Great minds think alike?

[fpb]

Certainly some minds do, although I am not sure whether I would characterize them as great. In order not to raise national taxes, Messrs. Blair and Brown have stealthily caused local taxes (based on property value) to grow by as much as 300%. And now news comes from Italy that Mr.Berlusconi and his unlovely government, who claim to be cutting national taxes, have had the bright idea of reforming the area categories that underlie the ICI (Town Tax on Real Estate, Imposta Comunale sugli Immobili), which is going to result in increases of up to 400% in local tax. What is really hilarious is that both groups probably imagined this to be a wizard wheeze that nobody would see through.

Comments

Re: Given that my name has been mentioned (part 2)

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

I saw a cut and paste of the original entry you'd made about me and I made a snarky response on my own LJ, which I am now more than happy to remove given your apology (for which I thank you). I also apologise for my own response in advance.

I am not going to comment on the situation between you and FAP. There's bad blood (a poor choice of phrase but the only one I can think of at the moment) and I don't think this is the place.

D. is, I'm afriad, a rather hot tempered Brazilian (if you'll excuse the national stereotype). He's not a bad bloke - I've known him since uni (we were on the same course) and you know, he actually hates Labour with a passion that even you'd find surprising. I probably should have warned him about your temper, but I didn't think he'd comment. Perhaps that's something I should have anticipated.

I'm going to be honest here (at the risk of causing offence, which is certainly not what I mean to cause). There are times when you completely bloody infuriate me. The last exchange of emails between you and me also (and with apologies for the phrase), completely got on my tits because I was really trying to be polite and civil in an unpleasant situation and felt scorched for my pains.

Like I said, if you want to talk about PFI, I'm happy to engage. I also think you'd enjoy the Monbiot book (although it looks more at the first wave of deals and the situation is a little different now). If you don't want to, then that's fine. We can agree to disagree.

t-q

Re: Given that my name has been mentioned (part 2)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Monbiot is rather extremistic for my taste - he has more than a smidgen of the conspiracy theorist (it may be that the articles of his I used to read in The Guardian don't show him at his best). And as for PFI, I do not actually like to discuss it, because it is something that I cannot change or do anything about. I feel very strongly that, in embracing a Tory agenda, Blair has betrayed his electors; but it also means that there is no real opportunity to change matters in any significant way. The effective and cloying coalition at the top means that we plebs will be fed PFI whether we want to or not. Just consider this: Ken Livingstone was elected with an overwhelming majority (I am speaking of his first election) on a platform opposing the partial or total privatization of the Tube; only to have it forced down his and every Londoner's throat by a brooding, vindictive Scot who has no more to do with London than George W.Bush with downtown Baghdad. This is an insult to democracy, and one of the many reasons why I am violently prejudiced against PFI. To have it defended in my own LJ in such a high-handed manner (and with a crying spelling mistake in the first few lines) was not designed to rub me the right way.