4 days ago
HMRC has plenty of reasons to feel bad – being British isn't one of them
Has anyone called up the taxman recently? I expect you didn't get through as His Majesty's Revenue and Customs has been terribly busy re-educating itself.
'We are currently experiencing a high volume of calls which means we may take longer than usual to respond to your query. Unless it concerns the transatlantic slave trade, the opium wars or the looting of the Elgin – apologies, our bad – Parthenon Marbles.'
Yes, HMRC has just held a seminar entitled Guilt of Being British – during the working day. Which we bankroll. On Wednesday, civil servants were able to log-in remotely in office hours to a 60-minute 'listening circle' run by the HMRC Race Network.
No, please don't set fire to your self-assessment reminder just yet – there's more to come!
The session, which was flagged up as 'powerful, interactive and reflective' promised to 'delve into themes of guilt, pride and identity, offering space for personal stories and cultural insights'.
Dear Lord. Where to begin with this madness? I would say it beggars belief, but then we've all been reduced to beggars by punitive taxes that deliver worse public services with every year that passes.
As for cultural insights, here's one; it's abundantly clear from various heated demonstrations across the country that Britain's generally mild-mannered taxpayers no longer want to watch billions of their hard-earned pounds spent on migrants.
The Home Office paid a record £5.38 billion to cover the asylum system – £3.1 billion on hotel accommodation – in 2023-24, a 36 per cent increase on the previous year.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to end the use of hotels by 2029 but the National Audit Office has predicted that by then we will have to foot more than £4 million a day for asylum seeker housing, triple the original Home Office estimate.
In short, there are a great number of reasons why our tax authorities ought to feel guilty, but – and I know I'm going out on a limb here – the suppression of indigenous pagan cultures in the 9 th century isn't one of them. I'll even give them a free pass on the Irish and Bengal Famines – if they'll just answer the phone and do their jobs.
A workplace is for work. It is not a therapy hub – unless you are a therapist. Nor is it a suitable setting for colonial navel-gazing. Leave the inherited trauma and emotional baggage at the door please – oh, and listening circles are for little children.
Then again, this whole virtue signalling farrago is so juvenile. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire department takes a nap after playtime – while the rest of us suckers slog our guts out to pay their salaries.
Of the 60,000 people employed by HMRC, an estimated 0.1 per cent or less would have attended, according to a spokesman, who stressed the event would have had no impact on its call-handling.
That's a shame, given the average waiting time is 14 minutes and 33 seconds – and one in five callers never gets through. I'd say there's another reason to feel guilt – just spare us the listening circle.
