Sarah Womack (Extracted from "Taxman to snoop in your home", Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2005)

"Council tax inspectors will be able to enter people's homes and take photographs even of their bedrooms, it emerged yesterday. Whitehall documents reveal that they will be allowed to "obtain factual information from internal inspections" as part of the enormous exercise to revalue 22 million properties in England."

[Ed: The consumer revolution was delayed for a long time in Medieval Europe because the Church authorities would enter parishioners' homes to estimate the value of their pots and pans for tax purposes. Thus there was no incentive to raise your status by buying that extra special ornament for the mantel piece because you would only be taxed for your presumption. Gordon Brown, the UK Chancellor (as his equivalents in all Western European governments) is desperate to force local governments to tax more because he's finding it difficult himself, having explored all the possible "stealth tax" dodges in the last eight years. Actually, confining taxation to the value of people's homes (but only exterior inspection would be necessary) would be a good idea because even the criminal and excessively rich don't stint themselves when it comes to showing off their status in the homes they buy.]