TV licence or electric bills. It doesn't mean he's claiming any less than the rest of us; he isn't. It just means he's got lots of his own money to add to the pot too.

Oh, sweeeetie: is your ickle flat a widdle bit small? My heart fucking bleeds, you thieving bastard: shut the fuck up. As I have said before, as a very minimum, we should only pay rental expenses, not mortgages.

Or we could build a set of university-style halls for MPs, featuring 646 sparsely furnished rooms and a set of shared bathrooms. And, of course, there should be CCTV cameras in every single room and corridor (not least so darling wee Kerry won't have to worry about those nasty hoodies): we'll afford them some privacy in the bathroom and toilet, not least because the idea of some poor fucker having to watch, for instance, John Prescott straining to force yesterday's vastly subsidised food out of his arse (or vomit it up) just makes me cringe with the injustice of it all.

But here's another cracker from the idiot MP for Bristol East, concerning the recent judgement that Pringles are not, in fact, crisps.
The Jaffa cake—is it a cake, is it a biscuit—saga is well-known, with its makers desperate to prove it was in fact a biscuit, so that it wouldn't be subject to VAT. (Cakes are, biscuits aren't; don't ask me why).

Well, Kerry, you are a member of Parliament and so maybe—just maybe—you ought to go and look it up? Or if you are too lazy and stupid to do it yourself, at the very least you could ask one of the members of staff that you spent £90,611 of our money on last year to do it for you, could you not?

VAT is, of course, an EU imposed tax, Kerry, so maybe you should ask the EU Commission? Unless, of course, the whole biscuit/cake malarkey is, in fact, gold-plating by one of our supine governments?

I have no idea which it is, Kerry, but maybe you could find out and let us know. If only so that, just for once, you can proclaim something other than your own ignorance.


El Draque said...

Yes, MPs should shut up.
Apropos VAT, it's an EU tax but our government sets the level.
Food is usually exempt,as are biscuits, but luxuries like cakes aren't. So the case hung on whether a jaffa cake was a cake or a biscuit.
The case is very well-known, and is in every business-related course.
So our well-heeled MP hasn't studied any business at all? No surprise there.

Anonymous said...

Cakes attract no VAT. Chocolate biscuits do. Being chocolate covered the dastardly VATman wanted the Jaffa Cake to be considered a biscuit.

To prove the glorious Jaffa is indeed a cake, McVities made a big one.

pagar said...

This is a totally unwarranted attack on a saintly and defenceless woman who clearly knows how to protect me from all the things that are bad for me.

I am so impressed by her arguments and common sense that I am prepared to renounce my free will and pledge my soul to her secure in the knowledge that nothing bad will ever happen to me again.

And she can have all my money not just most of it.

Fucking Nazi bitch!!!

TheFatBigot said...

Now listen up chaps.

I'm a fat boy. I know a lot about cakes and biscuits. Being a boring sort of chap I also like a bit of technical law. So here goes, I hope not to have to repeat myself.

Under the relevant VAT Act at the time of the Jaffa Cake case (1991) food was zero rated with certain exceptions. By reason of the convoluted drafting of the Act the question was "cake or not cake?" It was not "cake or biscuit?" nor was it "chocolate coated cake or chocolate coated biscuit?", nor was it "luxury foodstuff or basic foodstuff?"

The foot-wide demonstration "jumbo jaffa" was not even referred to in the judgment.

The jaffa cake of normal size was ruled to be a cake and that was the end of the case. The Chairman of the Tribunal added, no doubt to ease the minds of single issue biscuit-fetishist fanatics who might want to insist that it is both a cake and a biscuit, that the jaffa cake is not a biscuit.

There. Now you know.

Anonymous said...

I thought I'd test out MPs whines by seeing how well their priviledges went down in the private sector. So I went into my boss's office and informed her that I needed to have an house close to my office as well as where I actually live so I would be submitting expenses for £21k to pay for my new flat and my plasma screen telly etc to go in it. She told me to fuck off and stop wasting her time and in future to stay out of the pub at lunchtime. So there you have it - MPs have absolutely no reason to fucking well bleat about their terms and conditions.

Anonymous said...

It's a UK thing.

The EU wants us to charge the same rate of VAT on everything (or charge at least 5% on everything), but the UK insisted on charging 0% on food (and children's clothes, electricity, newspapers...).

Of course having decided that, our gormless MPs then said "yes, but what about "bad" food? Surely that isn't going to have a tax advantage?". So they made a list of all the "bad" foods they could think of, and subjected them to the full rate.

Not surprisingly, MPs being as thick as pig swill, their list wasn't very helpful and has been a rich source of fees for tax lawyers ever since.

If they'd just kept it simple and charged the same rate on everything, the rate for everything could come down from 17.5% to 12.5% (except that Brussels won't let us reduce it below 15%...)

Anonymous said...

Taking more in incidental expenses than many earn in a year is outrageous enough, but whinging that it isn't enough is definitely a "let them eat (Jaffa) cake" moment.

Shame she didn't spend some of the loot on boosting self-awareness.

Anonymous said...

MPs Housing: easy! Camp beds and blow up mattresses in the halls and corridors of the Houses of Parliament. Then our chosen ones can be quickly at work each day and needn't worry about silly expenses.

Oh and a couple of porta loos would be provided, but only if they clean them out themselves.

waggieboy said...

kerry you are a waste of space just like your lieing ,cheating ,
thieving/english hating pathetic government,and i cant wait to see the back of you all.if anyone is interested i would like to oppose her in the general,if her majority
/AMONG OTHER THINGS\is cut it may make the difference of not having her pathetic whingeing brown nosing in our faces would be worth losing the deposit to get her out.anyone up for it?
we can call ourselves.RID OF THE REDS PARTY.waggyboy

Moonbat still loony
