Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Taxation episode (The Smokescreen) from "Yes Prime Minister"

In January 1986 the political comedy " Yes Prime Minister" featured an episode "The Smokescreen" in which The Prime Minister, Jim Hacker, favours abolishing smoking through heavy taxation but he runs into strong opposition from the tobacco lobby and the Treasury department.

The following exchange between the PM and his permanent secretary seemed especially worthy of inclusion on this blog:

Sir Humphrey: Taxation isn't about what you need.
Jim Hacker: Oh, what is it about?
Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, the Treasury doesn't work out what they need to spend and then think how to raise the money.
Jim Hacker: What does it do?
Sir Humphrey: They pitch for as much as they think they can get away with and then think what to spend it on.

I've attached also an extract from the start of the same episode where Sir Humphrey explains his view as to how all new Prime Ministers want to cut either taxes or public expenditure.....

1 comment:

Suren said...

Wonderfull fun stuff!! Its a good start of my day!!
some more funy jokes are here

Songs that might have been about tax avoidance

Maybe these were the original titles of popular songs: April 6th Showers  Savin' All My Tax For Me  VAT's love got to do with it...