There is a scene in the screenplay of popular family fantasy City of Ember where a scruffy plumber called Sul and his protégée arrive to fix a pipe.

They dutifully set about their task with the best intentions but it soon becomes clear they are fighting a losing battle as the creaking 241-year-old waterworks springs leak after leak. Exasperated, Sul tells his young charge ‘we've been patchin' so long, we have more patches than pipe’.

I have not come across a better metaphor for the state of the employment status and tax system either before or since.