There’s a shed at Luxembourg airport just filled with art. Serious art. Picassos, Lichtenstiens, Gaugins, all manner of very expensive artwork. Hundreds of masterpieces. Just sitting there in a high security ‘prison’. Because of import tax.

Luxembourg is a ‘free port’ so the super rich can keep their art acquisitions there without paying duty. And duty on art is a weird and varied thing. A collector from Brazil bought a painting for $60 million. As ya do. To take it to Sao Paulo would have incurred the eye-watering 40% ‘import tax’ of $24 million. Whereas the US has a mere 1% levy on imports. So for less than his 24 million he bought an apartment in New York and hung his picture there.

Ok, tax problems are generally ‘good problems’ in that ‘we should all have such problems’ way of how to offset a billion here or a few hundred million there. But there’s an interesting illustration. That if you tax too highly you just scare people away and END UP WITH NOTHING. Surely its better to have 1% of something than 40% of nothing?

Our election is 5 weeks away and ‘the economy’ is the big issue. And as ‘the economy’ is how they intend to spend our tax, its become rather important.

David Cameron went to see the Queen yesterday at Buckingham Palace. Like Christopher Robin. But Cameron asked her to dissolve parliament. She pulled out a dozen barrels of sulfuric acid and said, “bring the fuckers in, Dave, I’ll sort ’em”. If only.

This promises to be the closest election in the entire history of tv newsmen running around across great big, multi-coloured maps of Britain, shouting excitedly about swings and marginals and so many percentages. Because the two main leaders are neck and neck. From which most people would like to see them dangle.

Popularity for both Miliband and Cameron is at 34%. What that actually means is that 66% of people just can’t stand Miliband and a different 66% fucking hate Cameron. Because this is the most negative of elections. More about who you don’t want in power than who you actually feel may be of benefit. And because of the low expected gains for the big 2 parties, there’s more talk about coalitions than ever. In fact, in my lifetime, until 5 years ago, the words ‘coalition government’ was a term only used to express ridicule at the Italians and all those other sad nations who could never find a proper, majority government to guide them haplessly and blindly through their term without ‘help’ from others. And having had 5 years of first hand experience, my view of coalition government has not exactly been enhanced.

So we will have either the Conservatives with (possibly) the Lib Dems, agaiaiain, plus some support from a UKIP or two, maybe a Green and a Fight the Tax; Fascist Banker Bastard Independent Party dude, or we’ll have Labour, with the Scottish Nationalists (lord have mercy), a Socialist Worker (there is only one, the rest are all on benefits) and a left wing National Fronter.

An ‘interesting mix’ whatever happens. Emigration has never seemed so appealing.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx