TAX, FAIR?

During the past century there has been an unprecedented interference by government in everyday life, with the creation of structures and attitudes that were not dismantled with the passing of the total wars that justified them. The socialist assumption that people should be "looked after" from cradle to grave so penetrated the body politic that many are now incapable of seeing state welfare as merely one of the roles of government, albeit an important one. They think it is what government is for. The pre-Budget revelation that we are taxed so much more than necessary that the Government had a £40 billion budget surplus provoked no riots. Downing Street was not stormed because nearly 40p out of every pound is taken in tax (perhaps as much as 53p gross), which means that, in a working year, you now toil until early June for them.

Because of the culture of shoulder-shrugging resignation in the UK - governments do what they like, there's nothing we can do about it, they're all the same anyway etc. And so Tony Blair's pre-election pledge - "We have no plans to increase tax at all" - is not thrown back at him in every interview, as it should be. After all, his government averaged about one tax increase every month in its first three years, and has been pretty close to that since. But there is another reason for our meekness in the face of the tax gatherers. The expansion of state welfare has created three large groups of citizens, only one of which has any serious interest in halting or reversing the process.

First, there are welfare dependants who receive more in state benefits than they contribute in taxation. Second, there are those who, though taxpayers, make their living either from administering and encouraging welfare provision or from being servants of the state or local authorities - teachers, NHS staff and the various kinds of civil servant. Third, there are non-state funded taxpayers, both individuals and businesses. These are the milch-cows that keep the whole thing going but their ability to do so declines as state provision increases. Yet they have no more say over how money seized from them under threat of criminal sanction is spent than do those upon whom it is spent.