Newcastle Journal: Forced into unjust policy

DENISE ROBERTSON

I WILL never forget last summer's floods, nor the devastation they caused.

Now the Taxpayers' Alliance has revealed that the Chancellor will be raking in £535m in VAT on repairs to the flooded homes while giving only £86m to flood relief. In other words, he stands to make a hefty profit out of other people's misery.

To be fair to the Chancellor, he probably doesn't want to be so grasping, but the EU's VAT Directive doesn't leave him any option. He has to take a profit of £449m on the disaster whether or not he likes it because they say he must. That is not what we bargained for when we voted Yes to the Common Market, our own elected representatives being powerless to play fair with us when disaster strikes.