Evasion and waste (original) (raw)

The holy grails of finance ministers

By Buttonwood

BRITAIN's budgets tend to contain a whole host of fiddly measures that are designed to appeal to particular interest groups but are often far less substantial in their application than they sound in the speech. Gordon Brown was a regular Koko from the Mikado (My brain it teems/with endless schemes/both good and new) and George Osborne has followed suit.