‘Beware of little blocks on those official forms’

MANY years ago we were shown a television series called which presented the story of World War II and some of the people who were involved, from high-ranking officers on both sides, politicians and historians, down to ordinary citizens whose lives had been turned upside down by the war the world’s leaders had hurled them into.

I remember an old German woman being interviewed and asked: “How could you have stood by without protest while the SS soldiers were rounding up your Jewish neighbours and sending them off to death camps?”.

Her reply has stayed in my mind ever since. She said: “It all started with official forms. Whether you filled in a form to get a driver’s licence or a doctor’s prescription, or to join the local library, there was a little box to be ticked that said ‘are you Jewish?’ It seemed harmless and we simply ticked ‘no’ because we didn’t want to make a fuss, but it was the evil beginning of it all.

“It was the start of the sneaking idea that Jews were different. Eventually they were banned from certain stores and restaurants and forbidden to do certain trades.

“We were subtly indoctrinated to the idea there was something different about them. They had been our friends and neighbours for generations, but now they had to shop in different places and keep out of restaurants and send their children to different schools.

“By the time the soldiers came for them they were no longer our kind of people. It all started with that harmless little block asking for our race.”

I have often thought about that and felt a frisson of horror every time I have been required to state my race on a form. Is it the beginning of something terrible? Why do the authorities need to know my race when I apply for a driver’s licence? Will we end up with separate roads for whites, Indians and Portuguese?

Now I see the government is suggesting we should register if we generate our own electricity or obtain water from somewhere other than a municipal supply?

It’s just for the record. Just a simple form, they tell us. But will it lead to taxes on non-official water and electricity?

Of course it will when the state begins to lose revenue.

We will be taxed for not buying our electricity or water from the authorities. That’s an interesting legal point, isn’t it.

Can you put a tax on something you do not buy? Bring it down to a simple example. Can your supermarket charge you VAT if you grow a pumpkin in your own garden?

Same thing isn’t it? Beware of innocent little blocks on official forms.

Last Laugh

They are producing a modern – more realistic – version of the opera

In this one Faust sells his soul to the devil in the first act, then he spends the rest of the opera trying to convince the Receiver of Revenue that he should not have to pay capital gains tax on the transaction.