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Letters
Taxes: you get what you pay for
Taxes are very much in the news but are only ever described as a burden, especially by politicians seeking re-election.
I think of my taxes as my contribution to, for example, the NHS, the vaccination programme, properly funded schools and apprenticeships, well maintained roads, police forces, our very own weapons of mass destruction – Trident, libraries, parks, a fair justice system, paying for adult social care and provision for childcare so Mum can go to work.
The list is longer than that, but can we have all of them and somehow not pay tax or pay less? Nonsense, unreal – it is time for politicians to stop promoting the myth that we can pay less and less tax for the same or more public services, and for us to be less selfish and more realistic.
Commentators on the current economic situation note that personal debt is much higher than 30 or 40 years ago, so is the national debt, as is government debt and corporate debt.
Any connection to the wonders of paying less tax? Here is a thought, spend 25 to 30 years paying off your mortgage and 15 years later when you need social care you have to sell your home because thanks to lower taxes the government has no money for social care. What a bargain. Your children do not inherit.
Mrs Thatcher promised that once we all owned our own homes and most public utilities had been privatised ‘wealth would cascade down the generations’. Now it looks more likely that debt is going ‘to trickle down’ to the next generation.
Richard Foley Tarrant Hinton
in response to the Government’s policy announcements, confirm my view he is unfit to be a member of the Conservative party. Indeed, his left views expressed in his column in The New Blackmore Vale (16 September) endorse my belief.
A self-confessed supporter of Rishi Sunak, and no doubt embittered by his defeat in the leadership election, he shows nothing but contempt for the constituents he claims to represent in north Dorset.
Despite this, in my view being a predominately Leave constituency, he does not support the local and national democratic vote and has done everything in his power to frustrate the vote to leave. How he remains chairman of the Northern Ireland Committee beggars belief.
The pound has made a strong comeback against the US dollar in the last two days. The IMF and the EU are trying to blame us for their woes. No one mentions that the Euro has been in deficit to the dollar for weeks and through their own policies Europe and the EU are on the point of collapse. They only stay afloat by breaking their own rules. Germany has long abandoned Green policies and continues to open coal mines. Mr Hoare should hang his head in shame for his blind support of this artificial organisation.
The UK is responsible for only one per cent of world carbon emissions.
His woke support opposing fracking, another policy shredded by unfounded scaremongering; support for a windfall tax on energy companies, which would totally discourage prospecting; and opposition on the higher tax rate shows him to be a Liberal Democrat, no longer closet.
That is the party he should stand for and before the next General Election. No doubt he supports the totally irrelevant vanity project that is HS2. He reckons on his significant majority to return him to the House as a Conservative, which he is not. Simon Hoare is a representative of Simon Hoare. Give us Lord Frost as a candidate.
Cartoon by Lyndon Wall – justsocaricatures.co.uk
Jeremy Bloomfield Gillingham
While promoting the annual concert in aid of Save the Children’s Emergency Fund, I have been heartened to meet numerous people who support our endeavours.
Having volunteered for charities for the past 64 years – 49 for Save the Children – I could write a book about the different reactions to charity giving. However, two recent experiences have prompted me to write in.
For the first time in my long experience of circulating posters, to my astonishment and dismay, one shop in Sherborne demanded £1 a week to display details of the concert in aid of the charity’s work in Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine and Pakistan.
When I suggested that there was a difference between me, perhaps, personally wishing to sell honey and requesting support for a charity, I was firmly told the shop’s policy was the same for everyone – charities received no concessions. My family and several friends have therefore decided we will no longer patronise the shop.
However, after such a disappointment I have good news! The following day my car broke down in Yeovil – clearly,
the battery was flat. A kind couple stopped to help and phoned garages, but as none was able to assist me, eventually I decided to take a taxi home to Sherborne.
I was therefore relieved to find TOMS Travel waiting outside M&S. Thankfully, I had the £18 fare with me. As we drove, I explained my predicament to Tom. He immediately stopped the car, checked his boot and announced he had jump leads to hand. Within a few minutes my car was roadworthy.
I offered Tom £20 to thank him, but he politely refused payment, saying it was his pleasure to help me. However, after much persuasion he agreed to accept £10, on the grounds the remaining £10 go towards the Save the Children concert.
His attitude confirms my continuing faith in human nature – what a contrast to my reception in Sherborne’s shop.
Anne Dearle via email
It is very frustrating, in fact, horrific, to read rationalisations in The New Blackmore Vale regarding climate change and attempts to mitigate the damage it is now and will continue to cause. Because we have allowed such ideas to flourish as fact, it is now too late to stop its effects. We can only hope to try to ensure social justice for the millions of people who will lose their property, ways of life and in many cases their lives. There is a concept for those governments who consider their own comfort and the ‘natural beauty of our country’ over the damage done to other nations by climate change – Environmental Genocide.
