Britain’s government has made a series of U-turns in a day on plans ranging from secret trials to a tax on pasties, in what it called a sign of heeding critics but opponents labelled a shambles.
The moves, announced while parliament was in recess, also attracted claims they were timed to avoid the embarrassment of being challenged by lawmakers as the embattled Conservative-led coalition fights to regain momentum.
The finance ministry said late Monday it would scale back plans to extend the VAT sales tax of 20 percent to hot takeaway food and static holiday caravans — a cash-raising scheme that tapped into wider discontent. The two taxes had become symbolic of a perceived attack on the working classes. “We’ve listened to the case that was put to us,” treasury minister David Gauke told the BBC.
“What we’ve managed to do is improve the test so those bakers who produce a Cornish pasty or hot sausage roll and let it cool over the course of the day, they are not going to face VAT.”
Gauke’s counterpart in the opposition Labour party, Chris Leslie, said: “What a chaotic way to run a country. How on earth can you have a budget process that unravels in a day when you’ve got this kind of shambolic business?” Snacks kept in a heated environment until sale will still be subject to the tax, while static caravans are to be taxed at a new 5.0 percent rate.
The Treasury said the adjustments responded to feedback while “still making sure we meet the objective of clearer and more consistent system”. The annual budget released in March earned public ire for giving the wealthy a tax break while cutting public services, and marked the start of what enemies of the coalition labelled an “omnishambles” — a reference to farcical political sitcom “The Thick Of It”.
Economic figures released in April showed Britain had slumped back into recession in late 2011 and local elections on May 3 proved a bloodbath for the coalition’s Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. Reports circulated of strains in the two-year-old alliance led by Prime Minister David Cameron, Britain’s first coalition government since World War II.
And plans to allow secret proceedings in civil courts so that evidence from intelligence agencies could be heard also provoked an outcry after the government billed itself as a defender of transparency and civil liberties. Justice minister Ken Clarke said Tuesday that these plans too would be watered down.