NOT JUST IN SPACE..

You know what black holes are - collapsed stars that develop gravity of such force that anything and everything that gets too close gets eaten up and reduced to atomic dust.

I`m beginning to think that black holes might also exist here on planet earth. If so, they will be called taxes. Now, of course, taxes, like death, are one of the few certainties of life and I suppose I just pay them, shrug my shoulders and get on with it. But sometimes I feel a deep sense of betrayal at some of the things on which my taxes are squandered by people and institutions that should be more careful and thoughtful about other people` money.

Latest examples that have come to light include something like £30million (it might quite possibly be more) of UK taxpayers` money being given each year to China to help with the education of disadvantaged children in the poorer parts of what is now the most buoyant economy on earth. Then there are the £45million each and ever day from the `Outer Event Horizon` of the UK towards the unaudited accounts of the profligate and all consuming EU.

And today, in what might be described as the `Inner Event Horizon,` I hear that £1million of taxpayers money might be going to pay for the legal costs of the three Labour MPs charged with theft by false accounting, aka fiddling their expenses, and generally bringing the political game into disrepute. They`re taking the fifth, so to speak, by claiming that as they were MPs at the time of the alleged offences, then they are protected by Parliamentary privilege. It`s laughable, of course, but in this black hole of ours where the laws of the rest of the universe don`t seem to apply, it wouldn`t surprise me in the least to see them - like Portsmouth Football Club - get away with it.

I`m just off to the singularity of the garage, where £40 of the £50 I`ll spend at the high speed pumps will doubtless be frittered away on equally good causes. Makes me feel really good.