DEMO Ahoy!

Sometimes Mark Thomas, left-field activist and comedian, can get right up the nose.

You’ve got to wonder what he’d be like at a dinner party.

“Mark, pass the salt would ya?”

“‘Ere’s a thing. It’ll be Iran’s turn next. It might be Obama in power but he won’t be able to stop the hawks from....”

“All right, Mark, just the salt please.”

“It starts with the salt doesn’t it, then it ends in an army of occupation blowing up the locals under the pretext of liberating them.”

“Er...the salt?”

Or maybe we’re wrong, maybe he’s a right Sid James away from the limelight, telling the ladies they’re beautiful and then slapping them on the arse.But sometimes he definitely hits a nerve.

To this effect on Thursday (4 June) at 4.30pm he’s organising a protest outside the Inland Revenue office, Albert Bridge House on Bridge Street in the city.

But why?

Well he’s got a bee in his bonnet about tax havens. He wants to make sure that companies working in the UK pay their taxes here. Paying them into ludicrously smug islands which are a sovereign part of UK territory seems obscene.

To this end, he’s discovered, in a coup of painful humour, that many of the buildings occupied by HM Revenue and Customs are owned by tax-haven happy corporations.

Thus he reckons some asset and investment company by the name of Maple, is the owner of Albert Bridge House. Apparently Maple is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands and Jersey. So: HMRC pay rent to people who then avoid the tax regime of the country where they made their money and thus HMRC loses out and so do we all.

Brilliant. But it could make you weep.

So Thomas has called on the Mancunian nation to protest outside Albert Bridge House and make plans – to invade Jersey.

Yes, he reckons, we should send in the troops to close down these cosy islands bankrolled on British taxpayers own dosh.

If you feel like going, bring a banner and expect to have a laugh.

Thomas promises it won’t be too taxing.