It will not have escaped the notice of our regular readers that I have shown a somewhat less than charitable attitude towards the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron. I think the time has come to provide some reasons for my hostility.
I realise that some people (maybe Cameron supporters among them) would dismiss my onslaught as the product of a crotchety, pessimistic and intolerant personality. Well, as a matter of fact, I am crotchety, pessimistic and intolerant but I have what I consider to be very good reasons for singling out David Cameron as the particular object of my animosity.
I also want to make it clear that I am not hostile to Cameron because he is not a libertarian. I do not expect Conservatives to be libertarians hence they are called ‘Conservatives’. Nor am I bitter about the fact that he is not a Conservative either. I expect very little from the current crop of moral and intellectual midgets that have aggregated in the Conservative Party and I am seldom disappointed.
Nor am I especially, or even moderately, outraged by his brazen careerism, his opportunism and his readiness not just to be cynical but to openly be seen to be cynical (e.g. peddling his eco-friendly bicycle to work, a few yards in front of the gas-guzzling limo bearing his briefcase). To this extent Mr. Cameron is probably no better or no worse than any of the other political jobbists who have infested our public realm like a colony of plague bacteria in the lymph node of a 14th Century peasant and from where they can, and do, distribute their pathogens around the national bloodstream. No, my antipathy towards Cameron (which is really an expression of my fear of Cameron) is based entirely around the twin facts of his current status and this particular moment in history which combine to create (for want of a better term) a clear and present danger in two serious respects:
- The current incumbents are devils all right but they are, at least, the devils we know. Furthermore, they are now tired, shop worn, wounded and semi-clapped out devils whose appetite for human flesh may not now be what it once was. The Cameronites, on the other hand, are a bunch of hungry, zesty, eager young devils who have publicly committed themselves to perpetuating the policies of the current government only they will have a fresh, newly-mandated set of legs with which to run with them. Thus, a Cameron government will inflict all the same predations that we currently endure under Blair, only amplified.
- The commanding heights of our culture and public life are still controlled by the left. It is a control that, one day, may be wrested from them but not in time I think. It is for this reason that our narrative is shot through with contemptible lies.
For example, Nulabor stormed to power in 1997 largely on the back of public alarm about the fate of the National Health Service. By 1997, the settled opinion was that the poor old health service had been the victim of savage Thatcherite spending cuts which had brought that much-loved institution to its knees.
Well, that’s politics for you but truth is a quite distinct commodity and the truth is that the Tories did not ever cut spending on the NHS. In fact, the last time any government cut public spending on the health service was way back in 1976 (and that was a Labour government to boot). Since then, state spending on the NHS had been increased in real terms every year, including every single year of Thatcher’s premiership.
But, every single year, the BBC and others went to considerable lengths to ensure that everyone blamed the state of the NHS on ‘selfish Tory spending cuts’ (a complaint that was customarily accompanied by a hard case story of some war widow or cancer patient being turfed out of a hospital bed and onto the unforgiving streets to die). It was a lie that went unchallenged (or insufficiently challenged) and by 1997 it was a lie that had solidified into a settled national consensus. Indeed, it still is and it is largely for this reason that the Conservatives are associated in the public mind (quite wrongly) with hostility to the public sector and a preference for the market.
Similarly, it now appears to be the received wisdom that Tony Blair and Nulabour have been ‘seduced’ by ‘neoliberal economics’ and, as a result, they have unleashed the ‘rampant free market’ on us all. Never mind that even the humblest of private enterprises has been crippled by regulatory burdens and bled white with pernicious taxes. No, that’s all quite beside the point. No, everyone who is anyone is united in their opinion that somebody should rein in this irresponsible, unchecked, wild west-style, dog-eat-dog, every-man-for-himself, atomised, so-called free market culture (I have even seen kind of dog-shit in the Daily Telegraph, for chrissakes!).
So how does all this relate to the Bullingdon boy and his chums? Quite significantly. The Cameronites have made a crystal-clear promise to maintaining the tax-and-spend levels of the current government and have even suggested that they may well decide to crank them up further. Add that abuse to the profusion of ‘green’ restrictions which Cameron has also pledged to inflict and it won’t be too long before a mutilated economy finally collapses in an exhausted, anaemic heap.
