Letters: Look at the bigger numbers, Rachel

And whatever happened to the idea of a tiny levy on share trading? Just because those affected threw a wobbly when it was last suggested doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be reintroduced at this time of national emergency.
Alasdair Lawrance

A “one-off” tax for the wealthy is just a grab. It goes no way to addressing the growing inequality that’s destroying us as a society.

The whole tax system needs overhauling so that everyone is paying a fair and proportional amount towards the defence and success of this country. Right now the tax burden is falling almost entirely on the middle, with the people at either end of the spectrum paying nothing or less than; one because they can’t, the other because they won’t.

Higher-rate taxpayers are an easy target, but they’re not always the wealthy; they don’t necessarily have the passive income, savings or assets that the truly wealthy – who somehow pay a lower rate of tax – have.

There are far too many loopholes that allow income and wealth to be hidden and obfuscated. Then we’re told how the rich are overburdened with taxation.
Victoria Donaldson 

From a practical point of view, how do you levy a wealth tax? On wealth in the UK, on wealth owned by UK tax residents or by UK tax domiciles? What about wealth held by trusts? 

How do you achieve even a reasonable level of compliance? Up to now, no one has had to report their wealth during their lifetime. Think of the number of additional bureaucrats. And the outflow of rich people to other jurisdictions would dwarf that seen following the changes to the non-dom rules. If a wealth tax were easy to implement, it would have been by now.
Richard Slater

To raise the rate of tax on dividend income would not be an increase on “working people”, well at least not on their income from working. Similarly, neither would an increase in the tax on other unearned income – rent and trust income, for example – qualify. Go for it, Rachel.
Patrick Reynolds 

Patience Wheatcroft is correct in her advice for Rachel Reeves – in a time of crisis, make the case for raising taxes from everyone, with the broadest shoulders bearing the most, and I personally think it would resonate.

Everyone appreciates now the grave and unpredictable world situation and the necessity for raising taxes. Probably many people will also know of a disabled person who is petrified at this moment in time and in a civilised country, that really is unconscionable. 
Judith A Daniels 
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

You have to wonder who Rachel Reeves is listening to. Outside parliament, a spectrum of economic critics have concluded that to ensure fairness taxes must be raised.

It seems she has spurned the leftist thinktanks and reformers of capitalism in order to employ the same failed economic solutions disastrously employed for the past 15 years. 
Paul Wildish

Who’s laughing now?
Re: Matthew d’Ancona’s “Sick Joker” (TNE #427). It is surely ironic that the fate of the free world is being determined by two comedians; one fighting for the freedom of his nation, the other smirking as he destroys the foundations of democracy.
Tony Brewer

I have just found the following HL Mencken quote: 
“On some great and glorious day, the plain folk of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron”.
Dave Norton 
Market Rasen, Lincolnshire

Intelligence-sharing ended for Ukraine? It’s worse than that, US intelligence full stop ended on January 21. No idea when or indeed if it will make a comeback.
Keith Hobbs

While I have no time for Donald Trump’s snarling, bad-mouthing and general unpleasantness, there is a reason why he is where he is. 

Underneath all the nastiness, there is often a point. The latest is Trump pointing out that “Ireland has the entire US pharmaceutical industry in its grasp”. When the UK was in the EU, Ireland consistently undercut the UK’s corporation tax, ignoring EU rules, and so was able to attract foreign companies to Dublin at our expense. London is still suffering from Ireland’s unfair approach, which was tacitly condoned by the EU bureaucrats.
Robert Parker 
West Bridgford, Notts

Build better
Hannah Fearn’s article on new towns (TNE #427) was timely and interesting. Her recommendations make a great deal of sense. Build in concert with plans to promote growth away from the London comfort zone but close to existing transport infrastructure, and control these developments by accountable public bodies.

However, the involvement of existing private-sector builders would only produce more brick-built housing. Bricks consume vast amounts of energy to produce and bricklaying is an unnecessarily time-consuming process. There is now a considerable body of scientific and practical knowledge concerned with building energy-efficient housing using renewable and less energy-hungry products.

There are many examples here and in the rest of Europe of developments that fulfil the needs of this century, and we have the architects, planners and developers, who, properly briefed, can imagine and build for a better future. All we need is the confidence to use them.
David Weaver 
Cranleigh, Surrey

Stitched up
“A lost piece of the Bayeux Tapestry” (Carousel, TNE #427) was a really interesting item by Jane Whyatt. But tourists might like to divert a few miles from visits to London or Oxford and come to Reading, where the museum displays a faithful replica (apart from adding pants to a few naked warriors who had been cut down in battle) of the original tapestry, hand-stitched in authentic colours by a group of Victorian ladies. It’s now beautifully displayed in its own gallery room.
Jill Lake

