The Debt Management Office is, I imagine, a single floor in a nondescript building where the walls are adorned with giant TV screens that display, minute by minute, the ticking up of the UK’s national debt.
Sharply-dressed men and women silently shuffle past the neon numbers, pausing after being caught in the screens’ tractor beam, to let out wailing screams of frustration and anguish.
So it is perhaps with a hint of desperation that this little-known branch of the Treasury suggests on its website that publicly-spirited individuals can donate, should they wish, to His Majesty’s Government to help decrease the debt-burden.
“Please help”, implore these chuggers of the state.
Their call was answered by an exclusive club of 120 success stories who call themselves “Patriotic Millionaires”. I guess you have to be rich and famous to be in this group, so it was no surprise to see the head of the big bucks, Gary Lineker, step in, along with film director Richard Curtis and music producer Brian Eno, to express their desire to give more of their millions away. They want – among other things – to add 1 or 2 per cent tax on the value of anyone rich enough to have assets over £10m. They are calling on our Government “to raise taxes on extreme levels of wealth for a fairer, better, and more hopeful Britain.”
