VAT on newspapers? Unthinkable. Except in the following countries...

David Smith, the excellent economics commentator of the Sunday Times , is on dangerous ground as he praises an OECD report on a Britain full of "good ideas", including "the widening of the VAT base". Surely he can't be thinking of slapping VAT on newspapers as, around the EU, they do in Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden? Perish the thought (or perish the circulation).