Memo to Blair: seven stops
Dear Tony and Gordon: the election's weeks away, and even a political groupie like me clutches his stomach every time you say what you're going to do in the next five years. As a single professional male who works hard to provide for himself - i.e. one of the people you despise most deeply - I'd like you to change tack for a moment, and tell me what you're going to stop doing. Here are some ideas.
1. Stop hating me. In other words, stop looking at single working professionals as nothing except a cash machine network for Whitehall. It's okay for you to love the unemployed single mother on the council estate, but can't you spare a thought for the people who actually build the economy instead of those sucking the life out of it?
2. Stop taxing me. The IMF has stated the need for the UK's taxes to rise whoever gets elected next month, and you can't shrug your shoulders at this - it's because of your policies. New Labour's gorging and gushing of public funds is now beyond a joke. When you throw £150m at a failed carmaker, or billions into Iraq, and propose £35bn increases elsewhere over the next five years, do you honestly think we don't realise where it's coming from? Stop thinking of new ways to spend my money, and do more with what you have.
3. Stop wrapping me in red tape. Even for my one-man business in a largely unregulated sector, I still seem to spend several days a month acting as your unpaid administrator. The paperwork and bureaucracy of running a business in the UK is no longer a minor irritation; it's a crushing, soul-destroying burden. Get rid of it.
4. Stop thinking my private life is your property. I know you believe government has a right to know everything about me, but you're wrong - and so is your ID card bill. A single national database won't stop terrorists and won't reduce admin errors; all it does is make it easier for you to keep ever-tighter tabs on me about things that are none of your business. ID cards may make things 'efficient', but so did the gas chambers.
5. Stop treating Britain as a second-class USA. America is our cousin, not our identical twin. They have a role, we have a role, and that role won't always be the same. There's no need to do what Dubya tells you to all the time, especially if it involves presenting circumstantial evidence as fact in Parliament. (Note: that's also called 'lying'.)
6. Stop creating jobs. Yes, really. The only jobs you can create - i.e. public sector - don't contribute to the economy and can't create wealth; all they create is drag. Leave job creation to the private sector.
7. Stop being greedy. If I'm building a private pension, that's a good thing; it reduces my future drain on public funds. Saying you'll tax it if it reaches £1.5m is just plain greedy, and makes the UK's pensions crisis even worse. Stop placing such limits on me when I'm providing for myself.
Of course, there are countless more stops on this line. But I think at seven, I'll follow my own advice right here.
1. Stop hating me. In other words, stop looking at single working professionals as nothing except a cash machine network for Whitehall. It's okay for you to love the unemployed single mother on the council estate, but can't you spare a thought for the people who actually build the economy instead of those sucking the life out of it?
2. Stop taxing me. The IMF has stated the need for the UK's taxes to rise whoever gets elected next month, and you can't shrug your shoulders at this - it's because of your policies. New Labour's gorging and gushing of public funds is now beyond a joke. When you throw £150m at a failed carmaker, or billions into Iraq, and propose £35bn increases elsewhere over the next five years, do you honestly think we don't realise where it's coming from? Stop thinking of new ways to spend my money, and do more with what you have.
3. Stop wrapping me in red tape. Even for my one-man business in a largely unregulated sector, I still seem to spend several days a month acting as your unpaid administrator. The paperwork and bureaucracy of running a business in the UK is no longer a minor irritation; it's a crushing, soul-destroying burden. Get rid of it.
4. Stop thinking my private life is your property. I know you believe government has a right to know everything about me, but you're wrong - and so is your ID card bill. A single national database won't stop terrorists and won't reduce admin errors; all it does is make it easier for you to keep ever-tighter tabs on me about things that are none of your business. ID cards may make things 'efficient', but so did the gas chambers.
5. Stop treating Britain as a second-class USA. America is our cousin, not our identical twin. They have a role, we have a role, and that role won't always be the same. There's no need to do what Dubya tells you to all the time, especially if it involves presenting circumstantial evidence as fact in Parliament. (Note: that's also called 'lying'.)
6. Stop creating jobs. Yes, really. The only jobs you can create - i.e. public sector - don't contribute to the economy and can't create wealth; all they create is drag. Leave job creation to the private sector.
7. Stop being greedy. If I'm building a private pension, that's a good thing; it reduces my future drain on public funds. Saying you'll tax it if it reaches £1.5m is just plain greedy, and makes the UK's pensions crisis even worse. Stop placing such limits on me when I'm providing for myself.
Of course, there are countless more stops on this line. But I think at seven, I'll follow my own advice right here.
posted by chrisworth at 4:06 PM
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