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Around 20 years ago our
political opponents, and the Media which express their thoughts, brought
themselves to recognise and to admit that politics in Scotland were
following a pattern different from that in England. They hadn’t been
willing to admit that this process had begun at least a further 20 years
back, in 1959 when English voters cuddled even closer to the Tories
while Scots drew themselves further away. Some observers were surprised;
some were puzzled; and Unionists, when they thought about it, were
dismayed. What could be the cause of this shameful display of diversity?
Part of it was, of
course, impatience with economic disappointments; and part arose from
the growing up of a new generation far more aware of its Scottish
identity than its elders had been.
And yet there might have
been some older, deeper instinct lurking somewhere in the Scottish
people. Could it not be argued that our political preoccupations have
always been dictated by our weaknesses, temporary or permanent? After
all, for centuries our leaders
had to cope, first and foremost, with the presence of a vastly more
powerful neighbour who, every so often, lashed out irritably at the
untidy nuisance to the north. For a long time we managed to fend off the
pressures, because the technology available did not make possible a
military campaign extending over a sufficiently lengthy period. But once
conquest was a military possibility the game was up and the surrender to
Union was the result.
After that, a minority,
with social and financial advantages, managed to make their way in the
new "British" markets and Empire; but for most Scots the aim
was to keep food on the table and clothes on the back, and neither in
any great luxury. By the time the right to vote arrived, Scotland was
largely urban and industrial, and politics was about avoiding collapsing
into poverty or dealing as best one could with those thousands who had
already slipped over the edge.
Scots did not, as a
people, have the luxury of taking the pet over Ship Money and
extra-parliamentary taxation which played such a part in bringing about
the English Civil War; or of the outraged self-pity about "taxation
without representation" which drove the Americans to revolution.
The political traditions of the English-speaking world are based on
pockets and purses and wallets. We are part of the English-speaking
world; and increasingly we have come to see political purpose as they
have seen it. We have a political party — the Conservative Party —
to act in the interests of those for whom the avoidance of tax is a top
priority. They at least have always accepted and acknowledged this role.
The fact that the Labour Party has now joined them has less to do with
principle than with political cowardice, but there they both stand,
keeping the unfortunate as quiescent as they can, but assuring the
secure that this won’t cost them anything in taxation.
Of course it can’t be
done. Even if social justice is to be ignored, the merest social peace
will continue to require spending, and thus taxation. For most people,
so what? For a copper or two on income tax to have any appreciable
effect the victim has to be doing rather well; and the principle behind
income tax has always been that those best able to do so should — as
our Party leaders have frequently said in recent years — pay a little
more.
Individual cases do not,
of course, prove general truths; but just ask yourself, if taxes
distress you, what differences you have really found as Chancellors have
fiddled things up and down and back again. For anyone around the
national average income, and still more for anyone below the average,
the impact of taxation on their finances is less than that caused by
many other factors.
For instance, leave
Dundee and go and live in Perth or Angus, and you will save on Council
Tax more than any recent variation in income tax. Or move to Fife and
find that you can travel around saving money which in other areas would
have had to be spent on the costs of your travel. And, of course, never
buy petrol in rural areas.
So, try to refrain from
responding to those who encourage you into governing your opinions and
loyalties by the cost in taxes of those opinions. If you allow tax to
dictate your political stance you will be serving the interest of those
already more than fortunate, and fighting the battles of those who
really do not need your support. There is plenty to argue about when we
come to discuss taxes — the fairness of the rules, the efficiency of
the methods and the merits of the spending intentions of the Government—
but all of us should think twice about offering any kind of support to
the proposition that the State should come as close as possible to the
abolition of taxation.
We as a Party are
fortunate in having an essential purpose which is not primarily
economic. Independence brings economic opportunities and the chance for
enlightened social decisions, but we are still forced to operate within
a system whose two main parties are engaged in a kind of auction as to
which will cost the voters less and less. We have a duty to do all we
can to raise our political sights to a more worthy level.
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