Oh My God! Can it be true? The Liberal Democrats are now pledging to CUT income tax (sort of). Despite the fact that almost all of their policies commit public money to some liberal cause or other, they are somehow going to cut taxes... yeah right. Having spotted that the Conservatives are moving into the centre ground (which means an acceptance of the humongous welfare state and bloated government payroll), the Lib Dems have seen an opportunity to outflank them on the right by pledging to cut tax. But most voters, I suspect, will be utterly unconvinced that they understand the fundamental theory underlying lower taxes. The theory is this:
Small government concentrating its resources on the core tasks of the state, leaving most resources in the hands of the subject, where they can do the most good.
The Lib Dems have demonstrated over many years that they believe in the opposite:
Massive government doing absolutely everything you can think of, taking ever more massive quantities of resources, preventing wealth creation.
The Lib Dems are for that portion of the electorate who believe that their fellow citizens need to be nannied in every respect throughout their lives by a huge, hectoring, know-it-all state. This statism is much more prevalent an ideology than any other in todays Britain. All the major parties now subscribe to it. Their only remaining point of contention is which non-core functions government should currently be investing massive amounts of public money into.
Britain needs an alternative political home, where statism is seen for what it is- the main impediment to a prosperous, healthy, interesting polity. Who will do this?
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