Contradictions

From the Daily Telegraph today we have a story that the new caring cuddly Tories are proposing to use the carrot option of paying people to recycle more.

In the same paper today, however, we also have the unsurprising news that the country is skint, broke, out of cash.

So how will the Tories pay for it? After all, 'cast-iron' Dave said during his about-turn over the Lisbon Treaty:

If we win the election, we will inherit the worst public finances of any incoming government for fifty years. That has to come before anything else [including the EU question].

Well the clues are hidden away in the article.

Councils are currently taxed by the Government for every tonne of waste they send to landfill.

Indeed they are.

The Conservatives claim that the savings in landfill taxes would fund the cash voucher plans,

And why do we have landfill taxes? Hidden away further down the article is the answer:

The Conservative plans …are likely to be welcomed by many councils who fear that they face swingeing European Union fines if they do not cut landfill.

Haha! The pesky EU Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC)

Of course what the Tories are inadvertently going to do is effectively impose a fine on the country whether we recycle or not.

If we don’t recycle then it’s a fine from the EU thus costing the taxpayer, and if we do recycle (on orders from Brussels) the Tories will pay you for it thus costing the taxpayer.

So being in the EU will cost the taxpayer enormous sums of money over recycling which could be better spent…er…paying off the national debt which 'cast-iron' Dave said comes first.

Contradictions indeed