The ROAD to RECOVERY

The political parties are now competing to look for ways to render more palatable the raising of taxes and the lowering of public spending. Here are some suggestions.

1) Slap a considerable tax hike on alcohol and smoking materials but ring-fence it entirely for the NHS. The tax can be presented as a charge for the “nanny-state” treatment drinkers and smokers will need from the health service in the future. Such targeted taxation is both socially constructive and morally defensible – and rather more effective than the British Medical Association’s advocacy of a ban on advertising and sponsorship. It puts the onus back on the individual to take responsibility for his behaviour. A further range of surcharges might be imposed on fast foods, on food packaging and, eventually, on all processed and perhaps even non-organic foods. Food producers will have an incentive to put themselves in a position where they can demonstrate the healthy nature of their ingredients and processes. This is taxation as organic carrot rather than as resented stick.

2) The government should introduce punitive charges against those whose drunken behaviour necessitates the calling out of emergency services. Specific spot charges for the handling of incidents need not be the thin end of a wedge of general charging for police and/or paramedic services; indeed, voters generally would welcome knowing that they are not having to pay for the clearing up after anti-social indulgence in town centres. This would be a targeted surcharge that would also win a lot of votes.

3) If the courts stopped committing those convicted of non-violent crime to prison, there would be no need for capital expenditure on new gaols. Financial crimes could be countered with swingeing financial penalties over a commensurate number of years (those convicted would have their finances regularly audited by court-appointed accountants). Other white-collar crime, burglary and petty offences could be penalised by rigorous regimes of community service. Incarceration would be reserved for those who are found by the courts to constitute a danger to the public. This way society benefits from – rather than paying the keep of – the supervision of all but its most recalcitrant and antisocial transgressors.

4) Announce an imminent date for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This would be a popular change of policy. That our occupation of parts of another sovereign state keeps our streets safe from terrorists is a theory, not a fact. Many of us argue that our presence in Islamic countries rather recruits terrorists with a grudge against Britain: “don’t mess with the Moslems” as last week’s convicted would-be airline bomber declared on his suicide video. Nations that do not take it upon themselves to police the world do not, by and large, have a problem with terrorists. But here’s the clincher: we simply can’t afford this monstrous expense. Let the UN take on the task of making the world safe. That’s what it’s for.

5) Then begin scaling down our entire military capacity, starting with Trident. Britain’s present status in the world does not require us to remain armed to the teeth. Maintaining nuclear capacity and a military strength that invites our presence in every international conflict is colossally expensive. We have far greater need for renewed infrastructure, libraries, schools and university places that do not impoverish those that win them. That is what the electorate wants.

6) Bring in a new top tax level of 100 percent for all those remunerated (including supposed bonuses and share options) to the tune of £1million or more per year. In a recession or even not in a recession, nobody has need of more than £1million per year. “Oh,” the city will squeal, “but there will be a haemorrhage of talent to other countries”. To which I have a one-word reply: “Goodbye”. There might be some departures among those who are more interested in raking in the shekels than finding job satisfaction. But frankly the rest of the world is not so short of talent of its own that it would come recruiting here in significant numbers. In any case, few of the city fat cats have demonstrated much in the way of talent in recent years. What the public justly resents is that these titans of business get paid bonuses that make you clench your arse-cheeks even when their businesses are tumbling down the lavatory pan. Had I been a government minister, I would have tendered my resignation because Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling did not make agreed levels of pay restraint a condition of the bank bail-outs that they offered on the tax payers’ behalf.

7) Scrapping the ID cards is a no-brainer and it seems certain to happen whichever party forms the next government. Dismantling much of the surveillance state ought to be on the agenda too. Britain’s infrastructure of surveillance is, as so often noted, the most extensive in the world, yet so many recent cases have shown that the surveillance simply doesn’t work. Whether it is Britain’s tradition of a chronic lack of maintenance skills or the public’s slyness in avoiding being seen while at nefarious activities, the investment is clearly not worth it.

8) I do not favour cutting into the culture of benefits. It always used to be that the left supported benefits even when some people received them who didn’t need them and the right supported cuts in benefits even for people who could not manage without them. But that distinction has become blurred in both directions. New Labour is more ready to let deprived people swing in the wind and the Tories are more anxious at least to give lip service to the welfare state. Better that we risk losing the supposed talent of asset strippers and financial speculators than that we starve a whole class of people that might generate all sorts of talent.

The Chancellor warns of hard choices. These are easy ones.