And who will get the blame for all resultant chaos and pain? Certainly Cameron and the Tories will and that’s just ticketty-boo with me. But the trouble is that the turmoil will also be blamed on the alleged (and widely believed) Tory fealty to the “so-called free market” and so, as the Tory ship sinks like a scuttled frigate, it sucks our ideas down with it. That is the kind of damage that could set our cause back a generation or more (and we are struggling enough as it is). No, it is not fair or true but what have fairness or truth got to do with anything?
Of course, I would not be bothering to say any of this were it not for the fact that I honestly fear that Cameron is poised to win the next election and win it by a comfortable country mile. All the ducks (which is to say, all the ducks that matter) are lined up behind him and are noisily quacking their approval. Add to this that fact that the public is genuinely sick of the sight of Nulabour and it will not take much prodding, goading, lying, spinning or bamboozling to persuade them to elevate the only other man left standing into the No.1 spot.
In short, I can see the train hurtling towards the buffers and I feel powerless to stop it. Except that I can tell other people what I think is going to happen and why. Besides, if nothing else, it does go some way to explain why I am generally so crotchety, pessimistic and intolerant.
You can do nothing at present, but at least you know the train will be wrecked, so you can prepare before-hand.
You, and all British Libertarians, should start an explicitly libertarian Party, so that you won’t be linked with the Tories. Make it quite clear to even the densest conservative Voter that Cameron does NOT speak for you!
Here in the Antipodes, we have the Liberal Democratic Party to support. It espouses Classic Liberalism. I have a party I can, and will, support! You need the same.
Cameron’s views on childhood are childish. Could the nanny state get any more nanny than mau-mauing parents themselves?
As for legitimate areas of state policy: When it comes to education, Cameron should educate himself.
For example, Nulabor stormed to power in 1997 largely on the back of public alarm about the fate of the National Health Service.
Do you have evidence for that? My impression was very different, that the NHS was in fact more of an issue in 1992, which the Tories narrowly won. I don’t think policies or generally-accepted factoids make very much difference to elections at all, however. I suggest that you, more than the public in general, may have swallowed conventional media revisionism (‘The Tories lost because of their [unpopular] Tory policies’) here.
The Tories in 1997 had a weak government, were messily divided on Europe, and widely seen as feeble and corrupt, interest rates and taxes were high, and lots of people were still feeling sore after the housing crash of the early 90s; whereas New Labour appeared to have changed themselves and be offering something… “new” and exciting, plus they couldn’t be blamed for anything while the Tories could be blamed for everything. This was compounded by some very bad strategic mistakes in the campaign (and the next one, and the next one), by the then Consevative leadership – the worst of all being to help emphasise New Labour’s putative newness.
If there was a Libertarian Party here, I’d join it.
And can I interest you in a barrel of gunpowded Thaddeus?
guy: and widely seen as feeble and corrupt,
I think it was more “feeble and sleazy”. New Labour is corrupt. The Tories were found in sheds with oranges up their bum or next door with their trousers round their ankles. New Labour is more about diverting vast amounts of our money into unwanted projects for their chums in the “fifth sector” to make vast profits from their inefficient and dysfunctional organisations.
I thought the biggest issue in the Tories’ defeat was cash for questions and all the crap that came with it: they were publicly proven to be endemically corrupt. And Labour promised to be different and squeaky clean and not sell seats in the Lords at all.
Libertarian party? It wouldn’t work. Its not the parties themselves that are the problem, the system is broken. The parties are merely one part of a wholly corrupt and smelly whole, run by and for the civil servants. It doesn’t matter to them who is in power as long as they get their paycheck and the boat doesn’t rock too much. You can be sure that the public sector, through their various unions and behind the scenes string pulling, would scupper any chances of such a party getting voted in. Look at what’s happening to UKIP.
Forming a Libertarian Party would simply give legitimacy to a system that is far from it.
I think sensible Tories should hope that Davey boy does not win the next election especially not a close run thing. What is going to happen is the economy will got a bit wobbly and the Tories will get the blame. They will then be out of power for another set of elections.
There is hope. In a recent poll Cameron’s lead has dropped to 4 from 10 above Labour.
I find it amusing to contrast two similar cases:
Neil Hamilton accepted an envelope full of cash to procure a UK passport for Mohamed Fayed. Peter Mandelson accepted a £1m donation to the dome (when Labour were still trying to be associated with it) to procure passports for the Hinduja brothers.
