Just to mention that Keith Weed, the distinguished former Unilever CMCO, responsible for a while for its sustainability agenda and the Unilever corporate brand, from July 2020 is the incoming President of the Royal Horticultural Society (https://www.rhs.org.uk/about-the-rhs/what-we-do/rhs-elections).
Of course he is. Nominative determinism (or in this case reverse nominative determinism) is very much alive and well, hence eg Igor Judge, former Lord Chief Justice and countless other examples..
Meanwhile to return after a few years to the Jaffa Cake problem (is it a biscuit subject to VAT or a cake free of VAT?) (https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/jaffa-cake-or-biscuit-explained-mcvities-new-pineapple-flavour-1379214) the EU Court of Justice has been looking at whether there should be VAT on investment management fees charged by insurers (as in the Jaffa Cake case, United Biscuits were the complainants, and they clearly have form in all this) (United Biscuits (Pension Trustees) v HMRC (AG) [2020] 064 PBLR (025); ECLI:EU:C:2020:380; ECJ Case C 235/19 European Union: European Court of Justice: Reference from United Kingdom: England and Wales: Court of Appeal: Civil Division, 2020 May 14). It’s not clear what happens to the Attorney-General’s advice if the Court upholds it, given that the court has no jurisdiction in the UK after we leave the EU at the end of the year.
Deciding what things are is a not uncommon problem for judges to look at. The United States Supreme Court years ago had to decide for example whether a tomato is a vegetable or a fruit, because of tariff barriers, which applied to foreign veggies but not foreign fruit. It decided that for US purposes a tomato is a vegetable, which we will have to reflect on when we come to concluding our trade discussions with Mr Trump (Nix v Hedden 149 US 304 (1893)). Incidentally the EU classified the sweet potato and the carrot at a fruit in 2001 (Council Directive 2001/113/EC of 20 December 2001 relating to fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and sweetened chestnut purée intended for human consumption, Official Journal of the European Communities, L10/67, 12.01.2002). It is curious that the Fruit Liberation Front hasn’t issued proceedings complaining about discrimination in both the courts.
And just over a decade ago the UK Supreme Court had to decide (again for VAT purposes) what a regular Pringle is (HMRC v Proctor & Gamble UK [2009] EWCA Civ 407) As every fule kno they are made from potato flour, corn flour, wheat starch, fat emulsifier, salt and seasoning, mixed and fried. The court described the manufacturing process in detail, explaining how the mouth-feel is achieved. Should it be zero-rated as a food? The matter was considered by a well-known pensions judge Mr Justice Warren, who thought it should, but in the end he was overruled by the Court of Appeal.
We can jeer, but we have similar problems of our own. The Pensions Regulator has decided to call ‘pensions’ something else, ie ‘savings’, which of course they are in some ways, like a tomato is a vegetable, but not in other ways. Money put into pension systems is supposed to be reserved to provide an income in old age, whereas savings can be used for any purpose. It’s a category error that one day will need resolving, because the distinction between savings and pensions matters even more than deciding the nature of a Pringle, tomato or Jaffa Cake.
