Ed Vaizey: Tax Break Killing Not My Fault Blame the Chancellor

UK coalition government 'Minister for Video Games', Ed Vaizey MP, was apparently rather upset by his own Chancellor's decision to murder tax breaks for the UK videogames industry. So much so in fact that he's distanced himself from his government's budget.

According to LibDem MP Don Foster, "I know that the minister now responsible - Ed Vaizey - was as disappointed as I was about the Chancellor's decision. And you can be assured that both Ed Vaizey and I went together to see the Chancellor before the budget to urge on him the importance of accepting this tax break. So, I'm sadly beyond my pay grade to be able to explain the Chancellor's decision."

For his part, Vaizey explained his take on the Chancellor's decision to kill support for the UK video games industry by telling the BBC, "It's his budget, not my budget."

So, what is Vaizey actually going to do about the fact that the Canadian government and video games industry is aggressively pursuing UK talent with tax incentives in an "all's fair in love and war" strategy?

"It's still a relatively equal playing field. Because while the Canadians are putting in a lot of - kind of - direct financial support, it's very hard to create the kind of ecology we have in this country. You know, video games have been around for 50 years. We've been at the forefront of video games development in this country and that's very hard to replicate."

So, complacency is combined with a strange lack of any actual knowledge of the industry it would seem. Unless, that is, anybody can tell us about a commercially viable video game company and its 50 year old product.