Rapid Responses
Public services
[Re: Lessons to be learnt from government’s rail franchise fiasco, Thursday]
Only the free market provides the incentives necessary to create an efficient operation. It is a public servant’s incentive to create complex organisations that voters can’t always understand and thus the argument will remain better management rather than better incentives.
Tobias Wahl
There is no reason whatsoever that a public enterprise cannot be run professionally. But it would mean a complete rethink of the current administrative system.
Carl Bennett
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Taxing wealth
[Re: Fiscal crisis won’t go away until taxes and benefits balance, Monday]
Taxing income flows, rather than wealth, is unfair on the cash rich but asset poor. They cannot acquire assets due to the asset boom – especially in housing, which is artificially propped up to ensure that the borrowings secured by financial institutions on these assets don’t go underwater. With regards to negative effective tax rates, look at the costs of living – the actual costs, rather than the manipulated official figures – compared with wage growth. The benefits these people are receiving are not welfare for them, they’re welfare for their employers.
Carl Thomas
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Top tweets
Boris v Dave summed up: @David_Cameron follows @mayoroflondon (and only 3 others); @mayoroflondon follows 4,543 but not @David_Cameron.
@davidschneider
Allowing German and French governments to hold 18 per cent in merged BAE is like allowing Napoleon to own the UK liveries before Waterloo.
@Steven_Woolfe
I am starting conference with this new Twitter feed about my role as Conservative Leader. I promise there won’t be “too many tweets…”
@David_Cameron
(The Prime Minister’s first tweet)