A Tax Too Far?

The so-called "Pasty Tax" has bit the dust (or the crust, perhaps?). No surprise, really - this was a tax initiative that had played incredibly badly in the popular press, while at the same time likely to raise relatively little money.  And it's pretty clear by now that this government really does need not to offend and annoy people unnecessarily - so a swift U-turn has been performed.

"You turn if you want to.  The lady's not for turning," a previous Tory PM once said.  Political U-turns are traditionally understood to be bad and weak, the mark of poor government.  There is some truth in that, of course, not least because the further you go in one legislative direction before turning round and heading back  the opposite way, the more money (sorry, the more tax-payers' money) you waste.

Nonetheless, it isn't a weak thing to be honest.  When a mistake is made, not to own up to it or to do anything to correct it would be a sort of political Titanic disaster - ship of state meets iceberg, iceberg wins.  Better of course not to have made the mistake in the first place;  but still, better to correct one's course than to go steaming straight on into the iceberg.

I imagine the government will seek to save face by presenting itself as responsible and responsive.  "See how we listened!" they'll say.  Well, perhaps governments should ask us more often what we think.  Meanwhile, one feature of the current political scene has to be a growing awareness of the power of civil society, and the ways in which organised popular lobbying can be encouraged and enabled by the electronic media.