Victorias Empire

quote:

They lost faith in their leader when they saw that she had become an electoral liabilty! I do suspect that even at the height of Thatcherism, your view about the fairness of the Poll Tax was widely held, and English History teaches us that a great poular displeasure at this sort of Poll Taxation is nothing new...

Unfortunately, governments have to pander to electorate...I guess that`s the price for democracy.

My concern is that I suspect that what we saw was the effect of the vociferous minority...ie hooligans who try to bring about change by what ammounts to terrorism

We saw a similar scenario during the fuel demonstrations a few years a go...I applaud Tony Blair for standing up to threats.....

Maybe it is just coincidence but the majority of my friends support the poll tax (now) and would welcome it`s return

I am sick to death of paying huge amounts of Council tax ,which increases each year by at least double the official inflation rate, largely to fund the shortfall in the Pension Schemes of Local Authority workers because Gordon Stalin- Brown dippped his thieving hands into the pension funds(to the tune of £5bn per year) to waste it on,amongst other things, £250 handouts for each newborn child, cruise missiles in Iraq, and countless billions wasted in overpaid tax credits that will almost certainly never be recovered(rant, rant....)

laurie

Dear Laurie,

Even if the Poll Tax were to be reverted to - and yes it was unpoular not just with protesters, but a big majority in opinion polls at the time - do you suppose Mr Brown would be presiding over a tax that did not rise faster than inflation? He IS the Tax-meister...

The country still has not woken up to the Pension Funds Tax Raid of Mr B! The media were in love with this administration at the start. If it had properly reported this issue at the time, then people would have [as I did at the time, and stopped contributing to my private plan] been better able to judge this lot of racketeers from the start - living off tomorrow's saving today. Of course Blair, Brown, and all are not the only administration to have done this!

Someone is bound to pipe up and say that companies were already taking "holdays" from paying into Pension Funds, but that does not alter the fact the action of the awful administration only served to make a deteriorated situation worse. One might have hoped for a policy that made actually things better. I thought that was what good governance was about.

We may not agree about what we call fair taxation, but I suspect we do agree on more fundamental issues...

Kindest regards from Fredrik

quote:

The country still has not woken up to the Pension Funds Tax Raid of Mr B!

I was ranting about it many years ago .......it fell on deaf ears.....

laurie

Dear Laurie,

You and me both! I never fell for the Tony "like me, I am a really nice, sincere man" smile. In fact one of the wisest pieces of advice I ever received was from an old gent who happened to be the father of my then girlfriend:

If someone smiles showing their teeth, in public, distrust them. They want something, and its is the "smile of a crocodile!" How right this has been proven. I reckoned Mr Blair was a wrong 'un from the day he was put forward to lead the Labour Partuy when Mr John Smith died, all those years ago now!

Kindest regards from Fredrik