Working already

May 11, 2010 — simonashall

One good thing to come out of the new coalition is that our unjust and intolerant policy of offering tax breaks to married couples has been dropped. I have stated here before how dreadful I believed this policy to be - if financial benefit happens to derive for married people from policies enacted for other reasons then fair enough but I found it utterly un-Conservative to seek to penalise those who may be less fortunate by offering a financial incentive directly linked to marriage.

It seemed like a sop to the right of the party and it was entirely wrong but the new PM needed to keep the right on board during the campaign and especially post-Lisbon Treaty ratification. If a light centrist touch is what the Lib Dems bring to this government – an ability to deflect any hard-right tendencies of the party – then perhaps this coalition business is no bad thing in the circumstances that we face.

Update 12/5: Seems like I spoke too soon and the married couple’s allowance is still in the work programme. The Lib Dems though will be able to vote against it and one assumes that with the support of the nationalists it would not pass.

Another welcome side-effect of the coalition is that I hope – and fully anticipate – that there will be no attempt in the lifetime of the coalition to re-animate the devisive and emotive practice of foxhunting. I love the countryside and I respect its traditions but this potato is simply to hot to be comfort food for the nation.

Posted in Social Justice, Tax, politics. Tags: , , , . 3 Comments »

Lesson from JK Rowling

April 14, 2010 — simonashall

JK Rowling with a book containing more truth than the Labour manifesto

I’m not a fan of JK Rowling – I think her books are terrible and the fact she gives money to the Labour Party is borne of an similar level of fantasy. Today she writes in The Times about DC and the party’s manifesto for single mothers and although the Times subs have done their best with it, it’s still a couple of commas short of iambic pentameter.

But depressingly, I find myself agreeing with some of what she says and I think she’s done the party a favour by spelling it out, albeit after the manifesto is published. I’ve written on it before and I’ll say it again – the Conservative Party policy to reward married couples with a (very token) tax break is a step backwards in bringing its attitudes in line with a modern Britain that isn’t interested in recapturing 1950s social norms.

Firstly, the fact is that society will no longer be told by government what it should find acceptable and unacceptable – the role of government in this area is now defunct and no amount of bleating by the right of the party will bring it back. Yes, the family unit is still the single most important building block of society but the family unit can no longer be described as one man married to one woman and their resulting offspring. A government that tries to impose this doctrine through the tax system will not succeed and the party it is formed from will ultimately lose credibility.

Secondly, JK Rowling points out that “it’s not the money, it’s the message” is a deeply misguided view of what single parents go through. For those who have decent independent incomes and families to fall back on when they part, it may just be about the message – although not a very welcome one, I should imagine. But for others who don’t have partners at any time in their parenthood or families able to support them financially following separation, it is very much about the money. And if anything, we should be spending the money otherwise used in this tax break supporting those who need it ie the single-parent families, not married couples.

I believe that DC takes social responsibility and justice seriously but this policy doesn’t back that up. Having said that, much else in the manifesto does. I joined the Conservative Party because I want to see a society where people can get opportunity, work and make a prosperous future for themselves and their families. But if they manage that, they don’t need state subsidy as well. In an ideal world, no-one would.

But this isn’t an ideal world and until it becomes so, that help from the state which exists needs to be focussed on those who need it; married, divorced, single or otherwise.

Posted in Conservatives, Social Justice, Tax. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »

We’re going to the chapel

January 17, 2010 — admin

Back in the spring of 2007, I watched Francis Maude give one of the most unimpressive performances on Question Time that I’ve ever seen. The background for this was the announcement that the Conservative Party intended to commit to the idea of rewarding married couples through the taxation system. His answers were defensive and and a little condescending and I held my head in my hands as the Conservative Party once again went back to basics.

Even back then, I knew that just as the original back to basics had started the decline of John Major’s government, so the new version – despite its different presentation – could seriously damage a future Conservative challenge; people don’t want to be told how to live. And now the issue is back in the news - not because it’s new but because given everything that has happened since St David’s Day 2007, Labour feels that the Conservatives are vulnerable on this issue – and they are dead right.

I’m not against marriage – heck, I’m getting married in June. I’m not even going to argue with the fact that marriage is a preferable institution from which to create a stable family unit. I’m not arguing that kids from married families statiscally don’t do better at school and stay out of trouble. Marriage is the most important building block of our society and we disregard it at our peril.

But marriage is not a magic wand – it is a means to an end. Marriages create stability, continuity and an environment of care, which is why it is so good at nurture and creating stable and balanced households. But it doesn’t have a monopoly on love, stability and care. There are plenty of co-habitees, single parents and same-sex relationships that provide exactly the same environment. Equally, there are plenty of marriages that provide very little in the way of any of these positive things.

My problem with the Conservative policy of rewarding marriage in the tax system is that it alienates people who don’t fall into this category, many through no fault of their own. The break-up of any marriage is always a tragic and deeply traumatic event, particularly when there are children involved. But it happens – sometimes people who fell in love with all good faith simply fall out of love, or fall more in love with someone else. It’s one of the most difficult things about being human – but being human is all that it is.

I feel very uncomfortable about levvying a financial penalty against those involved in such a sad chapter of their lives – even though to them it would no doubt pale into insignficance compared to everything else. To me, it smacks of kicking people while they are down, of turning our backs on them when they need support most and of keeping a whole lot of other people, many of whom will be relatively vulnerable, off a list of “the favoured” because they – for whatever reason – cannot or don’t wish to embrace a formal marriage arrangement.

I understand what the Conservative Party is trying to do here – but it’s all wrong. It allows our opponents to paint us as an exclusive party – as if we didn’t have enough trouble with that already. I seriously don’t want the Tory Party to be the party of the rich – I want it to be the party that leaves the rich alone, looks after the poor and increases mobility from poor to rich. But it’s difficult to get that inclusive idea across when you illustrate it with policies like this one.

And the party only has itself to blame. By trying, in the spring of 2007, to impose its grass roots’ preferred way of living, we have been overtaken by circumstances to a point where we are left with a policy that DC would probably reverse in an instant if he could – he’s already tried and then had to go back on himself - but can’t. Despite the recession, despite the sensitive issue that taxation policy has now become, he cannot go back on the marriage promise for fear of losing grass roots votes and another Lisbon-like U-turn. On one side his better judgement, on the other ConservativeHome and the Daily Mail. Rather him than me.

It’s what happens when you announce things three years ahead of an election. Okay, there’s nothing wrong with supporting marriage but I’ll bet that if DC could choose something now that he’d announced in 2007, it wouldn’t be this.

The Conservative Party must support people, not institutions if we wish to remain on the centre ground.

Posted in Community, Conservatives, David Cameron. Tags: , , , , , , , , . No Comments »
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