There's More Than One Way To Tax The Life Out Of You

Gordon Brown may be poncing around promising tax cuts to everyone while ramping up the national debt like a bankrupt cocaine addict scattering IOUs everywhere, but it isn't stopping him and his cronies scamming cash from us by using a multitude of underhand tactics.

This includes hiking up fines - The Magistrate's Blog reveals a disproportionate increase in motoring fines, for instance; and it's been revealed that increases in child protection case fees are putting children's lives at risk.

Motorists are prime targets for fines and penalties: how about being fined £20 for leaving your engine running while in a traffic jam?

Being caught stubbing out your fag end on the street could cost you £80. Fifty if you're caught smoking inside a public building.

Here's a short list of various offences from the Home Office. And the numerous jobsworths who can slap a fine on you.

As a parent, you can be fined £100 if your child plays truant.

Here's the government's own guide to fixed penalty fines for 'low-level environmental crimes'.

Not to mention being done for putting the wrong type of waste in your green bin - even though huge amounts of this recylable waste are now having to be stored in warehouses and military camps because the market has collapsed.

What with trying to regulate every aspect of people's lives, from childhood onward, and impose penalties and fines on us at any opportunity, this government is becoming more mediaeval by the day.