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The Kindness of Strangers
The newspapers and the
radio and tv news bulletins are full of stories of human folly and wickedness;
of senseless slaughter in the Middle East (can either side of the conflict in
Syria really believe that any possible ending will be worth
the death, destruction and human misery that is taking place daily in that
unhappy country?) of robbery, fraud, neglect and abuse of children and of the
old and disabled. They record the triumph of selfishness and greed. It is easy
for very old people like me to despair of humanity and to fear the future; not
for ourselves but for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.
I
try to tell myself that it is the exception that makes the news; that the time
to get really worried is when acts of kindness and generosity are so rare that
they make the headlines in the press and the ‘lead story’ on the tv news
bulletins. Just occasionally though, something happens that makes me realize
that, despite the gloomy headlines and the news stories of violence, cruelty
and greed, most people are not a bit like that.
They’re kind and helpful and generous.
They really do try to treat other people as they themselves would like
to be treated. .
I
had such a moment on Monday of last week.
I had written a letter to a friend of mine in Brussels .
There were a couple of enclosures to go with it and I had no idea what
it would cost to send. The days when I
could stroll along to the Post Office are long past. Supported by my stick I took the half dozen
steps to my shed, mounted my mobility scooter (my ‘Iron Horse’!) and drove the
few hundred yards from my home to Magdalene Green Post Office. There I dismounted, retrieved my stick from
its holster and stepped inside. I had
forgotten that Monday was ‘benefits day’.
There was a queue. I took my
place and slowly shuffled forward. The
queue was being dealt with very efficiently and I don’t suppose that I had
queued for longer than fifteen minutes before I realized that I had stood for
as long as I was able to. I had to sit down or collapse! There was a chair
nearby and three people ahead of me in the queue; a youngish woman with a
toddler, a middle-aged man with several parcels and an elderly lady who was, I
thought, probably drawing her pension. I
told them that I wasn’t trying to jump the queue but would they mind if I sat
in the chair until it was my turn to be served? They agreed and I thought it
likely that I’d have about another ten or fifteen minutes to wait.
I was totally
astonished when the counter clerk became available and called for the next
customer. All three of those who were
before me in the queue urged me to take their place and go first. My business
at the counter took no more than two minutes. It had been a spontaneous act of
kindness and thoughtfulness towards an old man with walking stick whom none of
them knew – but it really was deeply appreciated. There were tears in my eyes as I thanked
them for their kindness.
We humans
aren’t just half-trained animals, motivated only by greed and self-interest as
politicians seem to imagine. There
really is – as we Quakers maintain – a divine spark deep within the personality
of each one of us, just waiting to be transformed into a warm, friendly and
generous flame.
‘Out of the Tax system?’
I don’t grudge
Nick Clegg his minor triumph over the provision of free school meals for all
children in the first three classes of primary schools.
It was only to
be expected that some would complain about having to help pay to feed other
people’s kids – many of those other
people being much better off than they
are. Young people, struggling to
bring up a family, might equally complain about having to pay for the benefits
enjoyed by well-off pensioners. I can
see the difficulties and injustices that would arise if every benefit were to
be means-tested. Pride would prevent
some needy folk from applying. Poor
children getting free school meals would be stigmatised by their fellows.
Children can be cruel to each other.
But there is one ‘means test’ to which we are all subjected – our income tax
assessment. The state retirement pension
is
taxable. Those pensioners who, like me, have a supplementary pension
from former employment, or some other source of income, know that the state
retirement pension is added to it and becomes taxable income.
I can see no
reason why all universal benefits – children’s allowance, job seekers’
allowance, winter fuel allowance, free tv licence, housing benefit, attendance allowance and so
on, should not be similarly taxable. The
really poor would continue to get
their full benefit. The better off would
pay back some of it in tax and the really wealthy would pay the highest rate of
tax on it. Even with our tax system as
it is at present it would bring some welcome
cash back into the Treasury (to help with that deficit!) It would be fairer than the current system
and no-one would suffer real hardship. Income tax has never yet made anyone hungry or homeless. I
am surprised that this idea hasn’t already been embraced by our cash-hungry
chancellor.
