Viral

Ukipper claims taxes never gave him anything. Gets corrected by everyone

Picture:
Picture:
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

In response to a remark on Twitter, Godfrey Bloom tried to claim the only money he's ever had from the state is his £500 monthly pension.

Cue a flurry of responses correcting the former Member of the European Parliament and an officer in the Territorial Army that at least some of his earnings were money from the state.

This isn't even counting the benefit of having care from the NHS, local services such as refuse collection, and you know, running water, a national defence that's kept Britain safe from invasion since 1688.

Bloom was responding to a claim that 'baby boomers', such as himself, were responsible for the sizeable debt which will be paid off by future generations.

In retort, Bloom, who no longer has the party whip in Ukip, and represented the party as an MEP for Yorkshire and Humberside for almost a decade, made this statement.

The collective response has been 'Erm?'.

Bloom had answers to a lot of these.

One response was to complain about immigrants.

Bloom also countered that the NHS is not funded out of tax but from debt.

He doesn't mention that this debt is financed through the sale of government bonds, bills, and gilts. The sales are carried out by HM Treasury, which is most certainly tax funded.

Bloom also replied 'Served in the Army!' when someone pointed out he'd benefitted from the money spent on defence.

Even Bloom's long record in the Territorial Army is unlikely to equal the value of £35.1 bn of revenue spent 2015/2016 on defence.

With regards to his role as MEP, Bloom claimed that he did not withdraw his MEP salary and donated his attendance allowance to charity.

A report by the Mirror in 2014 when Bloom was still an MEP show he claimed £46,722 in allowances, and had donated £72,000 to Ukip since 2004.

In 2012 the Guardian received an email fromBloom's office that claimed he had used £2,000 per month from Bloom's secretarial and research allowance to pay for a climate change researcher and an undisclosed amount for a 'religious and confidential researcher'.

Bloom's responses read like a man who's done lots of his homework on a topic, in the hope somebody one day might pull him up on a glib remark.

Not enough people are focusing on the real question presented by his original statement: What sort of person sits and works this out one day?

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