Following the decision by the government to make it illegal to own one or more hens without registering with DEFRA, I will definitely not be voting Conservative at the next election. The only thing that would change that decision is cancellation of this completely ridiculous piece of legislation.
As part of my push back against this new law I contacted the Countryside Alliance, who I think first alerted me to the original consultation, where 87% of respondents thought it was a bad idea. This is the organisation that marched under the banner to “Liberty & Livelihood”. They seem to have lost any hunger to fight a rice pudding. The man I spoke to said “the government are determined to push this through so we are just trying to make it as least onerous as possible”. I have seen no mention of it in Country Life or any other rural publication though there was an extremely good article in CITY AM on 24 April. I went to a Conservative Party adoption meeting last week and asked the candidate whether he thought one should get a criminal record for having hens; he had not heard about the new law, and my fellow attendees were incredulous. I am still waiting for a response to my letters to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State, but on past record that will be underwhelming to say the least if they bother to respond. If anyone wants to support me in raising a parliamentary petition on this subject then I need five supporters if anyone is interested?
Anyway, getting tack to the point – who do I vote for? I am not convinced by Reform UK. I don’t know what their policy on small flocks of chickens is, but having read through their “Contract”, I see lots of headlines that sound good, but not much evidence of thinking through how they will make their objectives come about. One example is their proposal to send the boat people back to France, however, what happens if the French refuse to take them? They have a big migrant problem of their own and the last thing they are going to do is take back all those we refuse; it ain’t going to happen! To be successful, not just being elected but also once in government, a party needs properly thought through ideas that make sense, withstand public scrutiny, and post-election can be enacted without the civil service emasculating them. This I believe has been the big problem with the present government: they rarely think through what they propose and therefore leave it to the civil service to enact, and so we end up with mush.
I suspect I may have to stand as a real or free conservative in order to actually have someone to vote for who I would like to support. Based on my outlook what will be in my manifesto?
Before looking at specific polices, what are my philosophical principles within which the manifesto will be written?
- Maximum freedom of speech – only through the full interchange of ideas does humankind make progress.
- Maximum freedom of action as long as it does not impinge on the freedom of others, without having to worry of falling foul of the law. Government must trust individuals to do the right thing.
- We must be free to spend our income as we wish.
- All laws should be enforced, if they can’t be or it is not practical to enforce them then they should be repealed.
- Work should always pay
- The family is the key building block of society.
- No one should be penalised for doing the right thing.
- The taxation system should be simple, fair and the minimum required to maintain necessary public services. Taxpayer’s money should be treated with the same consideration we give to our own money.
- Subsidy of all sorts should be minimised.
- UK elected politicians should be the ones who we appoint to rule, these powers should not be given up to supranational bodies or quangos unless absolutely necessary.
- To make the most of their three score years and ten on this earth, humans need to be challenged to use their talents. Look to themselves for advancement, not rely on others for continual support.
Freedom of speech is vital to the interchange of ideas, our development as a society and as individuals. We may not like what others have to say and if what they say is offensive then they should be roundly ridiculed for it. It is only by exposure to all sorts of ideas that we gain understanding of how the world works. Trying to protect others from what they might hear or see does not help them in the long run. Social media has caused a knee jerk reaction leading to both direct and indirect censorship. Much of this due to the actions of those who hide behind pseudonyms and prefer to remain anonymous on the internet.
Freedom of action to live our lives unfettered by law and regulation as long as we don’t impinge on the freedom of others, individuals trusted to do the best for themselves and their families. There will always be rotten applies in a society like ours, but we must not penalise the vast majority because of the few who are selfish and stupid. An example of this is the new chicken regulations, another is the push to ban the smacking of children or the ban on the purchase of tobacco for life for those at present 15 or less.
On the whole, we are better arbiters as to how we spend our money than governments. Taxation should always be the absolute minimum required to provide necessary services.
The statute book is full of laws that successive governments are continually adding to. The sheer volume means that many languish unused, and indeed much in the way of recent law and regulation is just too time consuming for police and others to manage that it is not enforced. There is a major spring clean required and a stop put to the conveyor belt of new laws. In part, this is important because we need the police to focus on important crime such as murder, rape, fraud, burglary etc rather than being diverted to, for example, hate and speech crime.
Work should always pay. Whether it be the taxation or the benefits system, it would seem that government likes taking at every opportunity from those who are stupid enough to work, and giving it either directly or through free services to those who choose not to. There is no shortage of work available in the country, and those who are on the dole and or on benefits should have these withdrawn if they refuse after a certain length of time to take up available work in the local area. Over and over again we see those not contributing at all able to enjoy a life with considerably more free time and a similar income to those who are working full time and paying the tax due.
The family is the key building block of society, and it is essential that no action of government should seek to diminish this. Instead, every action of government should look at reinforcing the family and encourage greater commitment to each other from family members.
Too often it seems that those who do the right thing are penalised for being honest, showing commitment, building businesses, volunteering etc. In many cases because officialdom finds it easier to go after those who have done things properly, they are penalised whilst those that might be more aggressive or difficult to find are avoided by the police and officials.
Guided by these principles I will put together my plans which I hope, in the event of me standing the voters will support and will be coherent.
The British tax code continues to multiply in size with extra complexity at every Budget. This is not a sustainable situation, and it is essential that it is hacked back in size to something that is concise and can clearly be understood by those who are not tax specialists.
Politicians love to dole out subsidies to organisations that they see as deserving of funds. However, every subsidy has the effect of distorting markets and leading to unfair competition. Instead, like benefits, we should look at ways of not taking so much and therefore concentrating their minds on making a success without concentrating on qualifying for a taxpayer funded handout. An example of this was the recent subsidy given to Tata Steel to keep the Port Talbot steelworks going. Instead, I believe the government should have made primary steelmaking in the UK a tax free endeavour, with no corporation tax or local business rates payable for a minimum of fifty years on that site if the blast furnaces were kept going, and free primary steel production from the Carbon Credit system.
As I think through what I believe my manifesto should include in each policy area, I will endeavour to frame it within the above principles. Hopefully Frank might publish a few of them!
Alastair MacMillan runs White House Products Ltd, a manufacturer, distributor and exporter of hydraulic components to over 100 countries. He is a supporter of the Jobs Foundation.
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Sounds good to me, Alastair. You’d have my vote.
Well said, but who’s standards for “necessary” should be applied. The government of today would say all they do is necessary .
I agree with you and “necessary” is bieng too vague on this point. What I am grappling with is that we have found Governments have very easily deferred decisions to setups like the OBR and then claim that they are prisoners of what is a body of their own creation. On a Supranational basis Blair signed us up fully to the ECHR and now the people we elect will say that they can’t do this or that due to how it will be viewed by judges in Strasbourg. We have the WHO treaty awaiting ratification, we had the Climate Change Act and Net Zero Act passed with barely any scrutiny. I had thought about Referenda but not sure htat would be the correct approach, something like a Royal Commission would take too long and would cause the same problems. Perhaps an option is to make it a requirement that the creation of new decision making quagos and agreeing to supranational bodies being able to override elected UK politicians must be agreed in both Housies by a free unwhipped vote that follows a full public consultation ?
What happens if the French refuse to take them?
Simples. There must be a lot of dinghies washing about on the south coast. Cram the buggers in and give them enough juice to get them to France.
”Conform UK” do the bidding of Hate Not Hope instead of telling them to go forth and multiply.
Definitely need to do something about the chicken situation! Completely ludicrous proposal, but probably designed to limit our freedom in yet another way.