An excellent defence of a position that even the author accepts is somewhat inconsistent!

Lastly and most significantly, we don’t want to attract too much attention to the VAT-free status of books at a time when seemingly any kind of taxation or expenditure is up for grabs. On the positive side fear of the newspapers helps us. It’s not such a leap though to think that the sacred aura of books may rapidly wear off in a double dip recession, and that complaining now will not help us later. We don’t want to agitate the Treasury into action.

via VAT is bad news, but we have to accept it.