Today is April Fools Day. I am listing April Fools the government could get up to.
Many of them seem too ludicrous to fool anybody as no government could be so silly.
The trouble is some of them are not April Fools but are actual government policy.
Can you spot the fools?
- The government will give a British island away to a country 1,200 miles distant that has no good legal claim to it. It will then lease it back as it has a naval base we still need, paying the country an annual rent to still be able to use it.
- The government will introduce a Regulator to limit how much football clubs can spend. Ministers and the Regulator will get involved with decisions over how much a club can bid for new players, how many new players it can buy, who will manage the team, and how much money it can take from rich donors that want to back it. The Government will be dragged into taking sides in disputes between clubs. It's a great way to make a Minister unpopular.
The Chagos Islands in Mauritius
Getty- The government that wants many more jobs to get growth and to get many more people back to work will start by imposing a big tax increase on anyone creating a new job. They will snuff out confidence in the economy putting businesses off hiring.
- The government that wants more homes for people legally settled here to ease the housing shortage will have a housing target much lower than the number of extra people it invites into the country each year.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has been slammed for enacting anti-business measures
GETTY- The government that wants to reduce world carbon dioxide will ban all new home produced gas forcing the UK to import more. Imported liquified gas creates 3 times as much CO 2 as domestic gas down a pipe.
- The government that wants to expand the domestic car industry will ban all the new petrol and diesel cars we currently make from 2030 forcing the closure of those factories. It will urge people to buy battery cars which will be mainly imports.
Drivers of electric cars will have to pay Vehicle Excise Duty from April 1X/GETTY- The government that wants higher growth and living standards will align our laws and practices more closely with EU which has lower GDP per head than we do, whilst failing to do a trade deal with the USA where GDP per head is twice the EU level.
- The government that can only afford an army of 73,000 for all its worldwide duties will offer a security guarantee for Ukraine against a Russian army of 1,500,000.
The British Army is 20 times smaller than Russia's
PA- The government will send £38 bn to the Bank of England to cover one year of its losses, all paid for by the taxpayer, without Ministers even trying to explain why.
- The government will pay rich farmers money each year to stop growing food on their parts of their land, whilst taxing family farms on the death of the farmer threatening the break up of their farm.
