Chancellor refuses to rule out tax on pets

The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves (at the time of publication), is due to give her doom-laden budget speech at the end of the month. Journalists are desperately trying to prize information out of her about what will be in it.

Most news stories for the last month, and almost certainly for the next month, revolve around things that the Chancellor has neither ruled in, nor ruled out. As media editors demand more and more copy about budget speculation, the questions are becoming increasingly unhinged.

One media outlet suggested that the government might reintroduce a pet licence costing £20 per cat and £50 per dog. The differential charge is because cats are better at covering it up, whereas dogs incur higher street cleaning costs. This tax would have raised almost one billion pounds. The Chancellor, however, refused to confirm or deny.

Also in limbo are suggestions about reinstating George Osborne’s pasty tax and caravan tax. A tax on tarmacked over driveways – because they increase rain water run-off – cannot be confirmed or denied.

Experts say that a tax on aeroplane meals is 'pie in the sky' and also say that it’s highly unlikely that the Chancellor would impose a tax on hens’ teeth. A tax on anchovies would be hard to collect and would be in bad taste. A proposed increase in gambling tax is described as 'pure speculation' and 25-1 against.

The experts also say that a penguin tax would raise very little money in the UK, unless the Chancellor decides to target the biscuits (or are they cakes?) formerly made of chocolate.

So there you have it. The complete absence of solid facts. And lots of ill-informed speculation. But plenty of copy.

If you have any mad ideas about taxing something stupid, saucy, or outrageous, please send us a message, and we’ll write it up for tomorrow’s paper.

Image: Newsbiscuit Archive

BBC airs 'Dr Who and the Garlics' to win over French haters

'We've taken a lot of flack from the right wing press for apparently being biased towards the left,' said a spokes-Tardis for the BBC.

'So to prove how totally impartial we are, we're putting out a show which serves up some truly loathsome foreign villains for Tories and Reform voters to despise.

'It's a special edition of Dr Who in which the doctor, played by an in-form Nigel Farage, takes on a bunch of shifty, treacherous French humanoid machines called the Garlics who want to subject Britain to European rule again.

'Armed with only a sonic vodka and orange screwdriver and 200 Rothmans, Farage's Doctor Who defeats Macron, the evil Garlic leader, by boring him and everyone else to death with a series of interminable press conferences.

'We've really done the background on this,' said the BBC spokes-Jelly Baby, looking increasingly embarrassed at what he had been made to read out.

'The Farage doctor regenerated from the Enoch Powell doctor. He, in turn, regenerated from Oswald Mosley and Lord Haw Haw.

'And the Farage doctor is a Time Lord, all right, because what he really wants is to take Britain back in time to the 1930s and then lord it over everyone as prime minister.'

Image: WixAI

DFT recruits MOD driving examiners - pass or fail?

In the light of the dearth of driving examiners, Shelley (not her real name) was glad to get any examiner for her recent driving test. She was shocked by the apparent new format. 'I parked up my Fiesta and waited. The examiner first of all demanded that I get in the 'proper way' through the roof. He said he was made very uneasy by the lack of something he called 'proper Chobham' and asked where the HESH rounds were actually kept.'

Shelley continued her recount.' Next, he seemed annoyed that my car was ridiculously roomy and kept asking if the radio was encrypted and where the other people were. We then had to ask two other candidates to get in too, otherwise he said it wasn't really safe to proceed. We all had to address him as Commander but we weren't very confident despite his air of authority.

He was angry at what he called my excessive speed and acceleration. As the test progressed, he seemed to get increasingly bored and frustrated. In the end, he instructed me to leave the road completely to demonstrate my driving 'properly'. He seemed quite pleased with this rather infrastructure-heavy part of the test which included the wall around Sainsbury's as well as a couple of trolleys. We terrorised some Duke of Edinburgh Award students, the Cockerpoo owners' club and our local children's nursery, all of whom ran, more or less successfully, screaming from our path. At one point most of our local Farmers Market seemed to be impaled on the front of the car. They weren't happy. '

But, did she pass her test?' Sadly, after a particularly challenging downward slope into the local quarry, the Fiesta was totalled, 'she mourned. 'The Commander said I had failed. I hadn't used my indicator on one occasion when pulling out.'

Image: Perchance AI