Category: Blog

The Treasury is busy making another fine mess. Larger companies are asking their tax advisers if they could now save serious money by moving their head offices out of the UK. The sales teams in Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands are in overdrive contacting UK companies to lure them away with their much better tax offers. They are greatly helped by the Treasury’s decision to consult on the idea that multinationals in the UK should also pay tax on their overseas earnings! Boy are they celebrating in Dublin and Zurich – it’s their dream come true, the best knocking copy they have had on the UK for 30 years.

To many Labour MPs it’s a simple question of social justice. They live in a world where big business is owned and run by the modern equivalent of Victorian mill owners – fat cats who live and earn in the UK, who will always stay here, and who should be taxed to the hilt to teach them a lesson for being bad employers and for making so much money. If any of them use smart lawyers and accountants to move offshore, then they must be taxed for doing that and hauled back onshore so we can all benefit from the money they have to cough up.

As an MP who also needs to be re-elected I can see the natural attractions of pandering to people’s jealousy by attacking the super rich, and taking so much money off them that I could offer good public services at little cost to constituents on average pay and below. Who wouldn’t like that apart from a few super rich? The problem is it is not how the modern world works. There are not enough super rich who will stay in the UK and pay so much tax that we could make much difference to the tax all the rest of us have to pay. The great multinationals are not owned by a few modern mill owners in London and Birmingham. They are restless and footloose global companies owned by millions of shareholders, some big and many small. There is no substitute to being honest with people, and telling them that if they want more public money spent they and the neighbours have to pay it to the Treasury first.

Ironically Labour’s demonology is directed more against the managers of large multinationals than against the owners. The Chairmen and CEOs earn big salaries and evoke Labour hostility for their pay rates, but usually they own very little of the company they work for. The owners are you and me through our pension funds, trade unionists, small savers and academic institutions of the USA through their big pension and endowment funds, and a host of owners world wide from charitable funds and sovereign funds through to rich individuals. The shareholder list of a large UK based multinational is far more ethnically diverse and global than the UK voters list itself – something that should appeal to New Labour. Collectively these shareholders have the power to appoint, remunerate and dismiss the directors and managers, who are but hired hands.

Because these great companies are truly public companies no one person or group is in charge. A CEO may be powerful for a bit if he or she delivers good growth in earnings and dividends, but ultimate power is spread and is open to company democratic pressures. Threatening such companies with higher taxes in the UK is therefore potty. The professional managers want to keep their jobs. If there is an easy way of cutting the tax bill by moving to another respectable country that offers lower taxes than our own these managers have to look at it. If the atmosphere towards enterprise and dividends becomes too hostile in the UK and they are still based here they might be subject to shareholder anger. The shareholders and their representatives are unlikely to turn round and say we want to pay more tax and want to stay in a country that is moving against enterprise, especially bearing in mind how diverse the shareholder lists are.

When I wrote the Conservative Economic Policy review the Committee and I drew attention to the notable deterioration in the UK’s tax competitiveness. Much of this has come about because other countries have improved their tax system so much to help enterprise. They are continuing to do so. Both main UK political parties seemed to take the message on board. The Conservatives are looking at moving to 25% Corporation Tax from the 30% we commented on. The Labour government responded by moving the headline rate down to 28%, a move in the right direction. Unfortunately Labour bought into part of the idea – the UK must have low rates it can use to ward off foreign competition – but not into the rest of the proposition – that we need lower taxes overall, and simplicity and consistency in the system.

Businesses looking at coming to the UK – and businesses asking whether they should stay – want to know that they are not paying a big penalty in the form of higher tax for doing so. They also want to know the system will be stable. By this they mean they want to know that having arrived they will not be faced with changes that put taxes up. They will not complain if the taxes are cut.

There is one simple way for the Treasury to staunch the flow of businesses heading for the exit. They should announce they have no intention of changing the system of taxing foreign profits, having consulted. They should add that they are open to ideas for lowering business tax rates, and that future change will be in that direction. Such action will increase the amount of revenue they collect from business, by keeping more companies here to tax, and attracting more companies here to tax. The way Labour is going, they will discover that footloose international businesses are no longer “British” owned by Tory voting mill owners. They are what they say they are – fast moving successful suppliers of the global market, run by international managers on behalf of an extraordinarily diverse range of owners who feel no loyalty to the UK.

