Letters: The Tories have left it too late to start making the right noises on tax

SIR – Jeremy Hunt has described inheritance tax as “profoundly anti-Conservative” (report, May 25) and Rishi Sunak now says that the state pension will never be taxed under the Conservatives (report, May 28).

Wouldn’t it have been marvellous if they had been the Chancellor and the Prime Minister over the past few years? Oh, hang on – they have been. Is there by any chance a general election campaign on?

John Poysden
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

SIR – Laura Trott, chief secretary to the Treasury (Commentary, May 28), says the personal tax allowance for pensioners will increase so that the state pension never crosses the income tax threshold.

Ignoring for the moment that having two tax thresholds could well be the final straw for HMRC, this move would set a dangerous precedent, with different population groups having different tax rates. If I were a low-paid worker, I might be wondering why a pensioner in a similar financial position to me should pay less tax.

If the Tories had wanted to do this, they should have done it in the last Budget – not as a blatant vote-winner in the run-up to an election.

Why not keep it simple and increase thresholds for everybody?

Dr Michael Pegg
Esher, Surrey

SIR – Promising that nobody whose sole source of income is the state pension will pay income tax is hardly the same as saying that the state pension will not be taxable. But the Tories seem to be morphing into a party like the Liberal Democrats – promising anything, in the knowledge they will never have to implement it.

Brian Gedalla
London N3

SIR – I receive a teachers’ pension, which began before my state pension. As soon as I started to receive the latter, the tax on my teachers’ pension rose considerably, and the state pension is included in my annual tax return. I am presumably not alone in this. Here we have yet more evidence that this Government has no idea what goes on in the real world.

Eve Wilson
Hill Head, Hampshire

SIR – My state pension is already £290 above the 2024-5 tax threshold, meaning I will pay £58 in tax on it. I will happily accept a cheque for this sum from Mr Sunak – or has he just made another smoke-and-mirrors election promise?

Patrick Tracey
Carlisle, Cumbria

SIR – Might we be refunded the extra tax we paid after the personal allowance changes made by David Cameron’s coalition government in 2012?

John Newbury
Warminster, Wiltshire

No to National Service

SIR – Sebastian Monblat (Letters, May 28) claims that Rishi Sunak’s National Service plan is a “kneejerk policy aimed at attracting Reform UK voters”.

As a traditional Conservative who will be voting for Reform at the upcoming election, I can assure Mr Monblat that all my recent exchanges with those supporting the party agree with its president, Nigel Farage, in his description of the plan as “a joke”. There is no mention of National Service in Reform’s published policies and there is no appetite for it in the future.

As an Army veteran, I’m also acutely aware that such a scheme would have a detrimental effect on the operational capability and readiness of our already depleted Armed Forces. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare and – given that every candidate would no doubt require a medical assessment before joining – would place an extraordinary extra burden on the NHS.

Few people who understand the practical and societal implications regard the idea as either workable or desirable.

Richard Scott
Kirkbride, Cumbria

SIR – I was among the first cohort of children who left school in 1959 and went straight to university, and was able to see the benefits of the previous system, which created a positive interval between school and university and bestowed a high degree of maturity and life experience on undergraduates, enhancing their tertiary education.

Those of us who came to university at 19 lacked maturity. For those coming directly from state secondary schools, it must have been even worse. Young people need a period of responsibility before embarking on their degrees. They may even decide during this time that an apprenticeship suits them better, taking the pressure off overcrowded universities.

Consideration should certainly be given to offering an appropriate form of National Service today.

Jeremy Chamberlayne
Gloucester

SIR – Many of my friends and I (all in our early 20s) have had experience with the Army or Navy Cadets, and found the skills we gained to be incredibly useful.

There is much talk about the cost of implementing National Service, but such a scheme could in fact save a lot of taxpayers’ money, as many 18-year-olds would feel better equipped to start their lives rather than doing pointless degrees.

