Bunhill: Irritant tax

POOR Ken Clarke. The Chancellor is scratching his head to find ways of narrowing the Government's pounds 50bn a year deficit. Bunhill has a suggestion. Why not tax some of the numerous irritants of 20th century life?

Each nuisance levy would fill Treasury coffers while discouraging anti-social products or behaviour. There's a bottle of bubbly for readers who come up with the best ideas.

To kick off, why not tax caravans? They clog traffic, cause accidents and spoil the landscape. Caravanners don't even contribute to the local economies they infest. A pox on them] A tax, too.

Caravan Tax (or CT) would be easy to administer. It would also be a decently progressive tax because caravanners tend to be well-off; a new caravan costs from pounds 6,500 to about pounds 25,000. They could surely afford a pounds 50 levy, say. With 400,000 caravans hitting the road each year, that would yield pounds 20m for the Exchequer.

Jeanette Field of the Caravan Club mounts a spirited defence of the dismal hobby. Caravanners already pay extra tax because of higher fuel consumption when towing.

'We have quite a few MPs from both sides of the House among our membership,' she says. Margaret Beckett, the deputy Labour leader, is an indefatigable caravanner. A fact that may just sway Mr Clarke Bunhill's way.