Conservative Councils now need to perform. People want lower Council taxes, concentrating what money is spent on the delivery of the main services. They would be happy to see advertising, spin doctoring,glossy brochure producing, networking, bogus consultation making budgets slashed.

The Conservative party has strengthened its position as the main party of local government. All those Councillors who have been elected and re-elected, need to remember their promises and make sure they deliver better service at lower cost. Whilst the national mood played a part in securing their election, May 1st results showed that local circumstances can still be important in deciding who wins and who loses.

The most important pledge Conservative candidates made in most parts of the country was the pledge to keep the Council Tax down. So in those budget meetings for next year when officers tell them they need a large hike in the Council Tax for a “standstill” budget, Councillors should explain that this simply is neither true nor realistic.

On taking office this May, Council Groups should impose staff freezes on administrative staff, and start to manage the numbers down. They should gain control over any decision to appoint external consultants, making sure when there are staff in the Council office who should and could do the job that they do it. They should review all the new initiatives and projects with an eye to suitability and cost.

Many Conservative candidates promised to keep the weekly bin collection. Not only should they insist on this, but they should also make sure there is proper quality management, to prevent the collecting companies littering the verges and leaving material in the bottom of bins.

Many Conservative Councils want to ease some of the traffic and parking problems locally. They should review traffic light phasing and junction design, to improve smooth flowing of traffic and safety. They should price parking charges sensibly, ensure sensitive enforcement of restrictions, and review how to provide enough parking without disrupting main carriageways and junctions.

Conservative Councils wish to contribute to a safer area. They can best do this by working with and through the local police, helping define local priorities for the available police man power. There may be no advantage in setting up a parallel force of wardens and assistants who do not have proper police powers.

It is not the job of a Conservative Council to implement every suggestion and piece of advice coming from the government. Of course Conservative Councils must comply with the law, but they should and can have a distinctive view of how to run transport, education and other crucial services in their area. I have confirmation from a previous Labour Local Government Minister that much of what comes from government is advisory, not mandatory.

The public voted for a change on May 1st. They want lower taxes, less interference in their daily lives, easier journeys to work and school, and better choice of good schools. They will expect their newly elected Conservative Councils to do what they can at local level to ease the burden imposed from above. So I say to all our Councillors be bold – don’t do as the government says, do as the electorate wants.

PS Please see Download on how to run a Conservative Council if you would like to read more about this – under Downloads near the top right of this site.

In the Wokingham Parliamentary constituency 8 District Unitary Council seats were contested. The Conservatives won all eight, gaining one seat. The aggregate share of the vote was as follows:

Conservative 58.2%
Lib Dem 28.5%
Others 13.3% (BNP,Green,Labour,UKIP)(None of these parties contested all seats)

I would like to thank all those who voted, and all who worked hard as candidates and helpers for all the parties – that is what keeps our democracy alive.

The following draft would be suitable for a brave Labour adviser to send to our Prime Minister at bay:

To Prime Minister
From Senior Political Adviser

When I last wrote to you I praised your early statements in favour of strengthening our democracy and listening to the public more. I recommended that you honoured the Labour promise to hold a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty, to signal that you had a different view from your predecessor, more in tune with the British people. You did not like that advice, and turned to others to steer you. I kept out of your way in the run up to the May elections, as I thought it important to let the other advisers have a clear run to give their approach a good test. The polling still shows that 80% of the public do want a referendum, and think you should honour the promise. It has become an issue of trust.

Unfortunately the approach your other advisers urged you to follow has not worked. The Conservatives outpolled us by 20% in the Council contests, and Boris Johnson beat Ken by 6% in the crucial London seats. Let me explain what I think has gone wrong and what could be done to recover from here.

The political strategy has been based on hammering the Conservatives for any apparent mistake in what they say, and for not saying enough about the detail of what they would do. In particular it has been Treasury driven, seeking to cost any aspiration they express, and seeking to show their “numbers do not add up”. This old fashioned approach has not worked, because our own numbers visibly do not add up, and because we are the government responsible for handling the economy. You may remember we got away with supporting the Exchange Rate Mechanism which did so much damage to the Conservatives, because the public rightly blamed the government which actually took them in. They did not concern themselves with the advice we offered from Opposition. I am afraid it is not about the Conservatives at the moment – it is about the government and the problems we need to confront. We can turn to attack the Opposition later, once we have dealt with the real economic and social problems we face.

