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A CANADIAN relative visited last weekend, and virtually his first words were: "I can't believe how you guys can afford to live in this country."

My sentiments exactly as the pressure gets piled higher and higher on the tax-plagued mules of middle-class England who finance the excesses of the rest of the UK.

The so-called credit crunch' is currently putting the final nail in the coffin for the moral majority who have tried to follow the rules all their lives, but are being rewarded with repeated kicks in the teeth from the establishment.

The absurd unfairness of the council tax is well-chronicled in this column so I won't labour on how it has relentlessly eaten away at the savings and security of thousands of our hard-working readers in Bucks.

And two weeks ago, I told how the banks and building societies were taking the mickey out of home-owners by increasing charges and rates - despite three sets of interest rate cuts by the Bank of England.

I also won't go on about the multitude of speed cameras and petty laws that criminalise legions of law-abiding citizens who are penalised for just trying to make through the day.

But there's more, so much more to depress us. Petrol prices are spiralling out of control, if you are lucky enough to be able to get petrol in the first place.

I tried refuelling at the cheapest garage I know of last week at 7.30am. To my horror, unleaded was 106p per litre, and even then, there were queues in the forecourt as drivers scrambled to fill up in case it all ran out.

Three hours later, I drove past the same garage and the price had risen to 107p. And that's cheap nowadays. £50 to fill up the tank of a small car is now accepted.

Meanwhile, gas and electricity prices seem to soar by the day, and there are grim warnings of more increases to come.

Yet I don't see wages rising at the same rate for most white collar workers.

I've never been class obsessed, but it's worth reflecting how things have changed.

Working class people used to be poor, but try calling in a plumber or a builder or a roofer and see just how much they charge by the hour, once they have sucked in their teeth and given you a price.

In fairness, their fees reflect the cost of living, as do the wages of black taxi drivers. My Canadian relative innocently hailed a black cab from Heathrow to Watford - and was billed £80. It probably cost the same price as his airline ticket.

Work in an office doing a responsible brain-taxing job and you couldn't hope to match the salaries of these workers.

The message of 21st century England has to be: don't get a degree; learn a manual trade instead.

Obviously, if you are a member of the aristocracy, or a Premiership football player, the credit crunch is unlikely to affect you either.

But there's another class out there. The one that lives on the social and gets benefits from the tax you and I throw into the pot.

Now, I have nothing per se against benefits. I was on the dole when I was young and would have no hesitation applying for it again if they threw me out of my editor's chair one day.

However, what I then wouldn't do is spend it all in the pub every day, only leaving to go outside for a fag.

I wouldn't then moan about how my benefits didn't cover the cost of the top Sky package, which I had to have to combat the stress I was suffering, or that my car's sat nav system wasn't top-of-the-range.

I don't mean to diss the poor. There are loads of them struggling along honestly unable to make ends meet. Equally, there are loads of middle class people, struggling to buy basic necessities, such as food, because of the farcical way they are being soaked to pay the bills of everyone else.

But there is another class that I would call the Wealthy Poor - the underclass that somehow lives off the fat of the land.

People such as me work from dawn to dusk, while they complain that their state benefits don't pay their taxi fare on the way from the airport in Benidorm, or that going for job interviews interrupts their social lives or that the company's not as nice as it used to be in the pub or the bookies.

The world's gone mad.

8:06pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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