If, of course,
the income tax system were to be reformed so that we all – rich and poor alike
– paid an equal percentage of our gross income (before thousands are siphoned
off into charitable trusts, tax havens and the like!) as income tax or – as I
prefer to think of it – as our annual membership fee for British citizenship,
the system would be fairer still. What’s
more, I believe that the indirect taxes (VAT, customs duties and so on) that
disproportionately penalise the less-well-off could be reduced or even
eliminated.
I very much
deplore Nick Clegg’s claiming that the coalition government has benefited low
earners by raising the level of income at which income tax becomes payable ‘and taking millions out of the tax system
altogether!’ This perpetuates - or tries to perpetuate – the myth, fostered
by much of the press, that the only really burdensome tax is income tax. It divides society into two antagonistic
classes – the taxpayers, whose hard work and enterprise keep a parasitic
underclass of non-taxpayers in comfort and, in many cases so they claim, in
idleness.
Raising the
level at which income tax is payable is often presented as helping only the
very poorest in society. It isn’t. Raising that level affects and benefits
every income tax payer from those who only just become liable for income tax,
to the seriously wealthy with an income (I hesitate to say ‘earnings’!) of a
million pounds or more a year. Nor is it
true that those who are not liable for income tax pay no taxes to the
government. Since the Thatcher years
there has been a shift from direct taxation (income tax, death duties and so
on) to indirect taxes such as VAT and customs duties. The tax
is the same for rich and poor alike but the VAT payable on, for instance, a
repair to the family car or essential maintenance to the home, makes a far
greater dent in the budget of someone with a low income than it does on those
of the wealthy.
There’s one
source of revenue for the government that comes almost exclusively from the
poor. That is the quite small amount
that goes with the purchase of every lottery ticket and every scratch
card. Lots and lots of tiny payments
come to a very considerable sum of money.
Even the very poor feel able, as I once heard a Government Minister put
it, ‘to have fun on the lottery’. It is their one, albeit very very remote,
chance of gaining a fortune and escaping from grinding poverty. You’ll look in vain for stockbrokers,
merchant bankers or payday money lenders in the queue for lottery tickets and
scratch cards. They prefer to gamble
much more profitably and preferably with other people’s money, on the stock
exchange!
I wait,
probably in vain, for one of the political parties to include in their
programme the reform of the income tax system to ensure that every adult
citizen, rich and poor alike, pays the same percentage of his of her income to
the Inland Revenue as their annual
membership fee as British citizens.
This reform would be the first step towards narrowing the vast gap that
at present exists between the incomes of the very rich and the very poor and
the transformation of the United
Kingdom into a United Common Wealth in the
future of which every citizen would have a stake and a responsibility.
'I shall not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till I have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land'.
Lord Hanningfield’s Legacy
When
the Police decided to take no other action with regard to Lord Hanningfield’s
use of his County Council credit card to spend nearly £300,000 on business
trips abroad, expensive meals and hospitality, I commented in this blog that
there must have been sighs of relief from some of his colleagues at County
Hall. . Certainly his downfall seems to
have heralded a new era of thrift there.
The
daily Gazette reports that Ms. Joanna
Killian, the County Council’s Chief Executive appointed in 2006, spent £4,700
on her County Council credit card including a team-building exercise for five
members of the council’s staff that included a trip to Colchester Zoo, various
expenses during a weeklong trip to Jamestown ,
Virginia
That
was then. Now, we have a somewhat
different story. Since 2010 Ms Killian
has used the card only seven times – six times for train journeys and once for
the renewal of a subscription to the Local Government Chronicle. In 2011 her
expenses amounted to just £259. It
seems that we have at least something for which to be grateful for Lord
Hanningfield’s example!
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