David Cameron seems to be drawing some flak for having made what seems to me to be a perfectly sensible suggestion, namely that council houses should really be for those who need them, rather than those who at some point in their lives needed them but now really should be moving on.
I find myself swayed, however, by the unstinting logic of both Simon Hughes and the commenters on the Guardian link above. I’ve therefore come up with a couple of other suggestions that follow the same pattern that I think we should introduce as quickly as possible.
(1) People should be assessed for income tax purposes once and once only, at the beginning of their working career, thus giving everyone a clear and unchanging understanding of their tax liability. This assessment should be backdated in order to be fair to existing taxpayers.
In my case, I started full-time work in the summer of 1983 but as I was due to go to University later that tax year, I didn’t earn enough to actually pay anything other than NI. So, I should really be paying no tax now, and indeed I should be entitled to a refund of all tax paid since I started work.
(2) If someone has to go to hospital, they should retain the right to stay in the ward indefinitely, even when they’ve got better. This is only fair, because there’s little doubt that they will have got used to the nice comfortable bed, having their meals prepared for them and constant attention from doctors and nurses (irony alert – this is the NHS, after all).
Please feel free to make further suggestions. I will collate the best ones and post them to Mr Hughes, so that when he breaks up the coalition and is subsequently voted into power he will have a few ideas to start with.