This political strategy has been buttressed by seeking to send messages about what we stand for, that are not backed up by solid evidence that we can implement them. Your last budget sought to send the message that we are tax cutters, but of course there was insufficient money available, so you had to double the 10p tax to 20p. You sought to send the message that you will be tough on terrorism and crime –unlike the Conservatives – but it has come across that you are taking away important liberties from law abiding people. You have made the Conservatives look moderate and sensible through putting so much political capital behind 42 day detention without charge. You have repeated the message that you are a serious and competent person with your head down dealing with difficult government issues, yet the last few months have been punctuated by error after error in handling data, dealing with backbenchers and implementing policy.

Nor has it helped that the Spin Doctors appointed by your office have become the news themselves, drawing attention to the high salary bill by warring in public when they should be supporting you to the hilt and creating a united front within your office.

The public are worried. They feel under intense financial pressure, as you know, thanks to rising food and energy bills, mortgage difficulties, falling house prices and the Income and Council Tax changes. Not all of these things are under our control. There is no quick fix for rising energy prices, other than a fortuitous change in world energy prices. We are still years away from new power stations in the UK thanks to the delays in settlign the nuclear issue. Food prices could be brought down if we could reform the CAP, but there is no immediate prospect of that as the French President made clear on his visit.

However, some of them are under our control. Part of the reason fuel prices have gone up so much is the tax rises as the pump price rises. You could say you intend to raise just the amount of money from petrol and diesel that you stated in the Budget, which would allow you to cut the fuel tax rate at the pump. It could be used to show people you do not want to continuously clobber motorists, and to remind them that the revenue you did say you would raise is an important part of the national budget.

You could look again at the 10p band and the reduction of the standard rate to 20p. You could reaffirm the importance of getting Income Tax down to 20 p, phase it over the next couple of years, and phase in a larger tax free allowance to help the lower earners who are otherwise losing out.

You could play politics with the Council Tax, now that most Councils are either under Conservative control or No Overall Control, and remind people that local decisions are important in settling its level.

In order to direct more cash into people’s pockets and purses – which is what they want – you are going to have to go back to Prudence, and make more progress in controlling public spending. I was talking the other day to a large company that already handles some contracted out business for us. They confirmed that they could take on more or less any administrative function from within government, and offer to do it for 15-40% less than it costs the government at the moment. They would also offer jobs to all the staff involved in the function, as they could redeploy the ones they did not need as they made the process more efficient. I appreciate that this is not popular with the Unions, but there are no easy options from here. This one combines job guarantees, with preserving government functions, and delivers less cost to give us more scope on taxes.

You could look at the huge costs of computerisation in Whitehall, and slow it all down for a couple of years, to save money without having to announce any major climbdown. You could ask for a reduction in the spending on consultancies and reorganisations and put in controls over new recruitment of staff.

I know you think the problem is largely created by rebel backbenchers and disloyal people within the Labour movement. The rebels will not see it that way. They feel they are going to lose their seats unless there is a change of direction. I would urge you to consider each of their causes on their merits, and not through the prism of loyalty glasses. Is it really worth it to have a further bruising row with them over 42 day detention without charge? Couldn’t the Security Services or the Police produce new advice saying that it might not be so important after all? Isn’t it crucial to come up with a better answer on the 10p Tax Band before it returns to the Commons?

You are understandably concerned about the state of the housing market. It is too late to stop further declines in house prices, and it is going to take time for the mortgage market to pick up again. If you really do want more money to be available for mortgages then you have to tell the Regulators to back off a bit – they are busily demanding that banks hold more cash for any amount of advance, and telling banks not to lend to anyone who might be stretched by the loan.

The business community is very bruised by the abolition of the 10% Capital Gains Tax rate and the more aggressive approach to business tax in general. There need to be some tweaks and changes to send the signal that the government is not anti enterprise.