Mr Fayed still travels on his Egyptian passport while the Hinduja brothers, their wives and their extended families all now have UK passports.
Mr Hamilton was “sleazy”, Mr Mandelson is now an EU commissioner.
Obviously it’s not sleazy if you deliver what you were bribed to do.
There is a connection between the ascent to dominance in the party of a wealthy wholegrain organic clique and the softening of its principles.
Back in September someone noted on Conservative home that it was:
I should emphasize that I have nothing against people being raised around wealth and power but it is generally true that if someone isn’t forced to witness “socially deprived” areas they are not called upon to challenge mainstream thinking on why these areas are socially deprived (i.e. not enough state handouts).
Re Mandrill’s “Libertarian party? It wouldn’t work.”
No proven – and surely worth a try just for the hell of it. How about it Samizdata? Anyone…
I disagree. Trying to influence opinion is the best we can do as becoming a political party makes you work within the constraints of the a process designed to prevent an view of the world not based on command-and-control from coming to the fore. Within a few years of coming into existence, a libertarian party would have either faded into nothingness or ‘gone native’.
We do better to just make our views something that informs ‘reasonable’ opinion whilst trying to break open the collectivist meta-context within which all political debate currently take place.
In the meantime, UKIP, for all its flaws, is the only party with any real interest in liberty in the UK today. The LibDems are ok on non-economic civil liberty, but as far as they are concerned, to all intents the state owns the means of production, which is hardly compatible with claiming to care about liberty (i.e. “we will not force you to have an ID card but we will regulate the crap out of you and take most of your money”).
If you want to have a party in office with any attachment to liberty, vote UKIP.
The Conservavtive party has always wanted to tell people how to behave, i don’t see why Libertarian’s would ever want to have anything to do with them.
The only time they were free market was in the eighties, it seems to me that they are reverting to (pre maggie) form.
I think there should be a Libertarian party because at the moment people equate free market policies with parties that want to tell people how to live their lives. I certainly did untill i came to this website. It taints free market policies with the ‘nasty party’.
The Conservatives supporters will always hate gays, children out of wedlock and anyone who looks like they’re having a good time in a way ‘they’ don’t approve of.
They’re like your stuck up aunty who reads the Daily Mail, why would you want to be associated with them?
I also think one it’s first policies should be to support full PR to make the country as ungovernable as possible, i think a lot of young people would go for it fed up as they are with the current parties
JN
Yorks/Lancs socially deprived? Careful, but good point still. Coming from a (unnecessarily) wafer-thin, rural marginal, it’s more about being able to connect with the indigenous, though the hundreds of distant relatives and even thousands of people who at least know a candidate from the district by reputation are a good edge. The Westminster majority is made by winning each seat possible – getting the few votes to make marginal your own has a disproportionate effect, and it has to be done locally.
Even someone who works hard and does everything right would need years to get such a footprint as a local figure – parachuting those who agree with the Central Office line in will miss the acquaintance vote and if their outlook is alien to the locals, they’ll miss out even more.
So the Con. policy of putting people selected ‘cos he’d make a good MP in the house (ie. agrees with the prevailing order at central office) up for ‘target’ seats – the most marginal, might give the candidate a fair chance at winning, but it is hardly maximising the chance of the party snatching the seat – every vote counts, but some count more than others.
Not getting the last 300 (but i’ll bet it is more) votes possible is enough to lose a man his job. If they really wanted to win a big majority, d’y think they would pick local? Or is it more about keeping the embarrassingly regional types out of Westminster than getting into power to change the world for the better?
I am all for a Libertarian Party, but I suspect there is as many opinions on what it will stand for as there are supporters, so the consensus needed to give the party a gravitational pull to stop it whirling apart because of its own energy may not be there. However, if it is to come into existence, it has to ‘break cover’ very close to the election, right at the point when the other parties have formed and published their manifestos and all their planning is in place, wrong footing them. The Libertarian Party could then surprise the hell out of the oppostion on ground of their own making (Sun Tzu has pointers here).
You, and all British Libertarians, should start an explicitly libertarian Party
I think I’m with Mr De Havilland here, that a libertarian party would be a terrible idea. Firstly, it legitimizes party politics, and secondly (as the American experience has shown), it would quickly become corrupted and then led by hacks for what they can get out of it personally through the coercive machinery of political patronage. Sleeping with the enemy is never a good idea, unless she looks like Kelly Brook.
