Amidst all the clamour about NIC rises (or NIC equalisation measures – it’s all in the language) and manifesto commitments, I find myself puzzled about when it was that paying tax became such a bad thing.  Of course, all governments waste money and I’m never going to agree with all government spending.  It would be illiberal of me to expect the whole country to agree with my particular spending priorities.  However, it seems to me that we can have as good a health service, education system, social care system, transport system etc. as we are prepared to pay for through our taxes.  The alternative, it seems to me, is to continue to demand more and better services, complain about taxes so that no politician dare raise them and consequently pass on ever increasing debt for the next generation to deal with.  The legacy of Brexit is, despite what many people say, uncertain and will only be known some considerable time after a deal is finally reached.  There is still everything to play for, if we choose to pull together.  The legacy of the ever increasing national debt that we are generating is, however, knowable:  even greater pain for a future generation to deal with, quite possibly in a manner imposed on them from outside.

The question I ask myself is as follows.  What is more important:  that the Chancellor sticks to a ridiculous manifesto promise made two years ago by a different Prime Minister and different Chancellor in very different pre-referendum circumstances, or that he actually raise some money (in a way described by the director of the IFS as a “small change making a small step towards correcting a big problem with the current tax system”) to pay for services in a sustainable manner?  I’ve already given my thoughts on the promises that politicians make, but there was a sting in the tail:  I think we are all, to an extent, complicit in that game.  Whereas I used to sneer along with him, now when I hear John Humphreys trying to force politicians to say exactly how they will act in the future I think about the damage this causes to all of us.

In other news, I was puzzled to hear that Nicola Sturgeon’s solution for dealing with a divisive referendum result is to hold another divisive referendum.  I was not surprised, but I was puzzled because Brexit, it seems to me, is in many ways the fruit of the nationalist movement.  Without IndyRef, unsuccessful though it ultimately was, would we have had Brexit?  It seems to me that the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the decades of campaigning that led to it legitimised the following:

• The assertion of national identity.
• The desire for self-determination.
• The use of a binary choice, simple majority referendum.
• Leaving the legal realities of separation to be dealt with after the event.
• Emotionally embracing an undefined future path.
• Pretending that you can define an undefined future path.

I would be desperately sad if the place where I was born and lived for the first twelve years of my life decided to break away from the place where I have lived for the thirty years since, thereby splitting up the country to which I feel I belong.  (In the absence of a convenient adjective for ‘citizen of the United Kingdom’, I call myself British.)  It would appear that Nicola Sturgeon is reluctant to accept the fairness of a binary choice, simple majority referendum.  I think she has a point.  Whilst it may be a democratic tool, in that the power of decision is in the hands of the people, it is not a liberal tool.  It is a tool that allows no compromise and listens only to the loudest voice.  Unfortunately, once you have used it, you can’t legitimately un-use it.  Fortunately, there are alternative approaches that she could use if she wishes to be more liberal.  She could go with a threshold other than 50% (e.g. 60% of votes cast or 40% of electorate).  Alternatively she could use the Australian model (a majority vote in a majority of regions).  I will watch with interest.

However, if a second referendum was to be successful, then I think Nicola Sturgeon might just find that leading a deeply divided country through major constitutional change that drags close to half of the population “out of a union against their will” is not quite as easy as it looks.  She would have an advantage over Teresa May in that she would be a leader with a united party behind her who has not suddenly been parachuted into the top job to pick up the pieces.  However, after 310 years in a union, the emotional pain and the practical difficulties would be a whole lot worse than after 44 years of tentative steps towards a union.