If you did offer a referendum on the EU Treaty it would pleasantly surprise the voters and the commentariat. The government should be neutral, allowing pro and anti organisations to emerge to run the debate. If the electorate then voted down the Treaty the government would not be in an impossible position, and could stage a popular demand for renegotiation with our EU partners in the run up to the General Election. I realise that this is likely to be a bridge too far for you , but it might make you think the other ideas in this memo are not so bad after all!

Proportional Representation did what it always does. It allows extreme and unpopular parties to get people elected, and prevents the most popular party having a majority, giving more power to unelected officials as a result. The London Assembly elections shows this off to perfection. On a night when the Conservatives won a good majority on the Assembly on a first past the post basis, PR intervened to deprive them of a majority. It did so by giving a seat to the BNP through the so-called Top-up system. The idea will remain very popular with the Lib Dems, who clearly like giving extreme parties the oxygen of publicity and the opportunity of office, because it also allowed them to gain 3 seats when they were miles off winning a single seat by being more popular than the other candidates in any given place.

The PR system was probably also designed by Lib/Labs with a view to making it very difficult for there to be a Conservative Mayor. On this occasion the PR result failed to overturn Boris’s clear victory on first preference votes, although the second preference system (I get to vote twice because I am a Lib Dem) did cut Boris’s majority. In their own terms PR failed the Lib/Labbers. Maybe they should think again about this wonky voting.

Did you notice that this new system of voting and deciding who has won was a) much dearer and b) slower than traditional first past the post? Goodness knows how much all that electronic technology cost. It was nice touch when we were told the count was delayed because the machines were overheating – they had not realised how many people would vote! We always used to get the results by about 3am the next morning with the old system. Now completing the task twenty hours or so later by midnight the day after the election is doing well. Apparently they assume very low turnout, and find their machines can’t cope at speed with too many people wanting to have a say! I suppose we should be grateful we don’t have to wait five weeks to know the winner.

The “independent” Bank of England allowed its Financial Stability Report to be published just before the local elections, and allowed the spin to be placed on it that the losses in the financial sector will prove to overstated, that the Credit Crunch has not reached its worst point, and that from here we should expect some improvement. It is difficult to make up such a story.

A truly “independent” Bank should have left such a publication for the day after the elections, to avoid being dragged into the political argument. It would also have insisted on a balanced presentation of what the long and serious underlying Report actually says.

The report shows just how persistent and deep seated the liquidity and valuation problems in the banking market have become. The Bank’s own measures of liquidity are summed up in an Index. This has fallen off a cliff, and is at its weakest level since the dives of 1998 and 2000. It goes on to explain why market participants have to mark to market (use market prices to value the financial assets they own), why markets are reluctant to value more risky paper at higher prices, and states that there could be more bad news to come.

Indeed, it says that tight credit conditions can be expected “to lead to a pick-up in defaults among vulnerable borrowers, including a subset of households, parts of the commercial property sector, and some highly leveraged non financial companies”. In addition “Financial difficulties could emerge in some emerging markets, including countries in Central and western Europe with large current account deficits”. In other words, some of the losses have not been overstated, but will materialise.

The report goes on to recommend actions that banks and regulators should take to improve the position. It recommends better risk management by the banks themselves – an unexceptional request.

It proposes “Strengthened regulatory standards for liquidity”. This is more contentious. It would be odd to require tougher cash requirements today, in the middle of a credit squeeze which the Bank seems to want to end, than they sought in the inflationary credit bubble days of 2006. The Bank itself sees the dangers of “pro-cyclicality” in regulatory rules – regulators relaxing the amount of capital needed in good times, fuelling the boom, and then demanding more regulatory capital in bad times, tightening the squeeze. It concedes that the new Basel II rules coming in could well make just this mistake, and confines itself to wise words suggesting something might be done about this. It should be cause for immediate action.

It seeks “differentiated ratings for structured products” which is code for saying it wants Rating Agencies to be more cautious about they evaluate the credit worthiness of some of these packages of debt that have caused problems in the last few months. That too makes sense.

