All of the above ignores one little fact.

Brown cannot do a blind thing to change the rules on VAT. Our treaty obligations to the EU require us to follow the rules they lay out, no matter how daft or inconsequential they are, and changes to those rules require unanimity. Even if it was one of those areas with qualified majority voting we'd still lose.

The problem is, VAT is a stupidly complicated tax. Changing and tweaking won't solve the problem, as the article has already laid out, because the very nature and existence of the tax opens it up to fraud. The solution would be to repeal it and return to levying a sales tax.