Tuesday 21 November 2006

I find I’m in sympathy with another Tory peer!

Hell! While I’m at it, I might as well confess that I’ve been finding myself nodding with approval at Norman Tebbit recently.

At the Conservative Party conference he made an impassioned plea for tax cuts that should have struck a cord with all liberals (though cognitive dissonance probably prevented many from listening). He argued that it was those on low incomes, struggling to makes ends meet, who most needed the dead weight of taxation lifted from their shoulders. Thus, he called for the Conservatives to retain one promised tax cut, namely an increase in the personal allowance.

Compare this to the Liberal Democrats policy of abolishing the 10% rate so as to boost the personal allowance to £7,185, or to my own proposal that those on the minimum wage working for 35 hours a week should be free of tax (a personal allowance of c£9,500).

In addition, Lord Tebbit has been regularly seen going through the lobbies with liberal peer Lord Lester in opposition to the Government’s attempts to curb our civil liberties.

Forgive me a biblical moment but "there shall be more joy in heaven over one sinner that does penance…” and all that.

1 comment:

Tristan said...

I occasionally find myself agreeing with Tebbit.
'On yer bike' is good advice, I wish I'd followed it... the catch comes from the fact that not everyone can get on their bike, but distinguishing these people is hard...

The other point I've heard him make was that throwing more and more money at public services doesn't work, they just absorb the money without improving services. It can be better to restrict money and make them make decisions on how to spend it. The problem there comes that those who make the decisions on what to cut tend to be bureaucrats who's instinct is to conserve bureaucracy...