Letters From A Tory

Dear Alex Salmond,

I doubt you’ll be pleased to read about how little impact you have had in trying to force a referendum on the independence of Scotland.  Even though it has always been blatantly obvious how much the Scots hate the English, you clearly underestimated how much the Scots enjoy financially free-riding off the back of our Parliament.

Scottish voters still trust Westminster more than they trust Holyrood with their money and do not want tax powers to be transferred to Scotland.  What you will also notice in the poll results is that 58% of Scots agreed that they have “the best of both worlds” by having their own Parliament but still remaining part of the UK - what a surprise!  Amazingly enough, the Scots quite like getting a block grant from Westminster using the Barnett Formula which gives them an extra £1,500 per head than English people.  54% of Scots agreed that this current arrangement was the right one, while a mere 20% thought it best for Holyrood to raise its own taxes and spend them.

Allow me to make a suggestion: as you’ll never get independence on your terms, how about you start trying to gain more financial independence by getting Scotland to raise and spend its own revenue?  Sod the poll ratings - if you’re serious about Scottish independence, I’d like to see you fighting for a more distanced relationship from Westminster in political and financial terms.  Anyone who claims to support Scottish independence but is still happy to take handouts from Westminster is a fraud, and I’m beginning to think I should include you in that category.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Dear Gordon Brown,

Your article in the Telegraph today that desperately clings to the notion of a Union is just hot air masked as a newspaper column.  Your inability to understand the feelings of the general public are trumped only by your blinkered view of how the British Isles should be run.

Of course there are some issues that warrant a union-wide approach.  Your chosen examples of terrorism and climate change are fair enough, but there is no reason why these issues cannot be addressed by England, Scotland and Wales in more independent capacities.  If an issue is that serious, representatives from each country have every reason to work together without the need for an explicit ‘Union’.  I nearly fell off my chair when you suggested that our “shared values” can be seen in “the popularity of our common institutions from the NHS [to] the BBC”, both of which in my opinion needs to be taken out of state control and handed over to independent providers to improve their quality and sustainability in the long term - talk about being out of touch!  To further claim that “tolerance” is a shared value across the Union is hilarious, seeing as the Scots and Welsh absolutely hate the English and have done for centuries.

I’d much prefer it if you were honest about all this.  You need Scotland to keep Labour in power, so you will resist any attempt to weaken the influence of Scottish votes on your position or on the future of Britain.  My message to you is a simple one - give us an English Parliament, get Scottish MPs out of Westminster, and let each country raise its own money and spend it.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

“We have a Scottish Prime Minister who is a control freak, a hapless Scottish Chancellor and a Scottish Speaker of the Commons who is unsackable. God help the English”

- Richard Mays, of East Grinstead, in a letter to The Daily Telegraph.

Dear David Cameron,

A bold move, indeed.  Many Conservatives, including myself, would like to see our party take a strong stance on devolution from the point of view of finances and voting arrangements.  The Barnett formula has been the source of many newspaper headlines over the past year and it continues to divide voters in England on whether they believe the Union - as it stands in its current form - should continue.  You believe it should, and I strongly disagree.

Your assertion in the Telegraph this morning is a little puzzling.  Being a Unionist is a perfectably acceptable stance but to narrow down the argument in favour of further devolution with Scotland to the availability of drugs in the NHS is far too crude.  What about the lack of student loans in Scotland, the ability of Scottish MSPs to vote on purely English matters in Parliament, the lop-sided Barnett formula passing a disproportionate amount of funding to Scotland?  If you want to portray yourself as a Unionist, you will have to face down these arguments rather than idling strolling past them.

I wonder whether your views, which are clearly at odds with a large portion of the Conservative Party, will come back to haunt you as promoting Scottish devolution could prove extremely popular on both sides of the border.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Dear David Cameron,

Your strategy of addressing the West Lothian question is the correct one.  No drama, no glamour, no hype - just asking the sensible questions.  Alex Salmond has made some fairly inflammatory remarks this morning.  He may well be right about Scotland becoming considerably richer should they have control of their own oil, but this is no cause for concern.

There are two ways of looking at this problem, both of which support your stance.  Firstly from a financial point of view, England would probably suffer in the short term if we lost control of oil revenues.  However, North Sea oil has not got more than a few decades of revenue left and when it dries up, we do not want to be anywhere near the situation because it will collapse whichever economy is in control of it.  Secondly from the perspective of the union, this does not have to cause any ruptures or strain between England and Scotland - in fact, I think handing them the North Sea oil while rebalancing the Barnett formula in favour of England (if not making Scotland financially autonomous) will probably improve relations between us.  Matthew Elliott and the Taxpayers Alliance are the people to speak to about the sums of money involved, so use their expertise and knowledge to your advantage.

Stick to your guns, Mr Cameron.  Alex Salmond will fight to the death for Scottish interests, but always remember that English and Scottish interests may well turn out to be one and the same thing.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

Dear Matthew Elliott,

I feel a lot of admiration and sympathy for the work you do at the Taxpayers Alliance.  When you see evidence of inequality and unfair taxation, you try to bring it into the media spotlight.  I was wondering whether you think there is any chance of changing the approach of the government with regard to the Barnett formula, seeing as yet again English people are being heavily discriminated against as reported by the Daily Telegraph.

How any government can let one portion of the population subsidise another portion to the tune of £1,500 a year per head is beyond me.  As I understand it, the funding formula works on the basis of how impoverished an area is.  Scotland has got serious problems, especially in its cities, with drug use and unemployment so the formula rewards them extremely generously - and the same applies to Wales.  Furthermore, the South of England also generously subsidises the North of England because of poverty measures as well.  As I understand it, 75% of business taxes on companies in the South also get sent up to the North of the country.  My question to you Matthew is how can you stop this?

Are the Conservatives the answer?  The only way that I can see this ending would be a Conservative government deciding that taxes must be raised locally.  Each local council could set its own rate of local income tax and collect and spend the proceeds, thereby cutting out central government from the loop (for at least part of their tax funding, anyway).  This would mean that there would be no cross-subsidisation from one area to the next, bringing the problems of the Barnett formula to an end.  I thought Scottish devolution was the stepping stone to financial autonomy, but it is clear that this has not happened - and Labour are unlikely to do anything to jeopardise their Scottish votes because without them, they’d lose an election in England.

So, do you think local income tax would help?  Is full Scottish independence likely, or will Labour cling on to Scotland for as long as possible?

Yours respectfully,

A.Tory