IT’S probably a bit cheeky of me to be rooting for Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp in his tax-fraud battle with the Inland Revenue.
I mean, if I can harp on about the masses of benefit cheats at the bottom end of the food chain, what about millionaires paying their fair-dos, eh?
So I’ve no real defence for being in Harry’s corner, except that he has paid literally millions in taxes over the years – and he seems a good bloke, despite confessing to the court (and watching world) that he’s as thick as two short planks.
Harry will just have to take it on the chin if he gets found guilty, but I hope it doesn’t cost him his job and, possibly, the England post when Fabio Cappello fails so dismally at Euro 2012 this year.
It bugs me when someone like Tony Blair can make millions out of cosying up to east European gangsters and African despots, yet pay two-fifths of sod all in taxes because he is cunning enough to have the contacts and accountants who can keep the taxman at arm’s length.
The same goes for half the city of London and probably most FTSE100 directors.
Harry Redknapp’s biggest mistake wasn’t being devious enough to manipulate a system that lets the real fat cats cruise by unscathed.
Meanwhile down at the other end of the employment scale, my dog Arthur has lost his occasional runs with his best pal and fellow Labrador, Harvey, thanks to the DSS fraud squad.
Harvey’s dad, Brian, died suddenly last year and his mum works full-time as a teacher, so a friend started taking Harvey out every afternoon.
The trouble is she’s a part-time dinner lady who also cares for her sick husband and gets some benefits. She declares the hours she works, but just after Christmas the DSS came calling. Someone had reported her for walking Harvey – when she walks her own dogs, by the way. They classified that as ‘work’, so she’s had to pack in. Now Harvey just gets let out in the garden for a widdle.
It’s criminal all right. But not how the nasty little snitches who reported that woman might think.
My observation about these DSS investigators isn’t too different from my general view of Social Services types – they’ll fill their boots every time on the soft targets, while the hard core cheats and abusers go laregely untouched.

SPEAKING of a few dodgy quid on the side – anyone who thought the controversial nature of my recent book would impact on my relationship with the Islamic community needs to read on.
I have a new best pal who   thinks Locky is such a top bloke he’s going to make me rich. And he only happens to be the close associate of Saif al-Islam, the incarcerated son of Libyan despot Colonel Gaddafi.
My new buddy Dr Abbas Hamza – not to be confused with old hooky-hand Abu Hamza, the terrorist – is stuck in the United Arab Emirates with suitcases full of Saif’s millions. And out of all the people in the western world he could have chosen to help move that fortune abroad, he picked me!
How good is that?
Now I’m always getting emails from the sons and cousins of Ugandan and Liberian and Rwandan billionaires who need a trusty friend in the west to help them ‘move’ money abroad, for a variety of tear-inducing reasons.
But Colonel Gaddafi’s son and his sidekick? Wow, these millions must be real, mustn’t they?
So I replied to Dr Hamza  saying I fully sympathised with Saif’s plight and deplored the imperialist aggression of the western forces in overthrowing the legitimate Gaddafi government (which is actually half true, come to think of it).
I was naturally keen to help Abbas Hamza and Saif, any way I could.
He replied just this morning and it looks like we’re on. But Abbas did say that I must not tell anyone about our plan – no one at all – because we don’t want to arouse suspicion about our millions. Well, ‘writing’ isn’t really ‘telling’ is it?
He hasn’t said what my split will be, but apparently when I open the new bank account, I will have to deposit some of my own money first ... Ahem.
I’ve replied asking what the next step is and I’ll keep you informed, but if there’s no Ed Lines next week it’s because I’m either minted (as if!) or I’ve really annoyed these scam merchants and they’ve tracked me down.
Am I bovvered…?

ONE of the social highlights of my year is the annual knees-up of the Westminster MPs and Lords who are members of the all-party Rugby League group.
It’s drinks then dinner in the House of Lords and a few bevvies in the Stranger’s Bar. All in all, very civilised and convivial.
We had more MPs present this year than usual.
Mike Wood has never bothered with it, and neither did Ann Taylor or Shahid Malik. But Simon Reevell came to his first ‘do’ this week and is even threatening to turn out for the Political Animals rugby team for a re-match against my Journalists’ select XIII.
John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott, now in the Lords, showed up, and I have to say he either isn’t well or had been on the sherberts all afternoon. He’s lost weight, too.
I was sitting next to Prezza’s replacement in Hull East, Labour MP Karl Turner – and what an impressive young man he was. Good company, too.
As regular readers will know, there was the fleeting chance a couple of years ago that I could have ended up on the green benches of the House.
It would have ended in tears anyway, but would have been fun while it lasted – if only until I was thrown in the Tower for making that creepy little Speaker John Bercow spit his dummy.
I just hope this year wasn’t my last, because yet again trouble seemed to be dogging my footsteps.
Our end of the room was boiling hot, and with the speeches droning on a few of the older chaps at my table looked like they were going to keel over. In order to ‘help’ I just ducked away to the patio door and cracked it open a few inches to let a bit of air in from the Thames.
Almost everyone was relieved. Almost.
One supercilious git gave me a tad-too-loud “and what do you think you are doing?” sneer, which wasn’t just an exercise in stating the bleeding obvious, but was meant as a public put down which was heard by all the tables down our end. I hate that.
“A gentleman would have asked,” this toffee-nosed prat added, when I said I was letting a little air in.
So I went back and whispered in his ear. I couldn’t possibly repeat what I said, but he wouldn’t have gone any redder if he’d sat in a sauna. At least he minded his own business after that.
“Who’s that tosser?” I asked later.
“Lindsay Hoyle, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons,” I was told – Bercow’s number 2.
I’ll get banged up in that Tower yet…