The First Day Of A New Year

6 April, the first day of the fiscal year. Back to zero and working (if you sully yourself with such things - I rather tend not to these days) for the government of the day. And hasn't the news been kind to us - matters fiscal are to the fore, most particularly the information that certain people have been taking advantage of overseas tax planning, sometimes, oh Heaven forfend, with the aid of those most heinous of beasts, foreign bloody lawyers - the Panama Papers  .What vile scumbaggery. Most deliciously for our slavering know-nothing press, the name of Dave 'Boy' Cameron's late father is implicated. Mind you, it's a frigging miracle to me (being from the ghetto and all - well Erdington anyway) how anyone can afford to send offspring to Eton without fiddling their bloody taxes.

But my task is made even more urgent by the serendipity of yesterday's allocated New Testament reading in my free-to-Kindle 'the Bible for the Weak and Lazy' (all right it's not really called that but you get the drift). Yesterday was Day 22 of that little project (I have actually read it before - for a bet with my father when I received a Gideons Bible at school) and up popped (inter alia obviously or I'd be at it forever) Matthew 22:21. Here it is in its full King James glory:

They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's

Which, I invite you to agree, is as close as scripture gives us to a Tax Collector's Charter. But, and here's the rub, your obligation is to render to Caesar only what is properly his. All else is God's. Which is a bit of a problem for that piece of political detritus, Jeremy Corbyn, who doesn't believe in God or anything smacking of a supra-legal morality. The state is all. Now Jezza the problem with your pathetic indignation at this latest concatenation of public affairs is that the genus of state you so worship has, pretty much everywhere, turned out to be a vile and inadequate vehicle for governance. So we should dispose of Corbyn's views on this subject as readily as we do most of his others. However, the Boy Cameron is not home and hosed I'm afraid, and if you sit patiently, I'll explain why.

You've brought this on yourself PM. The Mirror is being no more disingenuous than you. The editor went to Malvern College by the way. No wonder he's a cad.

Cameron and his mate Gideon have been at the forefront (well just behind the ludicrous Margaret Hodge) in the lazy and unhelpful elision of two perfectly understood and distinct concepts: Tax Evasion (unlawful) and Tax Avoidance (lawful). Corbyn also gets these things muddled up but one is inclined to be generous and to put this down to his being thick. Instead of the legal clarity that bathed these two terms we now get our old friend 'morality' casting a shadow. Morality is best not left to politicians. And that elision, Dave me old mate, makes you totally fair game in the outing of your dad as a perfectly innocent tax avoider. Ladbroke's offer a teasing 3/1 that you won't be PM by the end of 2016 - Cameron Bets. * I can see a perfect shitstorm of Europe and tax making this a diverting little wager.

*In the two days since I posted this I note that the odds have plummeted to 7/4. This can only have been due to my loyal followers placing serious money on the Boy Cameron biting the dust this year. Please note that at about 12.15 on 9 April I will be announcing the winner of this year's Grand National five hours ahead of the race.