It wants “sharper regulatory incentives for banks to control risks through the credit cycle”. That presumably means they want banks to lend less and lend to fewer people than they did in the last few years. One way they could achieve that is by keeping interest rates higher. There is a reluctance to blame the Monetary Policy Committee, yet their low rates underpinned the credit boom of recent years. This approach needs careful control, lest they lurch from the boom of 2006-7 to a bust, by being too tough.

They also seek “strengthened UK and cross border crisis management arrangements”. A good place to start would be to recommend to the UK government strengthened arrangements for the Bank to supervise the UK markets, instead of relying on the tripartite approach which let us down so badly over Northern Rock. We have not, fortunately, had a bank crash recently that fell owing to errors in cross border surveillance – we have had a run on a domestic bank owing to errors in UK surveillance. The priority should be for UK regulators to get together to re-establish a framework in which the Bank of England can influence money markets decisively, restore the importance of base rate, and monitor bank liquidity day by day.

The body of the Report is more interesting and more realistic than the glib spin placed on it when it was released to the press. It does not make comfortable reading, showing as it does persistent problems with liquidity in banking markets. The government should take the initiative, recognise that the tripartite system got Northern Rock wrong, and reinstate the Bank as chief controller of commercial banks and manager of money markets. The two jobs go together. It is difficult to do the one without doing the other.

It should have been no surprise that Labour was thumped badly in the local elections. People have been fed up for months. They are fed up with high taxes, high fuel prices, high food bills, high Council tax, and with the surveillance society that Labour buys with all the money. They are fed up with a government that preaches a message of fear – be afraid of terrorism and lose your liberties for “security”, be afraid of the state’s Inspectors, be afraid of the law. You are not paranoid – they are out to get you.
Do not be a householder, a motorist, a successful business person under this government – for you will pay for these crimes.

The canvass returns in Wokingham indicated to us we would have our best result since the 1980s. The mood on the streets of London was positive for change. It beggared belief that the Prime Minister decided to have an argument with his backbenchers about putting up Income Tax on the lower paid just in time for the local elections – that did quite a bit of the Opposition’s job for it, ramming home the message that the government is after your money at exactly the time you are being squeezed by high prices and low wage increases.

There were local issues at stake as well. The two biggest were tax and rubbish. In many places voters decided they would get their least bad deal on Council Tax by keeping or voting in a Conservative Council.

In many places people also wanted to express their disgust at Labour’s refuse policy. Only this Labour government (with a bit of help from its friends, the European Commission), could think up such an unpopular mixture of policies towards recycling and bin emptying. They have produced the trebly toxic package of

1. Fortnightly collection instead of weekly or more frequently
2. Spy cameras on bins coupled with the Enforcement officers to fine you for the wrong kind of rubbish
3. The threat of an additional Bin Tax

It contains all the ingredients that characterise this Labour government:

1. Worse public service
2. Ignoring public opinion – the public would like more regular collections at sensible cost
3. Surveillance of our every move – at our expense
4. A mood of fear ,as the media tell us how the government is not only watching us but will be prosecuting us if we make a mistake with what we put in the bin
5. Higher tax – to pay for all the surveillance, the compliance, and the spin doctoring to terrorise us in our own homes.

Labour’s rubbish policy is indeed a cameo of the all that this government does to us, and that so many people now hate about it.

This year I have read many times commentators and market experts tell me the USA is “already in recession”. They should take a look at the first quarter figures, which shows the US economy still grew at 0.6%, thanks to improvement in exports following the devaluation of the dollar, some increase in government spending and stockbuilding. So far it’s on course for the sharp slowdown without two negative quarters. The Fed once again confirmed its determination to prevent a recession by cutting interest rates to just 2%. This quarter should see some modest stimulus from the tax cuts, whilst the second half of the year will see more impact from the shift to cheap credit. At some point even the very distressed housing sector will stop falling, as it has crashed so far.

Meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic we get a pep talk from the Bank of England, telling the banks they should lend more! Is this the same Bank of England that was telling bankers last autumn they were lending too much to the wrong people? Do they still belong to the tripartite regulatory system, which is telling banks they need to have more capital and more cash just to sustain the business they have already written, let alone to offer any more loans? Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing in this three way split of a regulator?

