Eamonn Butler

The message Tory leadership candidates need to hear

I’ve been the victim of a robbery. In broad daylight. As an average Brit, more than 40 per cent of everything I produce is taken by the government for whatever they want to spend it on.

In theory they ask my opinion on what that should be. But they ask me only every five years, and even then, the chance of my vote making a difference is literally millions to one. That’s why many – or most of us – don’t bother to vote at all and most of the rest simply give the major parties a big two fingers.

Even mediaeval serfs only had to work a third of their time for their masters. We work two-fifths for ours. That’s the equivalent of labouring non-stop, from 1st January to today, 30th May, solely for the government. Only today—Tax Freedom Day—do we start earning for ourselves.

And what do the pounds pinched buy? A gleaming, efficient government machine that protects us, helps us prosper, and protects our rights and liberties?

No: a rambling leviathan that wastes money on HS2, six-figure Town Hall salaries, junk ‘academic’ research, and daily pantomimes in Parliament. No wonder people are angry.

Have the Tory candidates got that message? Well some might just have. Dominic Raab wants to cut Income Tax and Jeremy Hunt wants to slash Corporation Tax. Boris Johnson, James Cleverly, Esther McVey, Sajid Javid and Steve Baker are tax cutters at heart – though how firm would they be, in government, at resisting the constant pressures to spend more and more?

Better than Rory Stuart and Matt Hancock, for sure. And maybe better than Michael Gove, Mark Harper, and Kit Malthouse. The beauty parade has started but so far it’s not a line-up that seems much inspired to set people free.

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