And as Douglas Adams might have put it, the best way of getting rid of lizards is to to destroy their reproductive system rather than helping perpetuate it, so forming a political party should be spurned on these grounds alone.
What would we campaign on, anyway? That nobody should be allowed to vote? That nobody should be allowed to be a politician? And that nobody should be able to tell anyone else what to do or to steal their property? There ain’t much wiggle-room there for a political party. “Our first act on winning power would be to abolish ourselves as needless parasites” is a great slogan, and one I would whole-heartedly support, but it does seem a little self-defeating.
Besides, if nothing else, it does go some way to explain why I am generally so crotchety, pessimistic and intolerant.
Mr T, I urge you instead to adopt a spirit of optimism. As Karl Marx sat alone in the British Museum dreaming of below-stairs fumbles with his housemaid and world domination, little did he realise that just 150 years later his ideas would dominate the entire world, from Washington D.C. through to Paddington Green.
Although you’re right to point out that things look bleak, and although a proper libertarian solution may fail to appear within our lifetimes, our ideology is far stronger than Marx’s shambles ever was, and will, I’m convinced, win out in the end.
We just need to keep plugging away, here in the pre-dawn darkness, and one day we will achieve the success of the tiny Fabian society, though in reverse, of turning Britain from a socialist country into a free one. (Although opposed to a political party, a society of like-minded libertarians might not be such a bad idea, although it would probably end up riven with animosity such as that enjoyed by the two UK libertarian alliances. An even bigger problem is what would we call such a beast? As the Fabians were named after Quintus Fabius, the strategic defeater of Hannibal, I quite like the idea of calling it ‘The Hannibal Society’, though this may raise the wrong connotations! 😉
Yes, we do need to be prepared with a coherent set of principles ready to run out-of-the-box, when the balloon finally does go up, sometime around the collapse of the fiat currency and state welfare bubble, but I’m sure Samizdata will be ready when the time comes (if you haven’t all been put in jail first or maybe because you’ve all been put in jail first).
Plus, perhaps in the meantime, as individuals, we can keep doing all we can to get the state out of education and all their other forms of state brainwashing propaganda such as the BBC (which to me seems pretty-much doomed anyway, due to the onslaught by satellite television ripping out most of its audience).
We will win (I hope), one day. It’s just not gonna be for a few years, and definitely not until all the chickens of statism have finally come home to roost. But come home to roost they will.
Markets clear. And the market for socialism is ideologically dead on its feet.
Good God, I’ve just been hit by ‘Samizdata Central Smite Control’!
Cool! 😉
Perry writes:
That is certainly a weakness. One possible way forward is to write into our constitution, the ability for the electorate to turn directly the control between libertarianism and statism. I suggest (again) this could be as follows.
The electorate vote (preferably annually and on a fixed date) for government expenditure to move up as a proportion of GDP (averaged over the last few years). To avoid wild changes, each person can vote for a move up/down or no change in terms of half percentage points, with a maximum of 2% of GDP up or 2% of GDP down. The average of the vote sets government expenditure for the following year. The party in government can spend the money according to their policies, but not more money nor less (patience there! caveats do follow).
Inexactitudes will, of course, occur; they are dealt with by correction to the following year’s allowed expenditure (with carry-over of excess expenditure by each political party if they loose office, and recovery at 5% per annum directly from party coffers and/or the wallets of ministers, plus interest of course).
There needs to be special handling of at least two types of event. Firstly all-out war needs to be viewed as an exceptional circumstance (but not little wars). Secondly, some soft but slightly exceptional allowance needs to be made for unpredicted (and unpredictable) world-wide economic events.
Given such a “constitution”, the swing of state involvement would be separated from the left/right political divide, of the relative extent to which rich or poor shall be stiffed by taxation and receive the beneficence of government, etc. Likewise other political divides would be separated, such as those between uber-environmentalists and their opponents, and so on.
This “constitution” would also implicitly ask of government, a greater degree of efficiency. This would be because efficient government would give more of the policies of the ruling party, by not wasting the strictly limited amounts of money available to them on less than efficient management of those policies. Thus, each political party would need to spend more time squabbling internally than externally, to the benefit of all taxpayers.
