[firemonkey]

Amount HMRC has demanded from UK taxpayers due to screw-ups in the PAYE system: £2 billion.

Amount George Osbourne wants to cut from the UK's welfare bill: £4 billion (on top of the £11 billion they're already trying to save via the emergency budget).

Amount of tax Vodafone doesn't have to pay: £6 billion.

A former HMRC chief told Private Eye it was "an unbelievable cave-in" - yes, and then some. But it gets better. Did you know that Andy Halford, Vodafone's financial director, has been advising George Osborne on company tax?

So, amidst all the talk about how the UK needs to tighten its belt and we can't have people abusing the system and taking taxpayers' hard-earned cash when they're not entitled to it; in the wake of Nick Clegg's pronouncement that benefits are not there to "compensate" the poor for their "predicament" (silly poor people, bothering the state because they want to eat and not be homeless, tsk); a gigantic corporation gets out of a gigantic tax bill.

David Cameron likes to talk about fairness. There's nothing fair about this.


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