Give Mothers tax break for home help, Cameron told
This was the headline on the front page of The Times today.
Lt is not a new idea, as I heard it from a senior civil servant in about 1980.
He was in the Department of Employment and had proposed that if you employed someone properly out of your salary and paid their taxes accordingly, then you would get tax relief. It wouldn’t be just for cleaners, babysitters and gardeners as in the current plans, but for any legitimate purpose.
Thus, if you were in a high paid job and perhaps felt, you’d like to start a small business, then you could employ someone to investigate if it was feasible.
As it says in today’s front page, it would cut the black economy and raise extra revenue.
It was eventually dropped, as the government’s model of the economy had no knowledge of the black one.
I hope they do now!
A Lock Is a Gate
This is a mini concept album and drawing project for the Central Line. These pictures were taken at Bethnal Green station.
There is more on the project here. Note the poster for the Stairway To Heaven, which will commemorate the 173 people who died in the Bethnal Green tube disaster in 1943.
Is This Optimism?
I took this picture on a very cold day outside Carluccio’s in Islington.
Outside Tables in the Cold
Is it the height of optimism to expect people to sit outside?
Lottery Fever in Nottinghamshire
Over the last few months, there have been a couple of large ottery wins in Nottinghamshire. The last one is reported here.
There has been the usual mutterings about regional bias, but it’s just a statistical freak.
Of course now, a lot of stupid people in the county will play, as they think the area is favoured by the draw.
I never play the lottery or scratch cards, as they are just a tax on the poor and the stupid.
The Anonymous Widower 