Best regards
I certainly wouldn’t vote for a Libertarian Party if it was anything remotely like the Blame-America-First organisation stateside composed, as it is, of tin-foil hat wearing weirdos and assorted drug addicts.
Ed,
have the Conservatives selected for Westmorland and Lonsdale yet? As you note, it should be a safe seat. Even the majority in Fylde has been going the wrong way in recent years though, and I’m not sure Cameron will do too much about it.
Alex,
Whereas the Labour supporters at Burnley working men’s clubs are extreme social liberals of course. Last time I was there it was a veritable mardi gras. Social attitudes split more along urban/rural and rich/poor lines than along party ones.
To avoid being sucked into the same problems, maybe there should be an end to paying politicians. That way there is no room for a “career politician”. It would also mean that almost all politicians must earn their own living.
On the issue of Statist vs Libertarian, I would not like to link expenditure to such a ratchet means. Very inflexible.
An alternative might be very low flat taxes combined with political parties that set up Trusts that fund the charities doing the activities they believe in. Party members then contribute funds using the money they are no longer paying to the Treasury. Each party then has precise, democratically-relative control over what gets “done” in the country and people have a voluntary donation towards getting it done. If there is limited support for a particular funding stream then the party will get complaints, people will refuse to spend it or switch to another party charity. We end this bizarre 5 year “lock in”.
It also enables non-party Trusts to step in that cater for an apolitical middle ground.
Yes it will cause fragmentation of the voluntary sector, but then again I get repeated bad vibes about the effectiveness and value for money of the larger charities.
That will sort the sheep from the goats and make people like Polly Toynbee have to put their own money where their rather-too-regularly-open mouth is. They would howl in protest saying so many things would not get funding…ok, so clearly she is in the Platonic version of democracy as in “we know best for your cash”.
Will it need enforcement? Well that can be up to the parties themselves to decide if they help non-members and how they balance the income vs premium tariffs. People will decide for themselves if they want to not be a member and thus miss out on the benefits but save for themselves. Parties might suddenly find they get enormous pressure to allow a more pick-and-choose attitude to what is funded and far more pressure to have fairness in the premiums, as in why should certain people pay more and why should violent, rude lowlife still get a free ride.
It might end up with national and regional levels of opt-in – so one might contribute to a national party which deals with one set of concerns and a local or city-wide party contribution on local issues.
The central state then focuses on good ol’ minarchist defence, law and order, borders, weights and measures etc – in the UK we have a good guide vis all the “Her Majesty’s” departments – and provides certain natural monopoly infrastructures like water, gas and electric delivery (but not production).
A big-bang move is not possible but I am sure it would be possible to systematically and atomically “unhitch” vast areas of what is now the State machine to be funded either via private or the voluntary sector.
Significant Parliamentary bandwidth could be won if both the NHS were “Helveticised” and the tax system flattened. Oh, and unhitch the UK from the EU.
Nigel:
I have believed for some time that your idea (above) has much to commend it, especially the slow move of adjustments to government expenditure, to avoid economic instability.
In control theory, the technique is generally known as a “hill climbing” approach to optimisation. One weakness of the technique is that, though it can lead to an optimum result (in some desired sense), that result may be sub-optimal in a global environment. Some random shake-up of the end result may be necessary from time to time to get to the “best of the best”. Hopefully, informed political debate would tend to avoid a result which ended in stable expenditure but in a stagnating economy.
My suggestion for an improvement would be to have the votes not on a single expenditure level but in (say) four broad categories:
1. Defence/military.
2. Overseas.
3. Home civil projects.
4. Redistribution of wealth.
An interactive example of how this might work out is given for the US economy at:
http://nathanneman.org/nbs
though this goes into far more detail than most people would care to be bothered with.
As in all radical change, the main problem would be to persuade existing politicians to act against their own self-interest and vote the necessary enabling legislation.
It would perhaps help if libertarian ideas were disseminated in a broadly accessible way.
Whereas people wanting to know what the Conservatives (or any other party) stand for can go along to them and ask questions, or read their publications, or look to others (newspapers, blogs, programmes, books etc) for comment and analysis, libertarianism doesn’t have the same level of interaction or entry for those looking to know more about it or themselves.
This blog makes for some interesting reading, but it can be slightly overwhelming for those with a newly-developed sense of political awareness. In fact, it can be quite intimidating and off-putting, particularly when those voicing opinions can be quite hostile towards others (best example, Verity).
