"bugger"

How are you going to celebrate "Tax Freedom Day" this year?. That extra bottle of sparkly something after your 48 hour week, a bar of chocolate, or maybe you will really splash out with a weekend a trip to Paris or Berlin.

Then don't plan on the 1st of June, as European Union finance ministers yesterday agreed on a voluntary levy on airline tickets to fund extra development aid for Africa. The optional charge on airline tickets falls short of what French President Jacques Chirac originally proposed with backing from German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. But it could break the ice on what might one day become a broader tax to help Africa.

Yeh as if, as Richard North writes on his blog, this is one to watch, once the "ice is broken" the way is clear for a "European tax", which can then be extended from its hypothecated base to cover broader expenditure issues.

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People in Britain will spend over 152 days of this year toiling, just to pay their taxes (5 months). This year, Tax Freedom Day will fall on 31 May.

It's a tribute to Enron Brown's skill with "stealth" taxes that so few people seem to have noticed the huge rise in taxes that has overtaken them. But Tax Freedom Day is a clear measure of the total burden which he can't escape.

And don't forget that Enron Brown has been on a borrowing binge, which future taxpayers will have to pay for. Adding that burden I estimate it will push the date out to 11 June by 2007.

During the Middle Ages peasants did not belong to themselves. Everything they owned, their food, homes, and animals all belonged to the lord of the manor. Known as serfs, peasants were required to work for 50 days for their lord and in return were allowed to farm their own piece of land. The peasants were not free to leave the manor and were required to ask for permission. To gain freedom a peasant had to save money for his own land or marry a free person.

Progress eh, well there is no way Mr Humphries.

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