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Article: Parliament: The Sketch - From Brown's intellectual agoraphobia to guilty but insane Andrew Smith Parliament
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- March 30, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2001 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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LABOUR'S ANN Cryer asked a metaphysical question in Parliament.
That was tasteless of her. At least she was asking the right people:
those famous ontologists in the Treasury.
It seems that Customs and Excise were disallowing a zero rate on a
charity's bandstand in her constituency because being a bandstand it
wasn't a building. "If a bandstand isn't a building, what is it?"
Well, what do you want it to be? Depending on the tax
implications, it might be a banana, possibly? Or a pet? Gordon Brown
has a choice of half- a-dozen new realities every morning.
Some while ago, our Chancellor was cruelly labelled by Downing
Street as being "psychologically flawed". Cruel, yes, but probably
fair. ...