Libertarianism in the UK needs a ‘face’- something or somewhere to look towards for inspiration and enlightenment.
“In the meantime, UKIP, for all its flaws, is the only party with any real interest in liberty in the UK today.”
…except for their espousal of a flat tax of… 33%.
There’s no liberty when the State takes about twice as much as it needs to function.
I did say “for all its flaws”
What’s wrong with being cynical? 😛
There’s no liberty when the State takes about twice as much as it needs to function.
There’s no liberty when the state takes anything. What gives them the right to take anything, anyway? It’s certainly something I never signed up to. The state is nothing but a thieving collective of hoodlums.
Perry, I do think you’re being pessimistic. Libertarian opinions cover a broad spectrum of views. A minarchic party could legitimately promise to lower taxes, and to simplify the tax code, for instance. And such a party would have a great forum (Parliament) in which to get the right ideas out to the public. Our LDP is unlikely to govern, but it will be a great publicizer for classic liberalism, and libertarianism!
This is one drawback to Samizdata.net, that only those who are already aware of the concepts are likely to seek us out. If we also had a magazine, such as my Toastmasters gets from America, then this could be left in real waiting-rooms, and bus-stops, and stations, as an aid to publicity in the real world. Or does Britain have a libertarian magazine; if so, how can we get it?
The trouble with a magazine is that it costs alot to produce, yes still, and its a pain in the arse to distribute. I have written for countless magazines that made a good go of it only to fizzle after a year or so.
UKIP could be the libertarian party in the UK if libertarians were willing to participate and make it so. There are certainly more willing ears in that party than in the current Tory Party.
There is another reason for guarded optimism when even David Cameron feels the need to claim to be a Libertarian. He is clearly using the term in ways that few here would understand, but his spin doctors have told him there is an advantage in saying it. If they are right and there is an electoral advantage in claiming to be a Libertaian, there may be some hope left for the great British electorate.
Isn’t a libertarian party somewhat of a contradiction? The Tories have changed their image because they had to! There was no way they were ever going to get back into Government with the public perception they had/have.
As long as democracy is a popularity contest, parties are always going to shamelessly campaign for your vote and unfortunately people dont want spending cuts, they want spending on public services so the Tories do that. If you want Libertarian governance you need to go somewhere where the public at large agree with you. Unfortunately, thats not the UK.
I’m reminded of Bill Hicks talking about trying to form the “People Who Hate People Party” and the difficulties of getting it off the ground (not that libertarians hate other people of course)
I imagine an attempt to form a Libertarian Party would be like herding cats. Before it’s even started, I propose to split away and form “The Party of Liberty” – taking the name from Hayek’s essay “why I am not a conservative.”
One of the problems is that people call out for Big Government, and libertarian ideas are misunderstood and unpopular. The only way to get power would be for everyone to move to the Isle of Wight, or some such place (I hear Jonestown in Guyana is vacant) and declare independence.
Tom, Richard, and any Harold out there- I did explain that a minarchic libertarian party would not be self-contradictory. And I reiterate- its’ main function would be to publicise the libertarian cause. Parliament would be an ideal forum to raise our issues.
As for going somewhere and declaring independence, look up Hutt River Principality on the Internet. This is a break-away piece of Australia, which has been independent since 1970, and has its’ own home page. I’d give you a link, except I’m not proficient in HTML. Maybe you could emigrate there? He calls himself Prince Leonard, but he might be amenable to democratic libertarian suggestions from would-be settlers. Or you might be able to buy up his land, and design your own society.
Maybe you should all join UKIP and turn it into a libertarian party. It already seems to have similar goals, and it is still viable, I believe. You would just add more policies. It seems better then going down with the Tory ship.
Nick,
I agree that there’s nothing contradictory in a minarchist libertarian party, just that it would be difficult to get agreement on, if not aims and objectives, certainly priorities. The simpler thing would indeed be to all join UKIP and take it in a new direction.
KdT: …except for their espousal of a flat tax of… 33%.
PdH: I did say “for all its flaws”
33% is the rate above a significantly increased personal allowance of, IIRC, £9k, bearing in mind the higher rate now is 40%, and that the plan was meant to be to all intents and purposes revenue neutral and that the rate would fall and the personal allowance would rise.