Bernard Ingham: There's an awful lot to be awkward about in 2018

Indeed, it is my signature tune for the next four years. I have promised my family and friends – and threatened my enemies – that, God willing, I will last out until April 6, 2021.

On that date, I am reliably informed, we will not have to pay inheritance tax on the first £1m, adding together your own and your late wife’s estate. I am not boasting about being a millionaire. The prospect of death concentrates the mind wonderfully on prudent planning because of the ludicrous price of houses.

All this is not selfishness. It is also a matter of principle. Having paid income tax, VAT, the council tax and whatever other tax the Treasury can dream up for me on the nail, I draw the line at the double taxation represented by a 40 per cent inheritance tax.

Our blasted politicians beg us to save but have presided for the last 10 years over negligible interest rates followed by this iniquitous inheritance impost.

Assiduous readers of this column may say that I am guilty of the very inconsistency – some might say hypocrisy – of which I accuse our politicians.

After all, I have said in this column that there is not much room for tax concessions with a budget deficit of £50bn.

Nor is there.

But that does not excuse double taxation which militates against saving.

It follows from this that I shall not be fading away. I shall spend whatever time is left to me – and it must be no less than four years – charging windmills like the blessed Don Quixote.

Inheritance tax will be only the first windmill I hope to demolish or reform. From now on I propose to lead the life of an awkward cuss. There is much to be awkward about.

The internet is probably the nastiest technological invention in the history of mankind because it does not just kill but tortures poor souls who fall for its charms.

It is not only undermining our democracy by arming loud mouth Lefties (and extreme Righties) with the means to twist minds. It can also destroy the young who fall for its various promotions – e.g. terrorism, drugs, pornography. If ever an invention needed controlling it is the internet.

It is perhaps too much to have it banned in view of how satisfying, however administratively impossible, President Trump finds tweeting. But an unbridled internet cannot in the interests of mankind be allowed to continue in its present form.

I should say that my venom against the internet does not stem from any nastiness it has directed against me. I am virtually immune to its existence since I haven’t a clue what the hoi polloi are clicking about me.

My next windmill involves another technological abuse of the individual through the withdrawal of services 
such as bank and police branches 
and human voices at the end of a telephone.

Here I speak for millions of old folk who find computers alien beings and push button telephone options an abomination invented by grasping executives who tell you they value your custom. Bunkum.

As an extension of this I am dedicated to clobbering all forms of management, but especially those funded by the taxpayer, which pay themselves ever more for ever worsening services. Councillors and local authority executives, NHS bosses, chief constables, university vice-chancellors and headmasters of useless schools should watch it.

Also in my sights are the politically correct and the dangerous environmental lobby who are still making idiots of politicians. I must also not forget the corrupters of the language who have had the temerity to describe people like me as “broflakes” – one upset by “ progressive” attitudes which conflict with their more conservative views.

Well, this broflake is dedicated to leaving the EU in little more than 12 months’ time and to ridiculing all those who seek to frustrate the will of the people. We rats want to leave the ship because it is sinking – irreparably holed by bureaucracy, the euro and anarchy if the elite continue to ignore the people much longer.

The 11 Tory MPs who voted against the Government on the terms for Brexit just as Theresa May was to go to Brussels for further negotiations are not merely treacherous fanatics but utterly stupid.

They must go (politically) before me. Happy New Year.