Council Tax hikes take a hike

Prime ministerial wannabe Gordon Brown, currently the occupant of New Labour's Cashchancellery, has cancelled plans for the re-banding of millions of homes throughout England and the occupied territories. This would have raised an extra few quid with which to prop up the NHS and gloss over the National Debt.

Junior treasury scapegoat, Dylan Flange, said yesterday that the plans for hiking up Council Tax were recognised as being unpopular and unworkable. However, Flange added that "although the British Public are probably breathing a huge sigh of relief, we'll have your hard-earned in the end, we always do".

Proposed measures for relieving us of the few bob we have left out of our pay-packets after Gordon has had his thieving mitts in them include:

• Implementing a new style Local Income Tax to be collected at source.
• Imposing a permission-to-go-to-work levy.
• Raising VAT to 50 per cent on super-luxury items such as bread and shoes.
• Reducing the school leaving age from 16 to 12, saving on teachers and schools.
• Cutting back on asylum seekers' hand-outs to only one mobile phone and one leather jacket per person.
• Withdrawing the Winter Fuel Allowance for the over-75s.
• Using frozen over-75s to fuel eco-friendly power stations.
• Raising the VAT on pensioner-fuelled eco-friendly electricity to 72 per cent.

Mr Flange later added that although these measures were still in the theoretical stage, further cuts were already on the starting blocks with British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan being relieved of their SA80 assault rifles and re-equipped with ex-IRA weapons such as 30-year-old AK47s, coffee-jar nail bombs and Republican rhetoric. Defence chiefs were said to be over the moon with their new armoury, as the SA80 was a piece of shit anyway.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown was unavailable for comment on his new blood-out-of-a-stone stealth taxes as he was busy with Treasury matters, such as holidaying in Antigua and getting his brat signed up for a Public School.

Previously

• Blair-Brown bloodbath: Business as usual
• Chancellor reassures public over fuel price hike
• Treasury to offer tax relief on stolen goods