Tory Tax plans: a start

Last night Conservative Way Forward, the neo-Thatcherite grouping in the Tory Party, held a panel discussion on Tory Tax policy. I attended the event with arch-Tory Peter Cuthbertson. He was far more impressed with what Howard Flight MP said than I was, to be honest. Howard, though passionate and bright, waffled along about Tory proposals to cut tax if they were to win the next election. His attacks on whingers in the party did not exactly go down well, either. Despite Prof. Minford and Andrew Alexander’s prodding of Howard, he refused to agree to more radical tax plans or even consider them. This was despite the fact that Minford pointed out that both Reagan and W proposed major tax cuts before they proposed spending cuts.

What strikes me about current Conservative policy is that it apes the Tories in the 70s. “We agree with the concensus on what is being done but we can do it all better and more efficiently.” The spending decreases they are talking about are mere drops in the bucket when you look at the overall amount spent by the current government. What was very encouraging to see was the enthusiasm from Prof. Minford and Mr Alexander, as well as much of the audience, for flat taxes. As one would expect, the recent adoption of a flat tax by Poland was mentioned. There were some rumblings, both from the panel and the audience, about the massive waste of money that is the EU. Overall it was fairly interesting evening, not as good as the recent IEA taxation event, but rather good. Let’s hope that Flight took home something from the evening and will encourage his party to truly get to grips with the massive tax burden in the UK.

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