Peter Rhodes on wandering cats, taxes on vans and facing up to an 'explosion of hatred'

In those days one hallmark of the true English gentleman was that he disliked and distrusted Jews. He wore his bigotry with pride, knowing that thousands of upper-crust people like him felt the same way. Sometimes, whether in a gentlemen's club or at a Trafalgar Square rally, the most dangerous ideas are the fashionable ones.

I suggested a few days ago that council tax is the ultimate stealth tax. I was forgetting the benefits-in-kind taxes like the ones that hammer you for driving a company car or van. The taxman has announced that some vans are to be reclassified as cars, leaving the hapless drivers to pay hundreds or even thousands a year extra in tax. In his March 6 Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will doubtless be promising tax cuts for everyone, quietly overlooking the workers he is clobbering by stealth.

Under the new Pet Abduction Bill, designed to stop pet thefts, it could be illegal to attempt to “induce” a cat to accompany you in the street. Good luck with that. In my experience, the more you induce a cat to do anything, the more likely it is to look at you as though you are mad and do something else.

Cats are hard-wired to believe that anything they do is their own idea – including deserting you and setting up home in a nicer house down the road where the food is better. Cats do not comprehend the word “loyalty” but entirely understand “chicken supreme.” Some cats are abducted by humans but some cats abduct themselves.