Outrage as ‘inhumane’ tax demands installed outside affordable housing to deter bankers

Very uncomfortable

Following the news that ‘anti-homeless spikes’ are being installed outside posh apartments to prevent homeless people from sleeping in the doorways, further outrage has been provoked by the decision to place strategic arrangements of tax bills outside affordable housing to deter investment bankers.

The bills, for income and corporation tax, are embedded in the floor outside a block of flats in an area of East London. The bankers are naturally attracted to cheap housing to knock down and turn into luxury apartments, but the tax demands make the environment very uncomfortable, causing them to move on.

One resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Evening Harold: “There was a banker prowling looking for investment opportunities there about six weeks ago. Then all of a sudden these tax demands were put up outside.”

“I can only imagine it was to keep their sort out. I wouldn’t want a banker living next to me, to be honest, but I do feel sorry for them. It’s not their fault. Except it is.”

The reaction on Twitter was angry. Stephen Fry tweeted: “These Anti-banker bills are like the spikes they use to keep pigeons off buildings. The corporate are now considered vermin. Which I suppose they are, really.”

Martin Creosote, of bankers’ support charity Fatso, said it was a “scandal that any banker is unwelcome in 21st Century Britain’”

“They deserve better than to be moved on to the next doorway along the street,” he wrote.

“They might stink, they might be revolting, it’s true that everyone hates them and they are metaphorically covered in slime, but they can’t help it. Oh, can they? Ah.

Some commentators have suggested that the whole controversy has been exaggerated, in the same way that thousands of Twitter warriors who have never even bought a Big Issue got upset about the recent anti-homeless spikes thing.

One moral exhibitionist on Facebook confirmed this, posting: “I wouldn’t let a homeless near me. I wouldn’t let a pigeon near me. But the spikes make me sad. My son Adam likes to throw breadcrumbs at them or run and chase them away when we see a group of them in Trafalgar Square. Actually I am talking about pigeons, this isn’t a standard joke formula.”