Bobby Angelov
London SW1

SIR – As a former MP, I am happy to assure Bill Galvin (Letters, May 27) that there is indeed a form of uniformed service available to MPs, and that the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme has existed for more than 30 years.

In my experience more could be learnt from a few weeks of such service than from a library full of briefing papers.

Stephen Pound
London W7

Accent tracing

SIR – Having been born in Hungary, then educated in Canada (where I learnt English as my fourth language), upon moving to rural England I was always asked: “What part of Ireland do you come from?” (Letters, May 28).

After 20 years, however, something snapped, and the next time I was asked the question I replied: “Actually I’m from Budapest – it’s a suburb of Dublin.” There was no comeback to that.

Andrea Bates
Enstone, Oxfordshire

Labour’s schools plan

SIR – With regard to Labour’s education plans (“Private school VAT raid is the ‘politics of envy’”, report, May 27), any political party that is prepared to disrupt the learning of 7 per cent of the school population – including many with special educational needs – is not fit to govern.

David Wedgwood
Newmarket, Suffolk

SIR – How is adding VAT to independent school fees putting “country first and party second”?

Rhidian Llewellyn
London SW14

SIR – Margaret Chatham’s letter (May 28) is right on the money. The destruction of the grammar schools was probably the greatest act of peacetime vandalism against Britain’s working class. It has also had serious consequences for Britain as a whole.

I would not expect the Labour Party to reconsider that policy, any more than I would today’s yellow Conservatives. I was, however, deeply disappointed to note that the restoration of grammar schools was not one of Reform UK’s 10 pledges.

Alex Finch
Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Regarding your headline, “Labour is continuing its tradition of hostility to excellence in education” (Letters, May 28), I can’t say that I’ve noticed any of the last five Conservative governments doing anything to improve the quality of state education.

Exam standards have been lowered. School buildings across the country have suffered catastrophic damage, and politicians have failed to hold anyone to account or institute rapid repairs. Schools and local authorities have regularly had their central government grants cut to the bone, and curriculums have been so frequently “modified” that I’m surprised anyone learns anything.

Roger Kendall 
Cahors, Lot, France

At home on the farm

SIR – When I was a child we lived on a farm in a remote part of East Anglia, and I was getting on for six before I was sent to school.

At the interview the headmistress asked my parents: “Does he know his alphabet?” Before they could answer I chipped in: “No – but I can drive a tractor!” (Letters, May 27).

I have never properly learnt my alphabet to this day.

Simon Playle
London SW10

War and Peace is best enjoyed at full length

SIR – I agree that children should be encouraged to read longer books in order that they may one day appreciate great literature (“What’s the point in abridging War and Peace? Slow reading is its joy”, Comment, May 27).

War and Peace is a pleasure to read not just because of its exquisite prose, but also because it is a long, slow read – which, rather like sucking a boiled sweet, allows one to savour its delicious literary flavour.

Stan Labovitch
Windsor, Berkshire

SIR – I would urge the editor of any abridged version of War and Peace to retain, in its entirety, the section in which certain nations are described as being uniquely self-assured.

“A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in body and mind as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured as being a citizen of the best organised state in the world and therefore, as an Englishman, always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German’s self-assurance is the worst of all… because he imagines he knows the truth – science – which he himself has invented but which for him is the absolute truth.”

What would we do without such concise and accurate descriptions of national characteristics?

David S Ainsworth
Manchester

Left to wait for months after an NHS referral

SIR – One evening, around 30 years ago, my parents received a knock on the door. It was their GP who, having received some blood test results indicating that my father had suffered a heart attack, went straight to their house to make sure he was all right. Fortunately he was, as it was a false positive.

Earlier this year, an ECG test showed that I may have had a minor heart attack. My GP immediately referred me to the local NHS rapid access cardiology team. Six weeks later I was offered a phone consultation, at the end of which I was referred for an echocardiogram – a minimum 12-week wait. I can’t afford to go private, because we have already had to pay for two knee replacements for my wife this year.

Envy of the world? I don’t think so.

Alisdair Keats-Rawling
Woodford, Cheshire

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