Sale of Tax Records

[history_monk]

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/campaigns/dont-sell-our-tax-data

Here's the letter I've just written to my MP:

Guardian ArticleThe government is intending to provide "anonymised" access to tax records. A senior Tory MP has described this as "borderline insane". I'd go considerably further than that. It will mean that people don't reveal their

Comments

[whswhs]

Granting that this seems like a bad policy, I'm not sure of the incentive effects of such a letter as this. You seem to think that your MP can already be expected to vote No on the proposal. So your message probably won't change their personal vote. But I don't see that it can change the party's vote, either, unless you think that they are in a position either to change the party's policy or to spur a revolt of individual members. It rather seems that you are saying you will hold them accountable for something they don't control

[history_monk]

His party, the Liberal Democrats, are already facing the prospect of an electoral catastrophe; many of their previous supporters have already given up on them over coalition policies. I view this as outside the range of acceptable politics, so far so that the party needs to reconsider what it's doing from the beginning.

I've had a considerable amount of mostly-friendly interaction with this MP over the past four years, but if this passes I will be considering emigration, and not very bothered about the politics of the rump UK any more.

Fortunately, I think this was probably a question of sending up a trial balloon to see what the response is.