The argument made that we cannot obtain sufficient energy using renewables is a straw man argument. First, it ignores the fact that we have the capacity to greatly expand our use of renewable energy to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions by such measures and that it is the quickest way to do so. Second, it ignores the reality that we cannot continue to use energy as we have been doing and will have to cut back in any case. This is the reality that people are unwilling to face. It is convenient for governments to lie to their constituents that they can continue to use energy as always and make no changes to their lifestyles.
Renewable energy is now nine times cheaper than gas. We are an island nation, surrounded by ocean waters and constant wave action. And yet we hear little talk about wave energy and we have to ask why that is? Energy independence can be reached as easily by cutting our energy use as well as using renewables. We know that insulating can save massive amounts of energy. A wellinsulated home can reduce an energy bill by thousands and can last for the life of the building. This solution would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and gas, reduce fuel poverty and at the same time cut our carbon emissions.
We seem to be accepting as fact that since we want to use as much energy as we like, we need to get that energy however we can. We don’t want to see our beautiful countryside disturbed with windmills or solar farms. But what we cannot lie to ourselves about is the fact that there are natural laws governing our choices and nature will have its way, no matter what we ‘want’. The environment will degrade, sea levels will rise, animal and plant diversity will diminish, and in many parts of the world these effects will be life destroying.
And there are massive costs to ignoring the problem. The National Trust has just named five properties that it will not be able to save due to rising sea levels. Cardiff, Windsor and parts of London have been listed as among the most at risk of flooding by 2050. This will be true for anyone living near coastal and river areas. Levels could rise as much as two metres. Even a Conservative Government estimates this to cause £130 billion in damage, £47 billion in London alone, without taking measures such as flood defences into consideration, which do not come without their own price huge tags.
Instead, we are fed disingenuous discussions about how we must use gas/oil/coal because we need more power than wind/solar alone can provide. How childish. Mother Nature couldn’t care less about our ‘needs’. Political and economic arguments are meaningless when people’s lives are being destroyed, as is already happening around the world. We will have to account for our actions or lack of them.
Dr Sylvia Hixson Andrews Blandford
I so agree with the letter from Kate Gordon-Smith (The New Blackmore Vale, 16 September). I avoid shopping in Shaftesbury now and go to Salisbury, so many times I have struggled with getting a parking ticket.
Why do they not want people shopping in their town?
Jenny Lucas, Zeals
The article by Jane and Michael Martin (The New Blackmore Vale, 30 September) draws attention to the serious threat to the viability of rural churches, supposedly ‘the backbone of the Church of England’.
Canon Woods is lucky never having had to deal with the financial obscurity of the Diocese of Bath and Wells – the response of the Diocese which he described as ‘short and anodyne’ is typical of the refusal of the Diocesan Board of Finance (DBF) to enter a meaningful dialogue on its expenditure of our parish shares.
The current proposal to deal with a deficit budget is to reduce the number of clergy. This would reduce the number of services in parish churches with a consequent reduction in parish incomes which would increase the shortfall in collection of the parish share.
Canon Woods’ alarm at the ‘growing army of ecclesiastical managers and middle-managers’ is well placed and it will not surprise him to learn that the staffing costs of the DBF do not bode well. The £2.4m budgeted for 2022 would support 45 priests – either there are a lot of DBF staff earning what priests cost or some salaries must be high.
Charles Brook Castle Cary
I would like to comment on the article ‘Is there a future for rural churches?’ (The New Blackmore Vale, 16 September) and Canon Woods’ excellent reply. I for one certainly hope so.
Some years ago, when I was living in Somerset, my wife and I took an elderly aunt from the north of England who was staying with us for a day out to Wells – and to visit the cathedral, duly paying the entrance fees.
After having a tour inside, and on leaving, a lady asked us if we would we like to see ‘The Old Deanery’ and garden?
We decided to take up this offer and duly walked across the green to the building and through the gate. After seeing the garden, we went inside and viewed the ground floor – we were then directed upstairs.
I had the shock of my life! I commented ‘what is going on here?’ as there were many desks, all with computers. ‘Oh,’ the lady replied, ‘this is where we run the Diocese!’
I was staggered and not impressed. Is this all necessary? I did not see all the staff because they were presumably on their lunch break. I can see where a large percentage of the Parish Share is now going.
Michael Frost Sherborne
Richard Wood complains about ‘unnecessary house building’ (New Blackmore Vale, 30 September). I thought it was widely known that there is a severe shortage of housing in this country – and county.
