This Government’s tax rises offend against Conservative principle
SIR – Most Conservative supporters will have welcomed Jacob Reesmogg’s argument that the tax burden is far too high and must not go higher (Comment, October 1).
Yet unlike them, Mr Rees-mogg had the chance to vote against the recently announced tax rises on the working population and business. Sadly only five brave Tory MPS did so.
Given his vocal opposition to higher taxes, is it not time for Mr Rees-mogg to consider his position as I have mine? After 40 years of devoted campaigning for the Conservatives, I resigned my membership the day after the parliamentary vote approving these outrageously unfair tax rises.
Of course, unlike Mr Rees-mogg, I don’t have a ministerial car and my work for the party has always been voluntary, not salaried.
Philip Duly
Haslemere, Surrey
SIR – I’m all for small government and low taxes, but dealing with the pandemic came at enormous cost. Now the time has come to repay it. It’s inevitable that we will see higher taxes for a while.
We all benefited from high government expenditure over the past 18 months; now it’s payback time.
David Dunbar
Broadway, Worcestershire
SIR – We are told that we are transitioning from a low-skill, lowwage, low-productivity economy to a high-wage, high-skill, highproductivity one.
I am puzzled as to how increasing the wages of lorry drivers will increase productivity. Will they be driving faster?
William Furness
Glastonbury, Somerset
SIR – I went to the autumn show in Malvern last week along with thousands of others. Arriving at Great Malvern station, I expected the shuttle bus for a 10-minute ride to the showground to be overrun, because of the fuel shortage and the push for more people to use public transport (in this case highly convenient).
I was shocked to find surplus space on the shuttle bus and to see thousands of cars in the car parks. Boris Johnson thinks he is going to win votes by pushing ultra-green policies very hard. Perhaps he should think again.
Hugh Cole
Bidford-on-avon, Warwickshire
SIR – In his eagerness to pillory the Prime Minister, Andrew Marr, in his BBC television interview on Sunday, described the possible killing of 120,000 pigs as “the biggest single cull of healthy animals in the history of British agriculture”.
In the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak the Blair government ordered the slaughter of over six million cattle and sheep in the “contiguous cull” policy. The vast majority were disease free.
It is not just MPS who get carried away with dubious claims.
Norman Cowling
Widecombe-in-the-moor, Devon