Tax ‘em til they squeak

AS the UK and Ireland moves closer to becoming Tesco’s largest outlet, Sammy Wilson, Miser for Finance and Personnel, has decided that the superstores should pay more than their share to help Norn Iron’s floundering economy.

Yeah, that’s right Sammy has launched a 15% rates hike on those nasty old investors to help some of the small artisans and petty bourgeoisie small shopkeepers.

Go, Sammy! All that effort and fraught meetings with lobby groups and industry representative groups and you stuck to your guns, well pretty much to your guns anyway.

Tescos are in a huff, Sainsbury’s in a sulk, B&Q are hiding in the corner playing menacingly with a power tool and Ikea are in a Swedish strop and threatening to run away.

And there is perhaps one good thing to come from this rates rise. While we may bemoan that bankers got off scot free (again), at least there is the whisper of a chance that we’ll never get lost around Ikea’s labyrinthine flat pack maze.