No-one pretends it is easy to move from credit being too readily available to a situation where levels of credit are appropriate. It is wrong to claim it is all the banks fault – it was the authorities who encouraged the excess lending by setting low interest rates and drawing up regulatory rules which encouraged off balance sheet wizardry. The UK has decided to go for boom and bust banking, lurching from too much credit to the absurd spectacle of a government owned mortgage bank halving its very extensive mortgage book over a three year period, whilst the government and its agencies urges the banking sector to lend more! It will take time for the effects of the wind down of Northern Rock to work through the system, thanks to bad decision to nationalise it. We will pay a price for the authorities not making the £50 billion of swaps available last August to prevent the run on the Rock, and pay a further price for now owning a business which they want to halve in size, with all the lost jobs and downward pressure on the housing market that entails.

The US is handling this credit crunch better than the UK. The UK authorities should study the US response more, and should stop making the problem worse through regulatory confusion and inconsistency. The government should reinstate the Bank of England as principal banking regulator, going back to the pre 1997 system. That worked better during periods of error and crisis.

Today we can elect new Councillors in many parts of the country. I do hope all the oppressed motorists of the UK will take this opportunity to tell their would be Councillors we are fed up with the way we are treated by petty officialdom at the local level, as well as by our rapacious government who see the motorist as one of the prime sources of extra revenue.

The national press this morning highlights just how many motorists now end up paying speeding fines and parking fines. Some of them deserve them, for parking in places which block the traffic or hinder others, and for driving too fast in difficult conditions. Others are caught out by bizarre changes of speed limit on good roads, by confusion over what the parking rules are on any given piece of kerb, and by the officious efficiency of the public sector when it comes to taking money off us. If only they were equally efficient and determined to provide good service in all the other departments.

In recent conversations I have been told of the kind of intolerance shown by some parking officials to usually law abiding people. One person came out of his house to take his car away from an overnight space at 8.32 in the morning. A ticket was placed on his vehicle because he was meant to have moved it at 8.30. Another found a ticket on his car because the boot protruded beyond the line marking the end of the parking bay, even though the vehicle position was not blocking anyone’s entrance or impeding traffic flow. A taxi driver explained why he could not drop someone off in a location where he was not blocking the traffic, because taxi drivers are under the steely eye of the surveillance cameras in London all the time they are at work and they would be fined.

Whilst the press is right to highlight the financial impact of this surrogate for taxation, the steady stream of fines, there is another feature which should worry us. One third of motorists apparently have fallen foul of the rules and had to pay up. The two thirds of us who escaped fines have still had to run the gauntlet of the sometimes unreasonable and perverse rules. We have had to change our driving style to accommodate endless scanning of the horizon for all the signs and instructions which now dictate how we drive. Instead of spending the maximum time on surveying the road ahead for hazards and adjusting direction and speed to the conditions, motorists now spend much of their time seeking out the frequent changes of rule and watching their speedometers to try to keep within them. It makes people worse drivers. The whole process puts people on edge too often and for too long.

The same happens to us when we have finally parked the car at the journey’s end Have you felt that nagging fear that you will overstay your time in the local car park because it takes longer to buy something in the shops than you thought? Have you ever had to abandon your purchase because of the queue for the till and dash for the car to avoid the car park vigilante getting you for a few minutes over your time? Have you ever stood in the rain by the car puzzling over whether you can or cannot park in a given spot because the rules and signs are unclear? Have you ever been done because you misread the signs? Why can’t you top up the fee you paid on entry in the car parks where you have to pay in advance, if you need to? If limiting the time of your stay is so important to the Council, there could be an allowance of extra time you could pay for before the penalty kicks in.

There is a parking area in Wokingham where a municipal car park shares a common entrance with a private car park. People often get caught out, parking in the wrong part. They have to pay a penalty, even though they have paid and put a sticker in the windscreen, because they have parked in the wrong space. I recently wanted to park in a central London side street. The residents’ parking places were clearly banned to me. Next to one of them was a single yellow line, creating a space for a single car in the line of parked vehicles, well away from the turning. There was no sign up to tell me when the single yellow line applied. Just round the corner on the main road there was a red line for an urban clearway, and a sign telling me that could be used for parking at the time of my arrival. I eventually found a space some way away on the main road, where the parking impeded traffic flows more than would have been the case in the side road. I could not afford to take the risk on the yellow line. Sometimes there can be as many as three different regimes for the timing of parking on the same stretch of road. You need to walk up and down checking for all the signs to make sure you have understood. Many of the places fail to tell you on the signs whether a bank holiday counts as a Sunday or not.

