If the Eds impose a mansion tax, I’ll leave the country!
ED MILIBAND says so nicely that those with the broadest shoulders should pay more in tax. I started work at 17 as a tea boy on a building site to save money to pay for pilot training. At 19, I had a second-hand Mini bought on hire purchase and an overdraft, but had my pilot qualification. I then worked hard for more than 40 years and reached the pinnacle of my profession. I paid every penny of the taxes I had to, sent my children to private schools (no burden or cost to the State), paid for private health care (ditto), and saved and invested for the future. All of that on ‘tax-paid’ money. I have paid ever more in tax — 40, 45, 50 per cent on earnings — through most of my working life. Also, because I have been guilty of taking responsibility for my life, I no longer receive the £10,500 personal allowance — I pay tax from pound one, another Labour stealth tax. I live in a lovely house, bought in the early Eighties, which I have extended and renovated with my tax-paid money several times, providing employment and money to those working in my area. And now Ed Miliband (together with Ed Balls, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg) suggests I should pay a mansion tax because I’ve had the effrontery to work hard, save, invest and not burden the State. This, Miliband says, is to put more money into the NHS. When Labour came to power in 1997, the annual NHS spend was £37 billion. When Labour lost power in 2010, the NHS cost was £110 billion, a near threefold increase. For what, in a time of low inflation? Gordon Brown used private finance initiatives (PFIs) to build hospitals and schools ‘off balance sheet’. Now you, Ed, seek to ‘cap’ their profits to 5 per cent on contracts you happily signed at the time. Hypocrite! So Ed, you classify me as someone who should again pay more to subsidise Labour’s failure in government, and for people like the offspring of that man in Wales who has sired 40 children with 20 different ladies. So, small wonder that, at 70, I’m seeking to leave these isles for a place that’s more tax-friendly.