Sinister: a smashing orangey bit

[Nick Dastoor]

I think Tag might be mixing up his EC and his Customs & Excise (or is
it Inland Revenue?) officials.  I know it's an easy mistake to make.
This is how I recall the case of a few years ago:

Under UK taxation law, food is exempt from VAT charges, but this
exemption doesn't cover confectionery (nor food in restaurants - it's
all too luxurious.)

Now cake is classed as a basic foodstuff (something of a hangover from
Marie Antoinette and her Pasties of the Bourgeoisie no doubt) but
biscuits, they're clearly frivolous items of confectionery.

One day the taxman decided that Jaffa Cakes weren't really cakes at
all but just tax dodging biscuits. McVities weren't going to take this
lying down because they wanted to make lots of money.  So the
courtcase ensued.  And clever McVities lawyers argued that JCs really
were sponge cakes, just a lot smaller than the norm.  In a coup de
grace, they called for Exhibit A, a specially-baked giant Jaffa Cake
which they sliced in front of the assembled court in a very cake-like
way.  Everyone gasped and the day was won.  A Jaffa cake is a cake is
a cake is a cake.

Hmm.. Is the new LP going to have a pub trivia theme I wonder?  "If
you're feeling anal" anyone?

So long

Nick xxx

Tag wrote:

And jaffa cakes, which are
particular bone of contention for me. Biscuit or cake? Since they
are described as cakes, a recent EC directive decreed that they should
therefore be taxed accordingly. And a jaffa cake contains light
sponge, chocolate and a smashing orangey bit, but not 'biscuit'. But
I can't help feeling that an authentic cake should somehow be bigger.
I have no problem with them being called jaffa 'cakes', somehow jaffa
sponges or jaffa biscuits is aesthetically inferior, and a bombay duck
is a fish not a duck, and a parson's nose is not a nose at all, so why
should a jaffa cake be a cake. A case of EC bureaucracy gone mad,
perhaps? Maybe, other readers or indeed Stuart himself would care to
offer their views.





 

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