13 January 2006

Tra la la

Anybody can make a mistake. So perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister should not feel too disheartened about this one, as reported in The Independent:
John Prescott was forced to apologise to the Commons for an "inadvertent error" in failing to pay the full rate of council tax on his grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House.
The Deputy Prime Minister, who is responsible for council tax policy, agreed yesterday to pay his unpaid council tax bill for the past seven years, although he was not legally bound to do so, and he has reimbursed his department £3,564 for its payment of his council tax since 1997.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "It was a classic case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing." He added: "He discovered the misunderstanding because he thought what was being asserted [by the press] was wrong and discovered it wasn't."

What a strange thing for the Spokesman to say. At the heart of Government, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing? Why not simply say that it was a muddle not a fiddle?

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