We need to change the way we talk about tax

Tax is the way we pay for the services we all rely on. Some of us need more support and service than others, and that is a choice our culture has made; it is the very definition of being a progressive society.

We should be proud to pay tax, for with it we buy civilisation. But the constant nipping of definitions, of “I’ve worked all my life... you are taxing my money twice”; of “I have loads of money, but I’ll leave the country if you tax me”; of “are you lying about raising taxes”, is a distraction.

Our services are on their knees; our view of public servants is destructive and toxic; our glamorising of big business false and foolish.

The opposition is more interested in how they can get into power rather than how can they make a difference and make things better. They are more interested in blaming immigrants than recognising that it is lack of investment that has removed any resilience we need to weather storms. They are more interested in stoking difference by the overuse of extremes and absolutes to the detriment of everyone.

It’s depressing – but worse still is that it is delaying any possibility of making things better.

The time for government reform is now, and those in parliament should be working together to make all lives better before it is too late.

Laura Dawson

Harpenden

I was very saddened to hear of the death of Geoff Capes recently.

At just 11 years of age, in July 1981, I had broken my arm playing football in a neighbour’s garden in my then-hometown of Skegness, Lincolnshire. As a result, I ended up in the Pilgrim Hospital in nearby Boston for a week.

During my time in the children’s ward, we all got a visit and chat with a young Geoff Capes. I was so immensely grateful to have met such a great public figure at such a difficult time.

Geoff raised my spirits so much. He was a great and a very compassionate man who will be so sorely missed.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant

I read Andrew Grice’s column (The crucial test that Rachel Reeves’s Budget cannot afford to fail, 26 October) with great interest.

It is to be profoundly hoped that the new fiscal rules will usher in a Budget that does not unduly punish – but is, rather, canny, nuanced and gives cause for a long-awaited feeling that this government has now got its act together, after what has been a very shaky start.

The Budget needs to tell a story; less of the dire inheritance from the Tories and the interminable metaphors of “fixing the foundations”, and more of a sense of uplift and what the destination actually is.

I am not sure I entirely agree with Grice that the chancellor has prepared the ground well; there has been such a feeling of impending doom that we will all be watching the announcements, with barely sustained fear.

But maybe that is the point and there will be relieved exhalations of breath that it wasn’t so punitive after all?

But the government needs far more political nous, because there has indeed been a “headless chicken” modus operandi – every story or even scandal seems to take them by surprise.

There has to be more realisation that they are the government now and this imposter syndrome must be knocked on the head – because we need this government to work proactively, persuasively and pertinently for the good of all this country’s citizens, whether they are a “working person” or not.

Judith Daniels

Norfolk