The truth is that parking controls and charges have become too complicated. Of course we need rules to prevent people blocking side roads to traffic, and to stop them restricting the width of the carriageways of main roads when they are busy. Of course it makes sense for a Council which has had to buy a piece of land and needs to spend money on maintaining the car park to charge the users for their use rather than putting the whole thing onto the Council Tax. This system has now been turned into a money spinner, seeking to make Council profit out of their near monopoly provision of public parking. It has also been over complicated by too many officials endlessly varying the rules of the parking schemes and spending our money on reconfiguring the street, the pavement, and the parking spaces.

So as you go to vote today, try to have a word with those who would represent us. Tell them it’s taking the pleasure out of shopping and increasing the pressure on going to work or visiting friends. We are under the cosh of the surveillance society. We have to dance to the tune of petty officialdom. They seem to forget that parking is a service to make our lives easier, not another way to terrorise us and make us nervous about what we are doing. Surely our Councillors could unite to get some commonsense back into the system? If they did we would need fewer officials, so we could be charged less for the whole process.

Over the last two days we have been discussing the Finance Bill in the Commons. It has given me the opportunity to remind the government just how successful Ireland has been by setting low company tax rates. The Irish economy has grown much faster than the UK economy as a result, and has generated more tax revenue from the lower rates. Today we learn that more large companies are thinking of leaving the UK for a more favourable tax jurisdiction – they don’t have far to go given the Dublin offer.

It gave the chance to speak out for the motorist, highlighting the successive tax raids this government has launched against people driving to work, taking their children to school, and bringing heavy shopping back in the boot.

It allowed me to expose why so many people think green taxes are a scam, because the government does not always undertake proper carbon accounting, or decides to increase taxes that cannot have the desired impact on people’s behaviour. The decision to lift Vehicle Excise Duties on older cars is a good example of this.

During the course of the debates it also reminded me that Labour’s most successful campaign in opposition to the last Conservative government was surprisingly for them an anti tax campaign. Labour’s attack upon the Community Charge led to the removal of a Prime Minister, and the decision to abolish the tax. It meant I as Local Government Minister had to perform the last rites for the tax, and introduce the slightly less unpopular Council Tax.

It is instructive to look back at why this greatest Opposition campaign of the last thirty years worked. Labour decided early on to rename the tax the Poll Tax. In a rare foray into England’s rich and argumentative history, Labour at one fell swoop conjured images of the Poll Tax riots of the fourteenth century, and the injustice of taxing the poor that hazy memories might manage. The attack worked because the Poll Tax brought a lot of people into paying a local tax who up to that point had avoided it. Labour thought it was time for another Peasants’ revolt, time to unfurl the banners of 1381.

The Conservative government adopted the Poll Tax (against my advice) because opinion polling told them people said they would pay more for better services, and because some households had three or four earners but still only paid one lot of rates. Why not give them all a chance to contribute to local services which they said they valued? I never thought making so many more people pay tax would go down well, and for once Labour also thought a tax would be unpopular. They were right.

It is interesting that 18 years on from the great Poll Tax rows, the Labour government is so desperate to get its hands on more of our money that they are now taking more income tax from low earners,(poll tax on working) taking more VED and petrol tax from low income motorists (poll tax on wheels) and taking more Stamp duty from people trying to buy a home (poll tax on home).

One of the things we need to do to get the message across to the government that they are taxing too much is to change the names of the taxes. I would like your contributions so the taxes can be more accurately described. I have some proposals for starters:

Income Tax – Work Tax
Stamp Duty – Homes Tax
Petrol and diesel duty – Travel Tax
Congestion Charge – Poll tax on wheels
VAT – Shopping Tax
Capital Gains Tax – Enterprise Tax
Corporation Tax – Investment Tax
Climate Change Levy – UK industry Tax
Tax on interest and dividends – Savings Tax.

Click here to read the full text of John’s contributions to the Finance bill.