Frankie Boyle On Mock The Week

there's 4 men in the vid. which one is Boyle? (the name tags are too blurred to read)

i wawtched mock the week last night, and he was on form (evil). also, he was pretty evil on something else i saw him on recently... i think it was "would i lie to you" (it's not great, i don't really like angus daeton (sp?))

Thatcher didnt introduce council tax - that was Major

20th century: community charge

Main article: Community Charge

The Community Charge was a poll tax to fund local government in the United Kingdom, instituted in 1989 by the government of Margaret Thatcher. It replaced the rates (tax) that were based on the notional rental value of a house. The abolition of rates was in the manifesto of Thatcher's Conservative Party in the 1979 general election, and the replacement was proposed in the Green Paper of 1986, Paying for Local Government. It was a fixed tax per adult resident, but there was a reduction for poor people. Each person was to pay for the services provided in their community. This proposal was contained in the Conservative Manifesto for the 1987 General Election. The new tax replaced the rates in Scotland from the start of the 1989/90 financial year and in England and Wales from the start of the 1990/91 financial year.

The system was unpopular. It seemed to shift the tax burden from rich to poor, as it was based on the number of people living in a house rather than its estimated price. Many tax rates set by local councils proved to be much higher than earlier predictions, leading to resentment even among people who had supported it. The tax in different boroughs differed dramatically because local taxes paid by businesses varied and grants by central government to local authorities sometimes varied capriciously.

There were mass protests, called by the All-Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation to which the vast majority of local Anti Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) were affiliated. In Scotland the APTUs called for mass non-payment and these calls rapidly gathered widespread support which spread to England and Wales, even though non-payment meant that people could be prosecuted. In some areas, 30% of former ratepayers defaulted. While owner-occupiers were easy to tax, those who regularly changed accommodation were almost impossible to pursue if they chose not to pay. The cost of collecting the tax rose steeply while the returns from it fell. Enforcement measures became increasingly draconian, and unrest grew and culminated in a number of Poll Tax Riots. The most serious was in a protest at Trafalgar Square, London, on March 31, 1990, of more than 200,000 protesters. A Labour MP, Terry Fields, was jailed for 60 days for refusing to pay his poll tax.

This unrest was instrumental in toppling Margaret Thatcher in 1990. Her replacement, John Major, replaced the Community Charge with the Council Tax system, effective from 1993-94. That tax was very similar to the rating system that preceded the Poll Tax. The main differences were that it was levied on capital value rather than notional rental value of a property, and that it had a 25% discount for single-occupancy dwellings





Taken from Wikipedia

so, a lot like a "shock jock" (NOT referring to slang for scotsman, but the coincidence makes me happy.)

i guess comedians usually exaggerate to get a laugh.

not idolizing or demonizing her, i wasn't shocked at the Thatcher joke; no more so than any joke about shooting someone's cofffin. M Thatcher is apparently still alive, then? who knew?

i'm pretty sure he has other things on his mind now, b.

and wurms