DELICIOUS DONNYBROOK: U.K. Finance Minister George Osborne released a budget last week that would hike taxes on the pasty, a humble Cornish pastry first baked for tin miners in the 17th century. Osborne, who said he couldn't remember the last time he ordered one at a common snack shop, unknowingly ignited a firestorm. Snack foods like sausage rolls are affected as well.
MICRO ON A MACRO SCALE: Greggs bakeries, which sells 140 million sausage rolls per year, saw company shares slump more than 5 percent. CEO Ken McMeikan told Treasury officials that a 20 percent price jump would be severe for Britain's working class. The government expects the levy, effective Oct. 1, will raise 105 million pounds ($167 million) in the first full year. The same budget includes such macroeconomic measures as a cut in the top rate of income tax, a lowering in the personal tax allowance for retired people and reduction in corporate taxes.
CLASS WAR: Even with Prime Minister David Cameron compelled to declare, "I am a pasty eater," the opposition Labour Party has seized on the issue as class warfare. Hearing of the finance minister's indifference to pasties, Labour lawmaker John Mann said, "That kind of sums it up."
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