Weasel words can’t justify the Budget betrayal of a manifesto promise and Tory principles
SIR – The Chancellor should resign and those who advised him on his ill-fated Budget proposal should be sacked.
This is the Government which objects to me, a chartered accountant, reading the small print in a Finance Act and advising clients on how to mitigate lawfully their tax liabilities.
And yet the Government expects a self-employed butcher, baker or candlestick-maker to read legislation which most of us have never heard of and conclude that the manifesto promise only referred to Class 1 National Insurance contributions. Professor James S MacLeod Edinburgh SIR – As if George Osborne’s attack on buy-to-let landlords was not enough, we have the latest offering from a Tory Chancellor to give the self-employed a kicking.
Do the Conservatives think that this is the way to hold on to core voters come the next general election? Pat Cooper Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire SIR – I will pay the increased tax if I have to. There is no alternative.
But I will never again take seriously, let alone read, a Conservative election manifesto. Nigel Bunting Shelley, Suffolk SIR – Philip Hammond, hero to zero in one easy move, attempted to trash the ethos of the party he represents: low tax, self government and optimism.
He is clearly not the man to grasp the opportunities beyond the dead hand of the EU. We need a person with enthusiasm, able to do more than tinker with the increasingly discredited tax system in this country. David Broughton Woodborough, Wiltshire SIR – It seems that Mr Hammond has fallen for the oldest Treasury trick in the book: “Here’s a great way to simplify a tax anomaly and raise more revenue at the same time.”
They skewered George Osborne with the “pasty tax” and the current SIR – This was an unnecessary own goal by Mr Hammond. There is a simple and elegant solution: do a U-turn and, to make it a popular and memorable act for the voters, fill up the shortfall with money from the foreign aid budget. Trevor Jones West Chiltington, West Sussex SIR – For all the huffing and puffing, members of the self-employed brotherhood know full well that expenses claimed against gross income far outweigh any modest increase in NI payments. David Dilly Brill, Buckinghamshire SIR – You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Hugh Ellwood Lytham St Annes, Lancashire SIR – Mr Hammond must be exhausted, having just produced two Budgets at the same time – his first and his last. Richard Gordon-Freeman Twickenham, Middlesex SIR – It might not have been much of a Budget but it was surely better than the one George Osborne threatened us with before the Brexit referendum. Martyn Pitt Hardwicke, Gloucestershire SIR – Writing about Mr Hammond’s Budget speech, Tim Stanley (Commentary, March 10) quoted a thought from Kingsley Amis: “Never crack a joke about yourself that someone else can twist against you.”
Samuel Johnson wrote 250 years ago: “A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.” Chris Russell Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire