Vote Conservative in the cold and wet, dodging the hailstones, on May 1st, and enjoy a week of sunshine and summer temperatures.

Let’s hope this felicitous coincidence will be matched by improvements from Conservative government in action at the local level. I was pleased to see Boris has set up a Commission to help him cut costs at City Hall. They will be spoilt for choice, starting with the over the top 70 press officers, and working through the advisers Ken needed to run an alternative foreign policy.A staff freeze from day one, with new recruitment only permitted with Mayoral authority, would soon start to save the Council taxpayer serious money.

The other day the head of a major services company which takes on public sector work came to see me. He said they could perform more or less any administrative function currently undertaken by branches of UK government for between 15% and 30% less than its cost in house, and they would take on all the staff involved in the activity because they could find other things for them to do where they were not needed to carry out the original operation. If they can do, so could the in house teams if they were under pressure to do so.

Savings of that magnitude should be easy - the system has not been asked to deliver more for less for a decade, and looks very flabby compared to the best of the private sector under the cosh of international competition from China and India.

Today Russia commemorates the ending of the Second World War, one day after our VE day as always. The new President, doubtless influenced by Mr Putin, has decided that Russia is now strong enough to parade her military might as part of the display. As the oil price climbs to ever higher levels, Russia’s income grows. As her income grows, so she spends more on weaponry, to remind the USA that she is not unchallenged.

On another ocean, two Asian powers are also questioning US supremacy.

The Japanese have been honorary members of the Anglosphere since 1945, plugged into the first world of corporate activity and progressively freer trade. They have usually accepted US leadership. At the end of 1980s Japan started to flex her diplomatic muscles, doubting the US ability to adapt and grow. She chose to do so at a time when the Japanese bubble was at its most full blown. The Japanese sell off of the early 1990s coincided with the strong US move forward based on digital technology and the communications revolution, leaving the Japanese looking foolish and weak as their markets crashed and stayed down for a long time.

Today some Japanese pundits are questioning US supremacy again. They point to the weakness of the dollar, the sub prime problems, and growing dependence of the US on Chinese goods. They would be wrong to read these as signs of the end of US economic supremacy, just as surely as they were wrong about the collapse of the USA in 1990.

The truth is that the USA has outgrown both Japan and the EU over the last decade. Despite starting with more income per head and with a technological lead which others can learn from, the strength, breadth and depth of the US economy has been on display during years of poorer performance from both Japan and the EU.

Japan worries about her position, perched close to China in the Pacific half of the world. This may be the Pacific century, and the excitement may come from the West coast of the USA, from India and China, but that does not necessarily make it comfortable for Japan. Japan will be watching very carefully the military build up in China, and asking herself when the US will accept that China has serious military power to allow her to influence the patterns of politics and economics in her corner of the world?

Although China has 2.1 million military personnel, buttressed by a further 800,000 reserves, she still lacks aircraft carriers and overseas bases to project this conventional power far from home. The fleet comprises 29 destroyers , 46 frigates and 59 submarines. The air force boasts 1762 combat aircraft.

Whilst a lot of this equipment is not up to western standards, the latest planes and ships are much more sophisticated. Given the wealth of the country and the willingness to spend on armaments, we should assume a lively pace of new armament.

More significantly China has 806 missiles of varying capability (IISS Military Balance 2008) including intercontinental ones which could reach the USA and the EU. China is a nuclear weapons power, with more warheads than the UK but fewer than France at around 200.

We should expect China as she grows economically to buy in better weapons technologies from abroad and to re-arm heavily.

The US remains overwhelmingly stronger than Russia or China militarily, with a huge technological lead. Her command of the digital revolution, the US ability to see and hear an enemy and to strike one from a great distance are far ahead of what would be rivals can do. Nonetheless, the world is a more uncertain and dangerous place as China and Russia re-arm. The USA has to learn to operate with diplomacy and persuasion more, building more alliances with those who share her democratic and economic values.

This week has seen more moves to ease the Credit Crunch in the USA. The Fed has taken the drought in the money markets seriously, and has kept a big flow of liquidity available to ease the worst of the problem. The Term Auction facility is now up by another $50 billion to $150 billion. There are $100 billion of 28 day repurchase agreements, and $62 billion of reciprocal currency facilities with other Central Banks. There are some signs that rates in US money markets are falling from the extreme differentials of the worst of the Credit Crunch as a result of all this extra liquidity.

Now the jeremiahs are worrying that this will be bad for inflation, forcing higher interest rates ere long when the Fed realises the evil of its ways.

The latest figures for the US economy do not illustrate an inflationary problem. Over the year ended 31 March 2008 US productivity grew by a satisfactory 3.2%. Because people across the economy were working 3% smarter, with modest wage and salary rises overall, costs were under good control. Unit labour costs only grew by 0.2% for the year, hardly evidence of an incipient inflationary lift off.

The price increases are all coming from the price of food, energy and raw materials, which have been rising dramatically worldwide over the last six months. The surge in food prices is most alarming, as it is pricing the poorest out of their basic diets. The big rise in oil and other energy prices has a knock on effect to all prices of goods that need energy to produce them and energy to transport them.

The flooding of rice lands in Asia, the impact of the severe winter in China on agriculture and the demand for energy, and the diversion of crops for bio fuels have all helped force prices upwards. The Indian government is now seeking to stop “speculation” in food by preventing Indians buying and selling certain food based contracts. Several Asian countries are imposing export bans on staple foods.

These responses are understandable but they are not going to solve the underlying problem. There are “financial” buyers of wheat and rice futures contracts, but it is difficult to distinguish a “speculative” buyer from a trade user of such contracts. If just a few countries seek to ban trading in such items, the trade will continue elsewhere in the world. It is unlikely that Chicago will shut down its commodities trading markets, and if it did farmers would be up in arms as well as speculators. Nor will export bans solve the problem. The country that imposes an export ban on Item A will still want to import Item B and will be relying on other countries not imposing export bans. If too many export bans are put in place the world will become poorer, as trade will be damaged.

The shortages and high prices are squeezing us all, but they are especially bad news for the poor. The prices going up are the prices of the basics – food and fuel. The answer has to be more production of both, to cater for the growing demands of a rapidly rising world population. The high current oil price is leading to more exploration and more oil finds. The high prices of grains should lead to more land going under the plough, and the adoption of more intensive methods of growing grains in developing countries. In the meantime the UN needs to redouble its efforts to help the poorest in the worst affected countries. The answer is not to move to protectionism, the system which intensified the slump of the 1930s.

Hitler committed suicide on April 30th 1945. On May 7th the new government of Germany bowed to the inevitable and authoritsed the signature of the unconditional surrender document at Reims on May 7th, and in Berlin on May 8th. All war like operations between Germany and the Allied powers ceased at 23.01 on May 8th.

There was great rejoicing throughout the country, with dramatic scenes on the streets of London. The relief must have been huge after the long dark years of bombing raids, the loss of loved ones overseas,and the nagging fear of death to civilians and active service personnel alike. The evil of the concentration camps and gas chambers discovered by the Allied armies was still sinking in. Years of post war austerity lay ahead, but who cared on the news that the war was over?

At the Potsdam Conference the Allies decided on the partition of Germany, and the granting to Poland of territory from the Reich. This ushered in an era of suffering for the Germans who were living in the wrong places in Eastern Europe and had to move out.

One of the main preoccupations of the Allies was to dismantle German heavy industry, to prevent future rearmament and the construction of battle ships, tanks and fighter planes. They ordered the dismantling of steel capacity, the closure of many factories, and the transfer of weapons techonology.

This thinking lived on with French governments, and led directly to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community and the proto EU. It took a long time for Western politicians to come to see Western Germany, later Germany, as a peaceful democratic ally in an uncertain world.

The Labour leadership’s astonishing U Turn on a referendum about Scottish independence in Scotland leaves Gordon Brown in an even weaker position over both the EU and England.

Up to this point we have been told that big constitutional issues - like Who governs the UK - is a matter for the UK Parliament and not for a popular vote. We have been deprived of the promised EU referendum on the grounds that it is too complicated for the voters to grasp and has to be left to professional politicians.

Now we learn that the question of who governs Scotland is a matter just for the Scottish people.

In that case Who governs the UK? should be a matter for the UK people. The case for a referendum on the big transfer of powers recommended in the EU Constitutional Treaty on this logic has to be put to the voters.

The Scottish example comes across as yet another injustice to England. If Scottish voters can settle their fate within the Union unilaterally, why can’t the English? Gordon Brown should now offer the English a vote on whether they wish to stay in the Union, which would force him to recognise the unfairness of the current settlement and to offer improvements in order to secure the continuing consent of the English to his constitutional arrangements. As a Unionist myself I want English votes for English issues - the restoration of the English Parliament at Westminster with dual mandate English MPs.

Under Labour we have had to put up with lop-sided devolution for a decade. Now under Labour we have to put up with lop sided democracy, where five million Scots can express a view on our constitution, but 50 million English cannot. When Labour first presented its skewed devolution proposals I argued that, far from strengthening the Union, they would weaken it as they were unfair on England. This further twist will do yet more damage. It is as if the SNP has found a way to get the London government to do its job for them. It has always been SNP strategy to make England angry with the Union. They have an able assistant in this cause in Gordon Brown.

The alternative explanation is that he is so weak he cannot control or influence Wendy Alexander, the Labour leader in Scotland. Labour’s devolution has badly miscarried from their party political point of view. They now have a Conservative Mayor of London, an SNP-led government in Scotland, a coalition government with the Welsh Nats in Wales, and no Labour representation in the Northern Ireland Assembly. I am sure their original idea was to create devolved government in places Labour usually won, and offer a voting system which made it difficult for anyone else to gain a majority.

There have been some great replies to the challenge to name some taxes.

I like:

Alcohol Duty - Fun tax
Betting Duty - I have a dream Tax
Congestion Charge Fine - Forgetful Tax
Air Passenger Duty - I should have stayed at home Tax
Vat on fuel - Tax on Tax Tax

and I would add

Inheritance Tax - The In case you’ve something left Tax.

Last night Tony Robinson struggled through a feature-length version of Time Team, with enough material for a 30-minute programme. His central point was that the southern North Sea and the eastern English Channel used to be part of the European land mass, linking what is now England to France, Holland and Germany. He introduced us to a handful of finds of early human bones, with remains of a sabre-toothed tiger, large elephant and other tropical creatures, dredged up from beneath the sea. One marine archaeologist found a piece of wood that could have been part of a human structure when it was on land. It implied that it used to be a lot warmer here than it is this Spring, and suggested there was much more land a few thousand years ago.

I sometimes watch Time Team in its shorter format. They do dig some interesting new sites, and bring to our attention some finds from important historic remains in the landscape. You have to put up with the irritating and formulaic TV conventions. The dig always has to take place to a tight timetable, to create an artificial impression of urgency and worry lest it is not finished in time. There always has to be a row between Tony and one of the experts, and some disagreement over interpretation at the early stages which can be resolved by the end. Despite that, it can be a worthwhile and pleasant way of absorbing some history and archaeology.

Last night plumbed new depths. The producer allowed Tony Robinson to turn it into a thinly researched piece about climate change. Having made the interesting point that climate change was nothing new, and having established or asserted that the Channel was once a huge river delta with the Thames a tributary of the Rhine, Mr Robinson then proceeded to claim we could now be about to experience something similar for very different reasons based on modern climate change theory and the role of man. He suggested we are now in a warm period, without pausing to ask why he had just revealed animal bones which implied much hotter weather in ancient Europe. He produced no evidence for any of the assertions about what might happen next. Perhaps C4 will now offer a Conservative historian a reply programme.

It is an interesting idea that Western Europeans lost a large area of river delta to the sea, in the way that the sea now seems to be threatening the low lying deltas of the Ganges in Bangladesh and the Irrawaddy in Burma. Today we are all saddened by the tragic loss of life in Burma and keen that the international community should be allowed to help bring relief to those who survived.

The Dutch have shown that it is possible to take on the sea and to prevent it from making further inroads, by building dykes and sea walls, and raising polders from the floods. They also demonstrate that sea inundation is not a recent phenomenon. We need to consider which low lying parts of the world can and should be defended, and use best technology to protect the large cities that have been built all too close to the ocean rush. We could start here in Britain by planning the next London Thames barrier, because the present one will not serve the needs for that much longer. We may also have to accept that some low lying areas will be overwhelmed, as many have been throughout recorded geological time. These should be uninhabited areas, or areas where the authorities take action for re settlement in good time.

If Labour want to finish themselves off, they should press on with the Bin Tax. It will be the ultimate parody of their style of government. It means probing into the messy detail of every family’s life, literally rummaging through their garbage to find out what they are up to. It will require cameras or spies on the bins to watch what is going in. It will doubtless require CCTV on high, to see who is putting things in the bins, to stop people using the defence that they didn’t put the offending items into the bins themselves.

There will need to be a new army of bin enforcers, to go alongside the speed and parking police. They will be able to create new criminal offences, levy far more fines, and even send some more people to jail if they refuse the fines or offend too often. It will be intrusive, bureaucratic, expensive, vexatious and penal.

If the Conservatives are really lucky, the Prime Minister will dither before bringing in the Bin Tax. It will then be implemented in trial places, only for a Labour rebellion to build up against the whole idea!

It is so difficult writing parody these days, when the government set out to parody themselves so comprehensively. Could someone buy them a mirror so they can see just how it looks to the rest of us?

Today I received a message from Dave Wetzel, as he leaves the government of London.
He tells me ” It’s been a fun eight years and I would like to thank you for all your help in London achieving…road safety reductions…”
I thought some of their crazy anti traffic schemes were unsafe too - now we’ve heard it from the man himself.

The Treasury is busy making another fine mess. Larger companies are asking their tax advisers if they could now save serious money by moving their head offices out of the UK. The sales teams in Ireland, Switzerland and the Netherlands are in overdrive contacting UK companies to lure them away with their much better tax offers. They are greatly helped by the Treasury’s decision to consult on the idea that multinationals in the UK should also pay tax on their overseas earnings! Boy are they celebrating in Dublin and Zurich – it’s their dream come true, the best knocking copy they have had on the UK for 30 years.

To many Labour MPs it’s a simple question of social justice. They live in a world where big business is owned and run by the modern equivalent of Victorian mill owners – fat cats who live and earn in the UK, who will always stay here, and who should be taxed to the hilt to teach them a lesson for being bad employers and for making so much money. If any of them use smart lawyers and accountants to move offshore, then they must be taxed for doing that and hauled back onshore so we can all benefit from the money they have to cough up.

As an MP who also needs to be re-elected I can see the natural attractions of pandering to people’s jealousy by attacking the super rich, and taking so much money off them that I could offer good public services at little cost to constituents on average pay and below. Who wouldn’t like that apart from a few super rich? The problem is it is not how the modern world works. There are not enough super rich who will stay in the UK and pay so much tax that we could make much difference to the tax all the rest of us have to pay. The great multinationals are not owned by a few modern mill owners in London and Birmingham. They are restless and footloose global companies owned by millions of shareholders, some big and many small. There is no substitute to being honest with people, and telling them that if they want more public money spent they and the neighbours have to pay it to the Treasury first.

Ironically Labour’s demonology is directed more against the managers of large multinationals than against the owners. The Chairmen and CEOs earn big salaries and evoke Labour hostility for their pay rates, but usually they own very little of the company they work for. The owners are you and me through our pension funds, trade unionists, small savers and academic institutions of the USA through their big pension and endowment funds, and a host of owners world wide from charitable funds and sovereign funds through to rich individuals. The shareholder list of a large UK based multinational is far more ethnically diverse and global than the UK voters list itself – something that should appeal to New Labour. Collectively these shareholders have the power to appoint, remunerate and dismiss the directors and managers, who are but hired hands.

Because these great companies are truly public companies no one person or group is in charge. A CEO may be powerful for a bit if he or she delivers good growth in earnings and dividends, but ultimate power is spread and is open to company democratic pressures. Threatening such companies with higher taxes in the UK is therefore potty. The professional managers want to keep their jobs. If there is an easy way of cutting the tax bill by moving to another respectable country that offers lower taxes than our own these managers have to look at it. If the atmosphere towards enterprise and dividends becomes too hostile in the UK and they are still based here they might be subject to shareholder anger. The shareholders and their representatives are unlikely to turn round and say we want to pay more tax and want to stay in a country that is moving against enterprise, especially bearing in mind how diverse the shareholder lists are.

When I wrote the Conservative Economic Policy review the Committee and I drew attention to the notable deterioration in the UK’s tax competitiveness. Much of this has come about because other countries have improved their tax system so much to help enterprise. They are continuing to do so. Both main UK political parties seemed to take the message on board. The Conservatives are looking at moving to 25% Corporation Tax from the 30% we commented on. The Labour government responded by moving the headline rate down to 28%, a move in the right direction. Unfortunately Labour bought into part of the idea – the UK must have low rates it can use to ward off foreign competition – but not into the rest of the proposition – that we need lower taxes overall, and simplicity and consistency in the system.

Businesses looking at coming to the UK – and businesses asking whether they should stay – want to know that they are not paying a big penalty in the form of higher tax for doing so. They also want to know the system will be stable. By this they mean they want to know that having arrived they will not be faced with changes that put taxes up. They will not complain if the taxes are cut.

There is one simple way for the Treasury to staunch the flow of businesses heading for the exit. They should announce they have no intention of changing the system of taxing foreign profits, having consulted. They should add that they are open to ideas for lowering business tax rates, and that future change will be in that direction. Such action will increase the amount of revenue they collect from business, by keeping more companies here to tax, and attracting more companies here to tax. The way Labour is going, they will discover that footloose international businesses are no longer “British” owned by Tory voting mill owners. They are what they say they are – fast moving successful suppliers of the global market, run by international managers on behalf of an extraordinarily diverse range of owners who feel no loyalty to the UK.

Conservative Councils now need to perform. People want lower Council taxes, concentrating what money is spent on the delivery of the main services. They would be happy to see advertising, spin doctoring,glossy brochure producing, networking, bogus consultation making budgets slashed.

The Conservative party has strengthened its position as the main party of local government. All those Councillors who have been elected and re-elected, need to remember their promises and make sure they deliver better service at lower cost. Whilst the national mood played a part in securing their election, May 1st results showed that local circumstances can still be important in deciding who wins and who loses.

The most important pledge Conservative candidates made in most parts of the country was the pledge to keep the Council Tax down. So in those budget meetings for next year when officers tell them they need a large hike in the Council Tax for a “standstill” budget, Councillors should explain that this simply is neither true nor realistic.

On taking office this May, Council Groups should impose staff freezes on administrative staff, and start to manage the numbers down. They should gain control over any decision to appoint external consultants, making sure when there are staff in the Council office who should and could do the job that they do it. They should review all the new initiatives and projects with an eye to suitability and cost.

Many Conservative candidates promised to keep the weekly bin collection. Not only should they insist on this, but they should also make sure there is proper quality management, to prevent the collecting companies littering the verges and leaving material in the bottom of bins.

Many Conservative Councils want to ease some of the traffic and parking problems locally. They should review traffic light phasing and junction design, to improve smooth flowing of traffic and safety. They should price parking charges sensibly, ensure sensitive enforcement of restrictions, and review how to provide enough parking without disrupting main carriageways and junctions.

Conservative Councils wish to contribute to a safer area. They can best do this by working with and through the local police, helping define local priorities for the available police man power. There may be no advantage in setting up a parallel force of wardens and assistants who do not have proper police powers.

It is not the job of a Conservative Council to implement every suggestion and piece of advice coming from the government. Of course Conservative Councils must comply with the law, but they should and can have a distinctive view of how to run transport, education and other crucial services in their area. I have confirmation from a previous Labour Local Government Minister that much of what comes from government is advisory, not mandatory.

The public voted for a change on May 1st. They want lower taxes, less interference in their daily lives, easier journeys to work and school, and better choice of good schools. They will expect their newly elected Conservative Councils to do what they can at local level to ease the burden imposed from above. So I say to all our Councillors be bold – don’t do as the government says, do as the electorate wants.

PS Please see Download on how to run a Conservative Council if you would like to read more about this - under Downloads near the top right of this site.

In the Wokingham Parliamentary constituency 8 District Unitary Council seats were contested. The Conservatives won all eight, gaining one seat. The aggregate share of the vote was as follows:

Conservative 58.2%
Lib Dem 28.5%
Others 13.3% (BNP,Green,Labour,UKIP)(None of these parties contested all seats)

I would like to thank all those who voted, and all who worked hard as candidates and helpers for all the parties - that is what keeps our democracy alive.

The following draft would be suitable for a brave Labour adviser to send to our Prime Minister at bay:

To Prime Minister
From Senior Political Adviser

When I last wrote to you I praised your early statements in favour of strengthening our democracy and listening to the public more. I recommended that you honoured the Labour promise to hold a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty, to signal that you had a different view from your predecessor, more in tune with the British people. You did not like that advice, and turned to others to steer you. I kept out of your way in the run up to the May elections, as I thought it important to let the other advisers have a clear run to give their approach a good test. The polling still shows that 80% of the public do want a referendum, and think you should honour the promise. It has become an issue of trust.

Unfortunately the approach your other advisers urged you to follow has not worked. The Conservatives outpolled us by 20% in the Council contests, and Boris Johnson beat Ken by 6% in the crucial London seats. Let me explain what I think has gone wrong and what could be done to recover from here.

The political strategy has been based on hammering the Conservatives for any apparent mistake in what they say, and for not saying enough about the detail of what they would do. In particular it has been Treasury driven, seeking to cost any aspiration they express, and seeking to show their “numbers do not add up”. This old fashioned approach has not worked, because our own numbers visibly do not add up, and because we are the government responsible for handling the economy. You may remember we got away with supporting the Exchange Rate Mechanism which did so much damage to the Conservatives, because the public rightly blamed the government which actually took them in. They did not concern themselves with the advice we offered from Opposition. I am afraid it is not about the Conservatives at the moment – it is about the government and the problems we need to confront. We can turn to attack the Opposition later, once we have dealt with the real economic and social problems we face.

This political strategy has been buttressed by seeking to send messages about what we stand for, that are not backed up by solid evidence that we can implement them. Your last budget sought to send the message that we are tax cutters, but of course there was insufficient money available, so you had to double the 10p tax to 20p. You sought to send the message that you will be tough on terrorism and crime –unlike the Conservatives – but it has come across that you are taking away important liberties from law abiding people. You have made the Conservatives look moderate and sensible through putting so much political capital behind 42 day detention without charge. You have repeated the message that you are a serious and competent person with your head down dealing with difficult government issues, yet the last few months have been punctuated by error after error in handling data, dealing with backbenchers and implementing policy.

Nor has it helped that the Spin Doctors appointed by your office have become the news themselves, drawing attention to the high salary bill by warring in public when they should be supporting you to the hilt and creating a united front within your office.

The public are worried. They feel under intense financial pressure, as you know, thanks to rising food and energy bills, mortgage difficulties, falling house prices and the Income and Council Tax changes. Not all of these things are under our control. There is no quick fix for rising energy prices, other than a fortuitous change in world energy prices. We are still years away from new power stations in the UK thanks to the delays in settlign the nuclear issue. Food prices could be brought down if we could reform the CAP, but there is no immediate prospect of that as the French President made clear on his visit.

However, some of them are under our control. Part of the reason fuel prices have gone up so much is the tax rises as the pump price rises. You could say you intend to raise just the amount of money from petrol and diesel that you stated in the Budget, which would allow you to cut the fuel tax rate at the pump. It could be used to show people you do not want to continuously clobber motorists, and to remind them that the revenue you did say you would raise is an important part of the national budget.

You could look again at the 10p band and the reduction of the standard rate to 20p. You could reaffirm the importance of getting Income Tax down to 20 p, phase it over the next couple of years, and phase in a larger tax free allowance to help the lower earners who are otherwise losing out.

You could play politics with the Council Tax, now that most Councils are either under Conservative control or No Overall Control, and remind people that local decisions are important in settling its level.

In order to direct more cash into people’s pockets and purses – which is what they want – you are going to have to go back to Prudence, and make more progress in controlling public spending. I was talking the other day to a large company that already handles some contracted out business for us. They confirmed that they could take on more or less any administrative function from within government, and offer to do it for 15-40% less than it costs the government at the moment. They would also offer jobs to all the staff involved in the function, as they could redeploy the ones they did not need as they made the process more efficient. I appreciate that this is not popular with the Unions, but there are no easy options from here. This one combines job guarantees, with preserving government functions, and delivers less cost to give us more scope on taxes.

You could look at the huge costs of computerisation in Whitehall, and slow it all down for a couple of years, to save money without having to announce any major climbdown. You could ask for a reduction in the spending on consultancies and reorganisations and put in controls over new recruitment of staff.

I know you think the problem is largely created by rebel backbenchers and disloyal people within the Labour movement. The rebels will not see it that way. They feel they are going to lose their seats unless there is a change of direction. I would urge you to consider each of their causes on their merits, and not through the prism of loyalty glasses. Is it really worth it to have a further bruising row with them over 42 day detention without charge? Couldn’t the Security Services or the Police produce new advice saying that it might not be so important after all? Isn’t it crucial to come up with a better answer on the 10p Tax Band before it returns to the Commons?

You are understandably concerned about the state of the housing market. It is too late to stop further declines in house prices, and it is going to take time for the mortgage market to pick up again. If you really do want more money to be available for mortgages then you have to tell the Regulators to back off a bit – they are busily demanding that banks hold more cash for any amount of advance, and telling banks not to lend to anyone who might be stretched by the loan.

The business community is very bruised by the abolition of the 10% Capital Gains Tax rate and the more aggressive approach to business tax in general. There need to be some tweaks and changes to send the signal that the government is not anti enterprise.

If you did offer a referendum on the EU Treaty it would pleasantly surprise the voters and the commentariat. The government should be neutral, allowing pro and anti organisations to emerge to run the debate. If the electorate then voted down the Treaty the government would not be in an impossible position, and could stage a popular demand for renegotiation with our EU partners in the run up to the General Election. I realise that this is likely to be a bridge too far for you , but it might make you think the other ideas in this memo are not so bad after all!

Proportional Representation did what it always does. It allows extreme and unpopular parties to get people elected, and prevents the most popular party having a majority, giving more power to unelected officials as a result. The London Assembly elections shows this off to perfection. On a night when the Conservatives won a good majority on the Assembly on a first past the post basis, PR intervened to deprive them of a majority. It did so by giving a seat to the BNP through the so-called Top-up system. The idea will remain very popular with the Lib Dems, who clearly like giving extreme parties the oxygen of publicity and the opportunity of office, because it also allowed them to gain 3 seats when they were miles off winning a single seat by being more popular than the other candidates in any given place.

The PR system was probably also designed by Lib/Labs with a view to making it very difficult for there to be a Conservative Mayor. On this occasion the PR result failed to overturn Boris’s clear victory on first preference votes, although the second preference system (I get to vote twice because I am a Lib Dem) did cut Boris’s majority. In their own terms PR failed the Lib/Labbers. Maybe they should think again about this wonky voting.

Did you notice that this new system of voting and deciding who has won was a) much dearer and b) slower than traditional first past the post? Goodness knows how much all that electronic technology cost. It was nice touch when we were told the count was delayed because the machines were overheating - they had not realised how many people would vote! We always used to get the results by about 3am the next morning with the old system. Now completing the task twenty hours or so later by midnight the day after the election is doing well. Apparently they assume very low turnout, and find their machines can’t cope at speed with too many people wanting to have a say! I suppose we should be grateful we don’t have to wait five weeks to know the winner.

The “independent” Bank of England allowed its Financial Stability Report to be published just before the local elections, and allowed the spin to be placed on it that the losses in the financial sector will prove to overstated, that the Credit Crunch has not reached its worst point, and that from here we should expect some improvement. It is difficult to make up such a story.

A truly “independent” Bank should have left such a publication for the day after the elections, to avoid being dragged into the political argument. It would also have insisted on a balanced presentation of what the long and serious underlying Report actually says.

The report shows just how persistent and deep seated the liquidity and valuation problems in the banking market have become. The Bank’s own measures of liquidity are summed up in an Index. This has fallen off a cliff, and is at its weakest level since the dives of 1998 and 2000. It goes on to explain why market participants have to mark to market (use market prices to value the financial assets they own), why markets are reluctant to value more risky paper at higher prices, and states that there could be more bad news to come.

Indeed, it says that tight credit conditions can be expected “to lead to a pick-up in defaults among vulnerable borrowers, including a subset of households, parts of the commercial property sector, and some highly leveraged non financial companies”. In addition “Financial difficulties could emerge in some emerging markets, including countries in Central and western Europe with large current account deficits”. In other words, some of the losses have not been overstated, but will materialise.

The report goes on to recommend actions that banks and regulators should take to improve the position. It recommends better risk management by the banks themselves – an unexceptional request.

It proposes “Strengthened regulatory standards for liquidity”. This is more contentious. It would be odd to require tougher cash requirements today, in the middle of a credit squeeze which the Bank seems to want to end, than they sought in the inflationary credit bubble days of 2006. The Bank itself sees the dangers of “pro-cyclicality” in regulatory rules – regulators relaxing the amount of capital needed in good times, fuelling the boom, and then demanding more regulatory capital in bad times, tightening the squeeze. It concedes that the new Basel II rules coming in could well make just this mistake, and confines itself to wise words suggesting something might be done about this. It should be cause for immediate action.

It seeks “differentiated ratings for structured products” which is code for saying it wants Rating Agencies to be more cautious about they evaluate the credit worthiness of some of these packages of debt that have caused problems in the last few months. That too makes sense.

It wants “sharper regulatory incentives for banks to control risks through the credit cycle”. That presumably means they want banks to lend less and lend to fewer people than they did in the last few years. One way they could achieve that is by keeping interest rates higher. There is a reluctance to blame the Monetary Policy Committee, yet their low rates underpinned the credit boom of recent years. This approach needs careful control, lest they lurch from the boom of 2006-7 to a bust, by being too tough.

They also seek “strengthened UK and cross border crisis management arrangements”. A good place to start would be to recommend to the UK government strengthened arrangements for the Bank to supervise the UK markets, instead of relying on the tripartite approach which let us down so badly over Northern Rock. We have not, fortunately, had a bank crash recently that fell owing to errors in cross border surveillance – we have had a run on a domestic bank owing to errors in UK surveillance. The priority should be for UK regulators to get together to re-establish a framework in which the Bank of England can influence money markets decisively, restore the importance of base rate, and monitor bank liquidity day by day.

The body of the Report is more interesting and more realistic than the glib spin placed on it when it was released to the press. It does not make comfortable reading, showing as it does persistent problems with liquidity in banking markets. The government should take the initiative, recognise that the tripartite system got Northern Rock wrong, and reinstate the Bank as chief controller of commercial banks and manager of money markets. The two jobs go together. It is difficult to do the one without doing the other.

It should have been no surprise that Labour was thumped badly in the local elections. People have been fed up for months. They are fed up with high taxes, high fuel prices, high food bills, high Council tax, and with the surveillance society that Labour buys with all the money. They are fed up with a government that preaches a message of fear – be afraid of terrorism and lose your liberties for “security”, be afraid of the state’s Inspectors, be afraid of the law. You are not paranoid – they are out to get you.
Do not be a householder, a motorist, a successful business person under this government – for you will pay for these crimes.

The canvass returns in Wokingham indicated to us we would have our best result since the 1980s. The mood on the streets of London was positive for change. It beggared belief that the Prime Minister decided to have an argument with his backbenchers about putting up Income Tax on the lower paid just in time for the local elections – that did quite a bit of the Opposition’s job for it, ramming home the message that the government is after your money at exactly the time you are being squeezed by high prices and low wage increases.

There were local issues at stake as well. The two biggest were tax and rubbish. In many places voters decided they would get their least bad deal on Council Tax by keeping or voting in a Conservative Council.

In many places people also wanted to express their disgust at Labour’s refuse policy. Only this Labour government (with a bit of help from its friends, the European Commission), could think up such an unpopular mixture of policies towards recycling and bin emptying. They have produced the trebly toxic package of

1. Fortnightly collection instead of weekly or more frequently
2. Spy cameras on bins coupled with the Enforcement officers to fine you for the wrong kind of rubbish
3. The threat of an additional Bin Tax

It contains all the ingredients that characterise this Labour government:

1. Worse public service
2. Ignoring public opinion - the public would like more regular collections at sensible cost
3. Surveillance of our every move – at our expense
4. A mood of fear ,as the media tell us how the government is not only watching us but will be prosecuting us if we make a mistake with what we put in the bin
5. Higher tax – to pay for all the surveillance, the compliance, and the spin doctoring to terrorise us in our own homes.

Labour’s rubbish policy is indeed a cameo of the all that this government does to us, and that so many people now hate about it.

This year I have read many times commentators and market experts tell me the USA is “already in recession”. They should take a look at the first quarter figures, which shows the US economy still grew at 0.6%, thanks to improvement in exports following the devaluation of the dollar, some increase in government spending and stockbuilding. So far it’s on course for the sharp slowdown without two negative quarters. The Fed once again confirmed its determination to prevent a recession by cutting interest rates to just 2%. This quarter should see some modest stimulus from the tax cuts, whilst the second half of the year will see more impact from the shift to cheap credit. At some point even the very distressed housing sector will stop falling, as it has crashed so far.

Meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic we get a pep talk from the Bank of England, telling the banks they should lend more! Is this the same Bank of England that was telling bankers last autumn they were lending too much to the wrong people? Do they still belong to the tripartite regulatory system, which is telling banks they need to have more capital and more cash just to sustain the business they have already written, let alone to offer any more loans? Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing in this three way split of a regulator?

No-one pretends it is easy to move from credit being too readily available to a situation where levels of credit are appropriate. It is wrong to claim it is all the banks fault – it was the authorities who encouraged the excess lending by setting low interest rates and drawing up regulatory rules which encouraged off balance sheet wizardry. The UK has decided to go for boom and bust banking, lurching from too much credit to the absurd spectacle of a government owned mortgage bank halving its very extensive mortgage book over a three year period, whilst the government and its agencies urges the banking sector to lend more! It will take time for the effects of the wind down of Northern Rock to work through the system, thanks to bad decision to nationalise it. We will pay a price for the authorities not making the £50 billion of swaps available last August to prevent the run on the Rock, and pay a further price for now owning a business which they want to halve in size, with all the lost jobs and downward pressure on the housing market that entails.

The US is handling this credit crunch better than the UK. The UK authorities should study the US response more, and should stop making the problem worse through regulatory confusion and inconsistency. The government should reinstate the Bank of England as principal banking regulator, going back to the pre 1997 system. That worked better during periods of error and crisis.

Today we can elect new Councillors in many parts of the country. I do hope all the oppressed motorists of the UK will take this opportunity to tell their would be Councillors we are fed up with the way we are treated by petty officialdom at the local level, as well as by our rapacious government who see the motorist as one of the prime sources of extra revenue.

The national press this morning highlights just how many motorists now end up paying speeding fines and parking fines. Some of them deserve them, for parking in places which block the traffic or hinder others, and for driving too fast in difficult conditions. Others are caught out by bizarre changes of speed limit on good roads, by confusion over what the parking rules are on any given piece of kerb, and by the officious efficiency of the public sector when it comes to taking money off us. If only they were equally efficient and determined to provide good service in all the other departments.

In recent conversations I have been told of the kind of intolerance shown by some parking officials to usually law abiding people. One person came out of his house to take his car away from an overnight space at 8.32 in the morning. A ticket was placed on his vehicle because he was meant to have moved it at 8.30. Another found a ticket on his car because the boot protruded beyond the line marking the end of the parking bay, even though the vehicle position was not blocking anyone’s entrance or impeding traffic flow. A taxi driver explained why he could not drop someone off in a location where he was not blocking the traffic, because taxi drivers are under the steely eye of the surveillance cameras in London all the time they are at work and they would be fined.

Whilst the press is right to highlight the financial impact of this surrogate for taxation, the steady stream of fines, there is another feature which should worry us. One third of motorists apparently have fallen foul of the rules and had to pay up. The two thirds of us who escaped fines have still had to run the gauntlet of the sometimes unreasonable and perverse rules. We have had to change our driving style to accommodate endless scanning of the horizon for all the signs and instructions which now dictate how we drive. Instead of spending the maximum time on surveying the road ahead for hazards and adjusting direction and speed to the conditions, motorists now spend much of their time seeking out the frequent changes of rule and watching their speedometers to try to keep within them. It makes people worse drivers. The whole process puts people on edge too often and for too long.

The same happens to us when we have finally parked the car at the journey’s end Have you felt that nagging fear that you will overstay your time in the local car park because it takes longer to buy something in the shops than you thought? Have you ever had to abandon your purchase because of the queue for the till and dash for the car to avoid the car park vigilante getting you for a few minutes over your time? Have you ever stood in the rain by the car puzzling over whether you can or cannot park in a given spot because the rules and signs are unclear? Have you ever been done because you misread the signs? Why can’t you top up the fee you paid on entry in the car parks where you have to pay in advance, if you need to? If limiting the time of your stay is so important to the Council, there could be an allowance of extra time you could pay for before the penalty kicks in.

There is a parking area in Wokingham where a municipal car park shares a common entrance with a private car park. People often get caught out, parking in the wrong part. They have to pay a penalty, even though they have paid and put a sticker in the windscreen, because they have parked in the wrong space. I recently wanted to park in a central London side street. The residents’ parking places were clearly banned to me. Next to one of them was a single yellow line, creating a space for a single car in the line of parked vehicles, well away from the turning. There was no sign up to tell me when the single yellow line applied. Just round the corner on the main road there was a red line for an urban clearway, and a sign telling me that could be used for parking at the time of my arrival. I eventually found a space some way away on the main road, where the parking impeded traffic flows more than would have been the case in the side road. I could not afford to take the risk on the yellow line. Sometimes there can be as many as three different regimes for the timing of parking on the same stretch of road. You need to walk up and down checking for all the signs to make sure you have understood. Many of the places fail to tell you on the signs whether a bank holiday counts as a Sunday or not.

The truth is that parking controls and charges have become too complicated. Of course we need rules to prevent people blocking side roads to traffic, and to stop them restricting the width of the carriageways of main roads when they are busy. Of course it makes sense for a Council which has had to buy a piece of land and needs to spend money on maintaining the car park to charge the users for their use rather than putting the whole thing onto the Council Tax. This system has now been turned into a money spinner, seeking to make Council profit out of their near monopoly provision of public parking. It has also been over complicated by too many officials endlessly varying the rules of the parking schemes and spending our money on reconfiguring the street, the pavement, and the parking spaces.

So as you go to vote today, try to have a word with those who would represent us. Tell them it’s taking the pleasure out of shopping and increasing the pressure on going to work or visiting friends. We are under the cosh of the surveillance society. We have to dance to the tune of petty officialdom. They seem to forget that parking is a service to make our lives easier, not another way to terrorise us and make us nervous about what we are doing. Surely our Councillors could unite to get some commonsense back into the system? If they did we would need fewer officials, so we could be charged less for the whole process.

Over the last two days we have been discussing the Finance Bill in the Commons. It has given me the opportunity to remind the government just how successful Ireland has been by setting low company tax rates. The Irish economy has grown much faster than the UK economy as a result, and has generated more tax revenue from the lower rates. Today we learn that more large companies are thinking of leaving the UK for a more favourable tax jurisdiction – they don’t have far to go given the Dublin offer.

It gave the chance to speak out for the motorist, highlighting the successive tax raids this government has launched against people driving to work, taking their children to school, and bringing heavy shopping back in the boot.

It allowed me to expose why so many people think green taxes are a scam, because the government does not always undertake proper carbon accounting, or decides to increase taxes that cannot have the desired impact on people’s behaviour. The decision to lift Vehicle Excise Duties on older cars is a good example of this.

During the course of the debates it also reminded me that Labour’s most successful campaign in opposition to the last Conservative government was surprisingly for them an anti tax campaign. Labour’s attack upon the Community Charge led to the removal of a Prime Minister, and the decision to abolish the tax. It meant I as Local Government Minister had to perform the last rites for the tax, and introduce the slightly less unpopular Council Tax.

It is instructive to look back at why this greatest Opposition campaign of the last thirty years worked. Labour decided early on to rename the tax the Poll Tax. In a rare foray into England’s rich and argumentative history, Labour at one fell swoop conjured images of the Poll Tax riots of the fourteenth century, and the injustice of taxing the poor that hazy memories might manage. The attack worked because the Poll Tax brought a lot of people into paying a local tax who up to that point had avoided it. Labour thought it was time for another Peasants’ revolt, time to unfurl the banners of 1381.

The Conservative government adopted the Poll Tax (against my advice) because opinion polling told them people said they would pay more for better services, and because some households had three or four earners but still only paid one lot of rates. Why not give them all a chance to contribute to local services which they said they valued? I never thought making so many more people pay tax would go down well, and for once Labour also thought a tax would be unpopular. They were right.

It is interesting that 18 years on from the great Poll Tax rows, the Labour government is so desperate to get its hands on more of our money that they are now taking more income tax from low earners,(poll tax on working) taking more VED and petrol tax from low income motorists (poll tax on wheels) and taking more Stamp duty from people trying to buy a home (poll tax on home).

One of the things we need to do to get the message across to the government that they are taxing too much is to change the names of the taxes. I would like your contributions so the taxes can be more accurately described. I have some proposals for starters:

Income Tax - Work Tax
Stamp Duty - Homes Tax
Petrol and diesel duty - Travel Tax
Congestion Charge – Poll tax on wheels
VAT - Shopping Tax
Capital Gains Tax - Enterprise Tax
Corporation Tax - Investment Tax
Climate Change Levy – UK industry Tax
Tax on interest and dividends – Savings Tax.

Click here to read the full text of John’s contributions to the Finance bill.

Banks and oil companies are the corporations many people – and governments – love to hate.
In a way it in unfair on them. Both industries find it best to organise through very large companies. Because the companies need to employ huge sums of capital, they will tend to make profits that look large. You need to have lots of shareholders and substantial resources to build the large refineries, or to have the branches and balance sheet strength to handle the transactions of millions of customers. When you split the large profits up amongst all the shareholders it looks rather different.

The oil companies carry an additional burden – the government. Two thirds of what they charge people at the pumps goes to the UK Treasury, yet so often the oil companies get it in the neck for the high prices the high tax requires.
In the good times for the companies when the oil price is high they make good profits, but these are paid out in dividends to millions of small savers, pension fund members and the like, or go to reinvest in the business so capacity keeps up with demand.

The Banks must be wondering what has hit them with the tidal wave of criticism that has washed over them in recent months. Much of it is pointing in two different directions. On the one hand their critics say they made too many incautious loans and are having to write off too much lost capital, so they should lend less and at higher profit margins to rebuild their financial strength. On the other hand, if the banks start to do that then critics say the banks are profiteering by raising their margins, and are being unfair on the less well off who cannot get a loan any more.
Being a banker must be a hit like being a politician – you can’t win!

Banks were reporting very good profits in the 2003-6 period, and paid out good dividends. Now they are having to report substantial losses, writing down the value of assets they hold which turn out in these conditions to be worth less than they thought last year. At the same time as they announce these losses and write-offs, the regulator is demanding that they keep more money at the Bank of England and as a cash reserve, compounding the pressures on the banks to lend less and be more cautious. This is the mechanism by which the credit crunch is tightening.
Some banks have decided that to provide the extra cash the Regulators want them to have, and to pay for the losses they are announcing in their write-offs, they will raise more money from their shareholders. In effect the shareholders will be paying their own dividends for a bit, as the regulators want the cash generated from the profits to improve the solvency and liquidity.

Ws there a better way? Yes, of course. If the Regulators had demanded more capital in the good times, rather than in the bad times, we could have avoided some of the boom and bust. If there was a better way of assessing the worth of loans and other assets on the balance sheets, they could smoothed, to avoid big changes when markets change dramatically. Getting shareholders effectively to pay their own dividends by putting up more capital is not a great idea, but once a bank has paid out a good dividend it fears for its reputation if it were ever to cut it in a following year. Dividends turn out to be have been too high in the good years, because the high profits they were then making turned out to be unsustainable on some of the business they were writing. The regulators, as so often, are now making it worse by tightening conditions when the market has already tightened it substantially for them. Bolting doors after the horse has gone is so often what regulators

For much of the last twenty years pollsters and pundits alike have told me and anyone else who would listen that people do not want lower taxes. We have been told that whenever asked, people would rather have better public services.
Therein lies the problem. For years Labour, the pollsters and others in the political world have lectured people that there is a choice – you either have lower taxes or you have better services. Faced with such a choice most people would tell a pollster they want the better services. That does not mean they will vote for the higher taxes, or
will be pleased when they have to pay them.
It ignores the way the private sector allows you to have both – better quality and lower prices, as manufacturers worldwide continue to offer better, faster and cheaper as a matter of course.
Margaret Thatcher’s government cut income tax rates and was re-elected easily on two occasions. When she offered people the opportunity to pay more for schools and social services locally, by asking everyone and not just the ratepayer to pay a contribution through the Community Charge, the public turned against her – and so did her colleagues.
When John Major, as an early green , imposed VAT on fuel, that too turned out to be unpopular with those who had to pay it.
The elder Bush offered lower taxes, and then in office did the opposite. He only got one term as President. The younger Bush offered lower taxes and delivered, and got two terms, despite the war.
Last night the faces of many Labour MPs said it all. Called upon to vote for a doubling of the income tax rate of the lowest paid to collect the revenue to pay the benefits, some did it through gritted teeth, and some threatened their front bench with future rebellion if they do not come up with a good package of help for those who have to bear the burden.
Labour is already unpopular for its stealth taxes, for its soaring Council taxes and for its sneaky charges. They are pillaging us at the petrol pump, robbing us every time we need a licence or permission, and plundering our wallets and purses. They have seen a huge decline in their vote from 1997 to 2005, and face an even bigger drop if the latest polls are accurate.
The Conservatives have illustrated just how important tax now is to the electorate. Last autumn things were not looking good for the main Opposition party when the Prime Minister was considering an early election. The Shadow Chancellor announced he wanted to take all but the very rich out of Inheritance Tax. It was as if someone had turned the light on in the Opposition’s darkened room. The Conservative party surged in the polls, and the Prime Minister realised he might not win an election. From the moment of that speech British politics was transformed. The government went from the front foot to endless scrambles before the stumps hoping they will not be given out as the ball whistles past them or into their pads.
The 10p issue is more of the same. In a way it is a defining issue. Labour seems to think all it has to do is collect more and more cash off everyone, and then distribute it to groups it favours through tax credits and benefits. It seems to have forgotten that many of its supporters in the heady days of 1997 were single people and childless couples on modest incomes. The government has shown it no longer speaks for them and no longer seems to sympathise with those many people who want to be self reliant, but need to keep enough of their income at the end of the week to pay the bills.
As Bill Clinton might have said, “It’s tax, stupid”. People may go on telling pollsters, if asked which they would rather have, that they would rather have better public services. The trouble is these do not seem to be on offer, however much is spent, because the promised reform is never delivered. Meanwhile privately people are seething about just how much government is costing them.
Boris should remind people that a Conservative mayor would be a lot cheaper than Livingstone. It beggars belief that a typical London household has to pay £300 just for the Mayor and his entourage. Running a separate foreign policy for London does not come cheap.

