Bournemouth Liberal Democrats

Feedback & Discussion Board

Email us at contact.us@bournemouth-libdems.org.uk and give us your views, we'll try our best to address any and all questions you have and with your permission we'll anonymously post your views and queries along with our response.

Subject: All sorts!
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 23:57:27 +0100
To:contact.us@bournemouth-libdems.org.uk

I support the Libdems in general though I am not currently a member. At 78 I am a bit old for active canvassing etc. but I do have fairly strong views on a number of subjects and would like to join some sort of discussion group with a chance that, if some of my thoughts made sense, they might get acted upon by the powers that be! For example:- First, from the Party viewpoint, I am not sold on the concept of an elected House of Lords. I fear that elected Lords (or whatever they might be called) would claim a mandate and threaten the supremacy of the House of Commons. We have no written constitution to define the respective powers of each chamber. Some sort of reform is probably overdue, but, pending a final decision on the Scottish question, any Constitutional reform at present is very much in the air. Dare I sugest that it might be sensible to have a Royal Commission on the Constitution with a view to reporting after 2014?
Secondly, I am no financial whizzkid: my schoolmasters considered me innumerate. But for many years I have believed that we have too little incentive to save. I have no time for the politics of envy but it is clear that the wealthy could - and should - be making a much greater contribution to the national weal - not salting their wealth away offshore. Nevertheless, I can sympathise with a high earner - say a sportsman, actor or high flying barrister - who migh well feel s/he has a limited shelf life jibbing at paying half his earnings in tax for the time being, when, in years to come, s/he may fall on hard times and need a nest egg. Why can't HMG offer to issue bonds to be acquired out of gross income with tax relief for the present, so reducing the lender's current taxable income. But, on redeeming the Bonds, the amount redeemed would fall to be taxed at the rate applicable to the holder's then current income - which, in, say, old age, might well be considerably less. Or, perhaps, the Bonds could be alienated, either by intervivos gift or inheritance, and then taxable in the hands of the donee at whatever rate appropriate to him/her. Thus encouraging the distribution of wealth. The Bonds would bear little or no interest. HMG would be able to borrow cheaply without going cap-in-hand to the Banks - British or foreign - and the wealthy would be able to arrange their affairs paying less tax overall without being sneered at by the holy and righteous in the press gallery. As an incentive to such prudent Patriotism, HMG might wish to impose higher rates of tax on high earners who do not wish to avail themselves of the Bonds facility! Bearing in mind the trillions that are currently reported as being cached worldwide in taxhavens, is this suggestion not worth a thought?
Finaly, for the time being, on infrastructure, specifically transport: Is it not high time that we considered providing purposebuilt routeways for commercial vehicles, especially HGVs to be used on a toll basis but with guaranteed journey times and hightec means of control and management. In due course, the use of such routes could be made compulsory and HGVs only allowed to use public highways from departure and to destination closest to the network. Our motorway system was supposed to be general purpose but events have shown that it clearly can't cope.
That's probably enough to be going on with, but I should be glad to know if you have a forum for such discussions, It might even be worth a subscription!

From: Michael Chizlett
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 11:07 AM
Subject: RE: All sorts!

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email, it is incredibly important to us to hear from and involve supporters with matters of policy. Unfortunately we don't have a local discussion group, however it has long been our goal to set one up and with the impetus of your email we will bring up the issue with our Chief Executive at our next executive meeting.

In the meantime we are constantly seeking to improve the quality of our website with news and views from across Bournemouth. With your permission we would like to anonymously put your views on our website for others to comment and respond to; the ultimate goal being to create a discussion page on the website which can be a forum for political debate.

Michael Chizlett

Lib Dems Bournemouth