The accepted theory now is that the “tapestry” (actually embroidery) was made in England. It was commissioned by Odo, William the Conqueror’s half brother, who became the Earl of Kent after the Battle of Hastings. It represents the build-up to the battle as well as the battle itself. 
Richard Evans

Rocky horror show
I’m not so sanguine as Philip Ball on the risk posed by asteroids like 2024 YR4 (Critical Mass, TNE #427). If one were to impact a major city, such as London, it’s not just a matter of evacuating 10 or more millions of people: everything within the M25 would be flattened, with severe damage as far out again. We’d need to house millions of evacuees for several years while totally rebuilding a major city. While the risk to life may be minuscule, thanks to early warning, the societal and economic risks of managing the aftermath are anything but. Thankfully we in the UK have an excellent track record of managing such low-probability, high-consequence events and delivering major infrastructure projects.
Ian Smith 
Chipping Norton, Oxon

Old-school ideas
David Handley describes Peter Hyman’s proposals for education reform as “impressive and radical” (Letters, TNE #427). It would be more correct to describe them as necessary but seriously insufficient. Everything Hyman says is true, but he fails to address the underlying problem – that our education system is based on ideas developed in the 1860s. 

Among the many problems that urgently need addressing are:

1) The social structure of the system both reflects and reinforces existing patterns of hierarchy, as it always has done. This results in vast resources being narrowly focused on the education of the children of the rich, who continue to form a ruling caste within society, while the children of everyone else are obliged to attend schools that are seriously under-resourced, and many of which are structurally unfit for purpose;

2) We have a huge shortage of teachers because not enough young people want to do the job, and those who give it a try soon quit. Successive governments have not had the slightest idea how to remedy this, but seem unwilling to learn from countries that don’t have this problem;

3) School attendance rates are dropping alarmingly. Politicians blame this on bad habits picked up during the pandemic, but increasing dissatisfaction with school, was apparent long before 2020. 

It is becoming clear that the education system needs a complete reset of the kind successfully undertaken by Finland in the 1970s. Yet Bridget Phillipson will be lucky to hold on to her job if she attempts anything more ambitious than tinkering around the edges. 
Michael Pyke 
The Campaign for State Education

Gesture of defiance
Marie Le Conte lifts the spirits. Her last two columns (Dilettante, TNE #427, #426) have not only offered food for thought but have also lifted the spirits of an 85-year-old too often inclined towards cynicism.
David Isaacs

Marie Le Conte says we can’t fix the USA so we should go outside and chill! (Dilettante, TNE #426).

But as she also says, small things can make a difference. In Canada, many Canadians are boycotting American goods in protest at Trump’s tariffs.

Why don’t we do the same in the UK? In my small way I am pausing purchasing anything from Amazon until Trump unpauses the supply of arms and intelligence to Ukraine.

Perhaps if we all did this small thing it might send a message?
Nigel Smith 
Gloucestershire

Roman ruins
A bit late with this, but I see from Lie of the Week in TNE #425 that we have the Holy Roman empire to thank for sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a freshwater system, and public health.

What, then, did the Romans ever do for us?
Rory Cunningham

BELOW THE LINE

Comments, conversation and correspondence from our online subscribers

Re: Everyday Philosophy on corporal punishment (TNE #427). I too grew up in the 1950s and 60s when corporal punishment was rife – the ruler, slipper, cane and other instruments of pain. Board rubbers hurled across classrooms. We accepted it as the norm.

I was a disruptive pupil and was often punished, although never with the cane. Then at 15 I was summoned to the headmaster’s office for retaliation on a fellow pupil who threw a brick at my back.

Told I was going to be given six strokes, I grabbed the cane and snapped it over my knee. The headmaster, taken somewhat by surprise and now visibly shaking, told me I was expelled, I replied with glee that this was my last day at school anyway and left, slamming the door. I never looked back.
Ivan Primhak

I’m not in favour of corporal punishment – other than, as Gore Vidal famously remarked, between consenting adults. 
Paul Blake

Calling the vice-president “JD Vile” (Cover, TNE #427) is an unflattering nickname in the style of Trump. Does this man’s influence know no bounds?
Mark Rowlands

Re: Alexander Armstrong’s complaints about VAT and private schools (Rats in a Sack, TNE #427). As Sister Michael said in Derry Girls… I think it’s fair to say we all lost a bit of respect for you there.
Lorraine Fannin

Alexander Armstrong is a smug man who should know better. To suggest his child with special educational needs would not be catered for in state education was insulting to all children and young adults with such needs.
Debs Long

Re: Josh Barrie on boycotting airport food (TNE #427). Surely it’s easier to just boycott airports?
John Valentine

Like Josh Barrie, I suffered as a result of a 7-Eleven vending machine in Copenhagen airport. Only two weeks ago, I bought a ham and cheese sandwich that had so much wholegrain mustard in it, it felt like my mouth was burning. Never again!
Kimberley Hayes

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