Invest in the state
Sir: David Cameron will never be a revolutionary if he follows your advice and concentrates only on government spending (‘Is Cameron a revolutionary?’, 3 October). He needs to completely rethink taxation, too.
You say that taxes must rise. But putting up taxes now, as conventional wisdom suggests, will increase the government deficit, not reduce it. Cameron should make massive cuts in taxes on personal incomes, savings and capital. Suppose he reduces taxes and at the same time allows individuals wishing to set up new schools to issue ‘education convertible bonds’ underwritten for the first ten years by the government? As long as these are made attractive to savers, individuals will have a reason to buy them. So the government will be able to replace a huge percentage of its expenditure on state education with private funding.
If Cameron did the same for health and other services, a large percentage of the government deficit would be replaced by private individuals’ investment in public services. This will create confidence by changing the whole nature of how we view the role of government. Replacing taxation by private investment in this way gives individuals a very clear say in the nation’s education and health. It also allows people to put their savings to productive use rather than have them lie idle in bank accounts earning minimal interest, thereby increasing the velocity of money and escaping the dangerously deflationary Keynesian liquidity trap. This is Cameron’s chance to change the game and be truly revolutionary.
Matthew Quirk
Chiddingstone, Kent
Bad police
Sir: I was much amused (but not surprised) by Jeremy Clarke’s account of his failure to charm his way out of a very minor infringement of the law — failing to wear a safety belt (Low life, 26 September). In my own recent case, after parking for a couple of minutes in the ‘set down’ area of Edinburgh airport, I was falsely accused by the police of driving and using my mobile phone. Of the two constables who interviewed me, much the more aggressive was the policewoman. Having resisted her offer to settle for a £60 on-the-spot fine and three penalty points, I was then subjected to an hour-long grilling during which she confiscated my mobile phone, refused to give me a receipt and accused me of having mental problems. (During the course of this interview, I was also threatened several times with a night or two in the cells.)
The aggression didn’t stop there — the following morning two burly policemen turned up at my office demanding that I sign an authority to give the police access to my medical records; they also delivered an order for me to appear before their firearms department to assess my suitability to hold a shotgun certificate.
Happily, six months later, the court found me ‘not guilty’; I still have a clean licence and a shotgun certificate, but not without considerable inconvenience and cost. In future I will heed your columnist’s sensible advice and try the old charm offensive, even if my chances — based on Jeremy’s account — are no longer terribly good.
Andrew Hamilton
East Lothian
Less is more
Sir: I am grateful to Charles Moore for the information that the Australian parliament sits for only 18 weeks a year (The Spectator’s Notes, 3 October). I am reminded that the Texas and Oklahoma legislatures ordinarily sit in alternate years, while that of Utah sits annually for only 45 days. According to Forbes, these three states host six of the ten US cities not affected by the recession. Thomas Payne said that ‘government governs best which governs least’. Do you think we might be stumbling on to a genuinely popular ‘big idea’ for the election campaign?
Martin Sewell
Gravesend, Kent
Quibbles with Johnson
Sir: Paul Johnson’s review of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s A History of Christianity (26 September) is unnecessarily mocking in tone. Mr Johnson describes Professor MacCulloch as ‘essentially a comic figure’. Any reader of the review who is unfamiliar with the rest of MacCulloch’s work will be unaware that far from being the figure of fun portrayed by Paul Johnson, he is (along with Eamon Duffy) the most distinguished historian of early modern religion working at present in the UK.
C.D.C. Armstrong
Belfast
Sir: I was astonished by Paul Johnson’s assertion that the New Zealand Maoris ‘were themselves colonists and exterminated the last aboriginal inhabitants of the island as recently as the 16th century’. Archaeological evidence is scant and the Maoris are a surprisingly secretive people about their history. But it is generally believed that the descendants of the Maori arrived (anytime between the 10th and 14th centuries) to an unpeopled land. So, colonists yes, but usurpers, probably not. That is the grounds for their ownership claims over airwaves, fish stocks, scenery, etc. Possibly Mr Johnson is suggesting that the Moriori (another Polynesian people) had prior possession of the islands, but they seem only ever to have had a presence on the Chathams, 600 or so miles east of New Zealand. The Taranaki Maori did attempt to exterminate them, but not until 1835. In large part the attempt was successful. The last full-blood Moriori died in the 1950s, although I am told that 3,000 people claiming Moriori descent live around Christchurch and a few hundred more on the Chathams.
Mark Jefferson
Pen y Lan, Cardiff
Dietary requirements
Sir: I share Charles Moore’s impatience with the now customary dietary requirements question (The Spectator’s Notes, 26 October). But it can be put to good use. Bored with answering ‘none’, for some years now I have been replying ‘a decent claret’. It is frequently successful and also enables one to rate one’s hosts.
Nigel Lawson
House of Lords, London SW1
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