Republicans get the last laugh

The Guardian ^ | Thursday May 9, 2002 | Roy Hattersley

[David Hunter]

If you want to keep your money then your interests lay with the crown.

The Treasury is not controlled by the Crown it is controlled by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Gordon Brown), the second most powerful figure in the elected government. The Crown has nothing to do with it.

Also gallup polls have shown that most British people are prepared to take tax increases, as long as the money is used for public services and it is spent transparently.

[weikel]

Also gallup polls have shown that most British people are prepared to take tax increases

Just proves my point.

[David Hunter]

Also gallup polls have shown that most British people are prepared to take tax increases

Just proves my point.

How can contributing more tax for the good of the whole country be selfish?

If people wished to get the 'most benefits from the public treasury', then they would want to pay less tax and have more money spent on their public services. That would eventually cause the economy to collapse over 'loose fiscal policy'.

[weikel]

Taxation is stealing it should never be more than 10% at all levels during peacetime.

[weikel]

Wanting more taxes can be selfish simply because the people mob vote themselves a progressive tax system where the productive are ripped off to pay for the dole of the lazy.

[weikel]

Besides nearly all industrialized nations( including the US and Britain) are beyond the maximum on the Laffer curve now the government would get more long term revenue by cutting taxes.

[David Hunter]

The Crown is the symbolic defender of private property and of our right to leave whatever we have amassed, either by prudent investment or hard work (or even sheer luck), to our designated heirs.

Is it really. My maternal grandfather started off as a newsagent, over more than 50 years he built up his business and bought three more shops, which he rented out to other retailers. He worked very hard and only used to take one day off a year, as well as doing the paper rounds when the paperboys didn't turn up.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1997, under a Conservative government. The government took 40% of his estate in inheritance tax. Two years later his wife, who had inherited his estate, also died suddenly of a heart attack. Again the government took 40% of the estate. Hence only around 30% of the original estate was left to his daughters. Bizarrely when the Queen Mother, a woman with at least £50 million, dies, she doesn't pay a penny in inheritance tax. Please explain the justice here to me.

I doubt that the Royal family votes for Socialists. If the people continue to do so, they have no one to blame for extortionate taxation but themselves.

The Royal Family don't need to vote for Socialists because they are rolling in money. They always receive the best medical care available, get taken everywhere in chaffeur driven limousines etc, regardless of the cost.

New Labour is hardly Socialist in the traditional sense. It has moved to the right and in my opinion is now further right than the Liberal Democrats.

[David Hunter]

Wanting more taxes can be selfish simply because the mob vote themselves a progressive tax system where the productive are ripped off to pay for the dole of the lazy.

Rubbish. The poorest people in Britain are taxed disproportionately heavily. If you earn £8,000 per annum, as I have even though I have a PhD, you have to pay the same percentage income tax as someone earning £24,500.

Also most people in Britain are productive and don't spend any time on the dole. Therefore, the 'mob' is not large enough to vote in a government that will give them lots of benefits. Not that there are any politcal parties in Britain at the moment who believe in making the life of the unemployed/unemployable easier.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

If the people do not like the tax code, why don't they vote for politicians who will revise or discard it? Perhaps because the parties for which they vote do not allow them that option, and because the parties that DO want to reform the code are too "fringe" to assemble a majority. In any event, the Royal family is not at fault for the vile machinations of the Parliamentarians.

As I have often mentioned on threads dealing with the American War of Independence, taxation even during the period of Royal "absolutism" NEVER even approached the extortionate levels forced on us by our "freely elected" representatives.

One columnist (I think it was Joe Sobran) pointed out that medieval serfs paid less in feudal fees and taxes, as a proportion of his gross income, than does a modern citizen.

The Royal family may be exempt from the bulk of taxes. I do not regard this as the family shirking its "fair share" so much as the population at large being the victims of wholesale daylight robbery. This is not the fault of any living English monarch; HM does not impose taxes of her own will, but functions as a highly paid rubber stamp for Mr. Blair's party or whatever other scoundrels can obtain a Parliamentary majority. Consider this: assume that the English monarch became an activist Libertarian, revived the Royal prerogative, dismissed Parliament, and abolished Inland Revenue. How many minutes do you think would pass before the monarchy was officially dissolved by the Lower House?

[weikel]

Luckily the monarchy can't be dissolved without a civil war( unless the monarch excepts it).

[The Iguana]

My complaint is not that we were encouraged to drool over the memory of an evil empire.

I sincerely doubt that The Guardian has ever used that phrase in connection with the Soviet Union.

I know which "empire" I'd rather take my chances living in.

For the statists at The Guardian, it's another story.

[rebelsoldier]

Actually, I'd prefer Britain reinstitute the Empire, crush the EU, and assume its rightful place as sovereign of Europe, and disperate parts thereof. Furthermore, I hope America helps 'em do it.

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

And "Britain" is the rightful sovereign of Europe because . . . ?

[weikel]

Well Britain is less troublesome then the continentals.

[wardaddy]

Because "we" like "them" the best.....LOL..

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

What you mean "we", Paleface?

[rebelsoldier]

Bland as traditional English cooking may be; beer, bratwurst, and sauerkraut don't make it as national dishes. Also, Nazi uniforms may have been spiffy, but they lacked the pinache of the British Regiment's dress uniforms. Seriously, Britain may be the only "European" civilization not completely degenerated by collectivist socialism or neo-communist ideology which was born in Continental Europe as was fascism and Nazism.

[weikel]

Goetz isn't a nazi he just wants a restoration of the Hohenzollrens something that would be a serious blow to socialism in Europe( I disagree in that he also wants the Hapsburgs restored despite their consistently bad record).

[Goetz_von_Berlichingen]

One reason to detest Hitler is that he was a vulgar little Anglophile (hence the Charlie Chaplin moustache), whose idea of Nordic supremacy derived, ultimately, from Houston Stewart Chamberlain.