A Tax on Snacks Aggravates Austerity Tensions in Britain
LONDON — George Osborne, the elegant chancellor of the Exchequer, confesses he cannot recall the last time he partook of a pasty, the calorie-busting savory pastry, served hot, that is beloved by millions of average Britons.
That may well explain why Mr. Osborne’s recent decision to impose a sales tax of 20 percent on pasties and other takeout snacks — while cutting the top income tax rate on financiers and other highly paid Britons — has created such a furor here.
The tax controversy, which the British press has called, inevitably, “Pasty-gate,” has come to symbolize the increasingly vitriolic debate in Britain over who should shoulder the burden of the government’s drive to cut debt and spending.
The tax has ignited a political firestorm, prompting even generally pro-government tabloid newspapers to attack it and leading the equally elegant British prime minister, David Cameron, to claim — not all that convincingly — that he, truly, is an aficionado of the pasty (which, though tasty, rhymes with nasty).
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/business/global/a-tax-on-snacks-aggravates-austerity-tensions-in-britain.html?ref=global-home
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