Chancellor George Osborne hopes to raise £2.1bn by reintroducing public school fags and charging a 10p in the pound ‘fag duty’ for their use.
The measure was announced in his emergency Budget today.
Eton headmaster Viscount Biscuit III welcomed the return of a tradition which died out in the 1990s. But he described the tax on the use of younger boys as servants to their older ‘fag masters’ as “really rather ruddy unfair”.
“This fine country is built on equal opportunity and a fair system. But this duty penalises our best people. I’ll be buggered if Eton signs up to this soft, lefty initiative.”
Shadow Chancellor Alistair Darling dismissed the fag duty as a ‘stunt’ and suggested parents of wealthy schoolboys would find ways to avoid the tax.
“There are plans afoot at some public schools to rename fags ‘bitches’ to avoid paying,” he said.
“In the Labour Party we stand for equality. These public schools are already elitist enough without a return to a medieval hierarchical system,” added Darling, who attended the most expensive private school in Scotland – Loretto.
