Prescott Apologises

Prescott apologises on tax bill

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has apologised after admitting council tax bills for one of his official homes were paid with taxpayers' money.

Mr Prescott says he thought he was paying the tax. Oops! How unfortunate.

I don’t quite follow this: an official home presumably goes with the job. Or is this like my own - officially where I live as far as Council Tax requirements go. Anyway, it’s nice that he apologises, isn’t it? Most of us would have probably been imprisoned, blacklisted as a debtor or something similar. We all make mistakes, but for the Minister responsible for Council Tax it is absolutely incredible. Totally unacceptable. But that's tough. Nothing can or will be done.

• A jump into the future: Chancellor Gordon Brown forgot the VAT on the Olympic Games estimated cost. The VAT at 17.5% of £9.3bn would amount to a further £1.6275bn. This would have totalled at almost £11bn

• When would the VAT become due? The final cost (mid 2012) would become known and then publicly declared. (Of course it will be!! DA) and then value tax added. This is one definition of self-sustaining: the government creates the 'olympic' scenario and then as a true parasite pay itself the value it 'created'. Using tax-payers money. And STILL nobody notices

Especially when this ' £4K mistake' has taken around 9 years (!! - DA) to come to light. And this reimbursement does attract interest, of course? What are these people? It is certainly one rule for them and another one for the rest of us.

Remember the incident when he assaulted a member of the public? Unlikely that Prescott 'COULD BE' charged. If it had been the other way around (and not just an egg) then someone would have been imprisoned, maybe for attempted murder or something.

Simply asking. Again...