Creaser

The septuagenarian chief executive of Ankh-Morpork's equivalent of the Inland Revenue. Vetinari and Drumknott have recently pondered his working methods and the efficiency of the tax-gathering system. Vetinari is of the opinion that there is "no great rush" for a seventy-four year old to retire from the helm of the Government's revenue-collection system, which is in need of some attention, and quite possibly a younger and more able man at the helm. Even though Mr Creaser is, in Vetinari's character judgement, not a man with a flexible cast of mind and a little bit at sea in the modern world. The Patrician also deplores Mr Creaser's modus operandi, which in its essentials boils down to holding somebody over a bucket and shaking them down, to see what falls out of his pockets.

Somebody as old as Creaser would almost certainly be a hangover from the days of previous Patricians such as Snapcase and Winder, both of whom would have seen taxation as licenced extortion and a means of spreading largesse to political allies, rather than as an efficient means of funding the common requirements of a modern State. Creaser's methods and underlying philosophy would therefore have been formed in an age of tax-farming, and rely on more directly physical means of encouraging the citizen to contribute to the common good than Vetinari would feel happy about.

A Tax-Gatherer used to the old tax-farming system would also be receptive to its less efficient and more venal aspects - ie, the opportunity to cream a little off the top, as everyone else is at it, right from the very top downwards. As in these days the people at the very top are of unimpeachable fiscal honesty, the days of the Creasers are numbered in double, possibly single, digits.

Vetinari also notes, in the light of Moist von Lipwig's continued success and soaring popularity among the population, that Taxmaster is not a job where the post-holder attracts friends or popular acclaim. Only a really public-spirited servant of the City could be persuaded to take it on... Raising Taxes was rumoured as of October 2007 but is now unfortunately impossible.

As we have seen before when a rising star appears in the dull Ankh-Morpork firmament, it is never allowed to rise so far that it outshines Vetinari. The balance of power is best served by keeping your able subordinates, well, subordinate, as Samuel Vimes and Carrot both discovered.