The billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United, says that Britain is ‘on the slide’.
He has a point.
Sir Jim, who moved to Monaco to escape the UK’s ferocious tax regime, says: ‘We had the greatest empire in the world. We were a great people. We won two world wars.
‘We’re good, honest folk. But unfortunately, at the moment, I think the UK is on the slide. It’s quite difficult to see how we arrest it.’
Sir Jim is by no means the only wealthy person to look at these conditions and leave.
The ever-growing tax rates are self-defeating in practice. The wealthy simply will not stay around to be used as cash machines by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Some other country ends up benefiting from their wealth and their enterprise, at a more intelligent rate of tax.
The pro-Labour Left, mostly composed of public-sector workers on generous salaries and sitting on fat tax-funded pensions, will of course denounce Sir Jim’s words, so confirming his point.
Billionaire Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe, says the UK is ‘on the slide’ and criticised the country’s tax regime after moving to Monaco
A large part of this country’s political class has for many years been committed to high taxes on the productive and the enterprising, to pay for generous conditions for people who are neither productive nor enterprising themselves.
Of course some spending is necessary. The old and the sick must be cared for.
Those thrown out of work through no fault of their own need support. Good public services are essential for a functioning economy and society.
The high-tax faction will always speechify about the NHS, because who does not want a good NHS? But high spending does not solve all problems. It is not a magic ointment.
The NHS itself is far from perfect. And there are so many other areas of the government sector where the public experiences poor service, delay, arrogance, incompetence and failure.
And then there is the swelling part of the economy where people are paid generous sums on the basis of supposed sickness that may – let us put this politely – be questionable.
And it is not just billionaire business leaders who are hurt by the British tax system’s greed for other people’s money.
Right at the other end of the wealth spectrum, hundreds of thousands of young men and women struggle to find work because the Labour government has placed a punitive tax on employment by increasing employers’ National Insurance rates.
And so we are indeed on the slide. Any serious patriotic political leader must know the country needs to reduce its tax burden, and its borrowing, if it is to stay solvent and efficient.
As we report today, the Treasury is close to meltdown as it tries to raise money to sustain its huge commitments and pay the colossal interest on our existing borrowing.
It is no good cutting one tax and raising another, or indulging in short-term tax reductions that cannot be sustained.
If we want to arrest the slide we must all, Left and Right, rich and poor, grasp that we must relearn the ancient rules of thrift and prudence.
Andy Burnham, teetering on the edge of an election, dare not do this.
The parties of the Right must therefore tackle it, and soon.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login