I have just met a Japanese author writing about the UK’s difficult relaitonship with Europe to help inform his own country’s approach to China. I explained why I thought the positions were very different. It did occur to me during the course of the conversation that a country is partly defined by its history and common understanding. On that basis the Uk is 200 years old - thanks to Labour ’s attacks on it through devolution - whilst England is 1100 years young, and growing stronger by the day in its common feelings as a result of this government.

The government did not tell us that it was going to be so cold with all this global warming.

Nor did they tell us at the last budget they would be charging us more than 70p a litre in tax on unleaded with a pump price of 110p.

They did not say that within a few months into Gordon Brown’s premiership the main Forties pipeline would be closed down owing to an industrial dispute that stems from his taxation of pension funds and the consequent closure of many funds to new members.
The more the government says “Don’t panic” the more people worry that the government is not in charge and there may be shortages at the pumps. You can feel the authority draining away from the government by the hour.

The government did not tell us when first elected in 1997 that they would want to damage our liberties in the name of security. They did not stand for election as the party that would give us more surveillance cameras than a communist state, nor did they campaign strenuously for much longer detention without charge or trial, yet that is now their stock in trade.

The government did not tell us in 1997 that putting education first meant changing the exams system into a succession of short term cramming exercises to get through modules so schools could hit their targets. Never before have children been so often examined, in so many different exams, to so little purpose.

The government did not tell us in 1997 that they would spend unparalleled sums of money on public services, spending so much on spin doctors, glossy brochures, management consultants and extra administrative staff. Can the Prime Minister really need £2 million a year of spin doctors as recently reported? Wouldn’t spending more time on sorting out the underlying problems be a better way?

They did not tell us that their anti poverty programme would entail large armies of officials to take tax off many people, and more large armies of officials to give some of it back in the form of tax credits.

They did not tell us they would give away so much power to Brussels, claiming each time an unpopular law came in from the EU that Britain was winning the argument.

They did not tell us that lop sided devolution for Scotland would fuel English nationalism, creating resentment at the better financial deal many English people now think Scotland gets from the Union.

They did not tell us their idea of local government devolution was to seek to create uniformity of policy and approach through hundreds of rules, regulations and guidance notes, and a star system to grade the results as if the electors had no role in judging.

They did not tell us they would face headlines in papers complaining of fraud and error in our electoral systems.

They did not tell us that government to them meant a continuous conversation with the media, rather than seriously trying to identify and solve economic and social problems that government can tackle.

On Monday 27th April 1992 the House of Commons elected its first woman Speaker, Betty Boothroyd.
I was a rare government Minister voting for a Labour Speaker. I did so because I thought it time a good woman candidate should have the job after 700 years of men, and thought it important that Labour held a great office of state again after 13 years in the wilderness.
The mood was strange. Many of my Ministerial colleagues were buoyed up by the fourth election victory in a row, and had not detected the feelings of unease and unhappiness on the doorsteps. They did not seem to grasp that the Conservatives won the 1992 election despite the background and the ERM policy, not because of it.It seemed to me it would have been wrong to have flaunted the narrow victory by using the majority to have another Conservative Speaker, especially if that Speaker had been a Cabinet member in the recent past in the same administration that he would need to preside over.
Enough of my backbench colleagues took the same view, so Betty was elected easily.She proved to be a good Speaker, who brought a fresh approach to the job and was widely liked and respected on all sides of the House.

When I heard from a constituent complaining of persecution by the TV licensing authority, who not believe him when he told them he did not have a television, I was sympathetic and took up his case. The response I received from the Authority was typical of this government’s revenue arms – inflexible, and determined to raise the maximum cash it can from the long suffering public. As usual I did not take the matter to the press, as the issue came to me in confidence and many constituents do not want their personal details splashed across the local – or sometimes the national – newspapers.

Today I can vouch for the hectoring behaviour of this body, backed up from my personal experience. I have a studio flat in Westminster, which I use when I have to vote after 10 pm in the Commons – or attend a working dinner in London – and then need to be up and out early the next morning for a breakfast meeting or the like. It is not a place I plan to spend my evenings in. I decided not to buy a TV partly because I deeply resent having to pay a poll tax to the BBC for the TV coverage of public issues they choose to put out, and have no intention of paying them two, one for home and one for the flat.I do not like the way they use so many voices who want higher taxes, more European government and more regulation for every problem.I also tire of the very large number of self advertisements on the BBC, when no-one else can buy the advertisement time.

When I moved in they sent me a letter reminding me of the need to take out a TV licence. I wrote back telling them I did not have a TV. For my pains I received another couple of standard letters telling me I needed a TV licence, and that inspectors might call unannounced to check up on me. I wrote back again complaining of the harassment. They replied saying they were sending me another standard letter, that inspectors would be calling unannounced, and they were sorry I was cross about it. They said they would be writing to me in a similar vein at least annually.

It is typical of this government and its state broadcasting corporation that the only thing they care about is extracting more money from the public, and they cannot believe that anyone could possibly live without their TV output. They clearly regard anyone who says they do not have a TV as a liar, and spend large sums on writing them endless letters and sending out inspectors. Their inspectors will, of course, be wasting their time in my case, as I am most unlikely to be in any time they call, unless I am to experience the knock at the door at 2 am, to confirm that I am living in a version of the Soviet Union circa 1960.

We see the daily incompetence and waste of most branches of government, where letters go unanswered for months, where people have long waits to get on a waiting list for a hospital appointment, where many parents and pupils cannot get into the school of their choice, and where the roads are constantly disrupted by the authorities who are meant to look after them. It is galling to discover that the only thing they are persistent about is taking money off us. Life in a democracy requires civil exchanges between the government and the governed, and a framework of trust. Governments should assume honest conduct by citizens unless there is evidence to suppose otherwise, and should have a framework of sensible laws and requirements that most people most of the time respect and wish to follow. As soon as government becomes heavy handed and imposes too many laws – and too many laws that do not seem reasonable to the governed – there is more chance that more people will deliberately or inadvertently break them, and more likelihood that government will then intensify its snooping and heavy handed enforcement. Such a progress makes public life coarser, and creates a growing gap between government and governed. The UK now is suffering from rapacious government, seeking ever larger sums of revenue to feed the bureaucratic monster. It will in turn create an angrier electorate, resentful of how the money is spent and cross about the bullying techniques used to extract it.

The TV licensing website - with comments in 16 languages - tells us they spent over £130 million last year on collecting the revenue and enforcing the charge. They also claim that around 5% of the public with TVs do not bother to buy a licence. It is difficult to know how they work out such a figure, yet still fail to collect the money from them. In this multi media digital age the licence fee is looking increasingly out of date and expensive to collect. It is time for rethink.