As scathing satire, this works. As straight commentary? Not so much, as others have noted. I wonder which was intended, though I initially read it as the former.
I donāt read it as whinging - itās more like a discussion to try to get to the bottom of whether lower VAT could have been applied before - and could be done now - were it not for the wilful ignoring of the issue by (predominantly male, of course) national politicians, or whether there were indeed weird barriers preventing lower VAT rates on āsanitaryā products imposed by EU directives for arcane/historical reasons. If weāre going to blame someone for the lunacy of VAT being applied at all, itās probably best to make sure the blame is allocated to the right place. Though probably theyāre all equally to blame.
And Iām still unclear as to the answer, TBH.