Amnesty

The SNP is considering an amnesty for Scotland's remaining Poll Tax defaulters. Well, there is of course no chance of every getting the money in question. But matters should therefore be left exactly as they are. An amnesty, in Scotland or anywhere else, would send entirely the wrong signal.

The Poll Tax has become thoroughly mythologised.

It is held up as somehow the "real" reason why the Tories ditched Margaret Thatcher, thereby deflecting attention from the real reason indeed, namely that, far too late, she had finally woken up to the reality of European federalism, and therefore had to go. Lest we forget, the Tories went on to win, unexpectedly, the General Election after the Poll Tax's introduction.

In Scotland, where it was introduced a year early by popular demand and where there was never a riot against it, the history of thing has been allowed to be written by those who shouted, and shout, the loudest: Tommy Sheridan and the fundamentalist wing of the SNP. Lest we forget, Scotland was the only part of the country where the Tories experienced a net gain in seats at the General Election after the Poll Tax's introduction.

Throughout the country, the fantasy of "people unable to pay" still holds extraordinary sway. In fact, anyone in that position had it paid for them through the benefits system.

And so forth.

Those who deserve an amnesty are those who happen to be householders, although by no means necessarily owner-occupiers (but never council tenants), who are arbitrarily required to be the only people who pay local taxes as such, based on a highly speculative valuation of an asset which might not be theirs to sell, and which, even if were, they could not sell unless they were then expected to live up a tree or something.

Let the BBC Trust be elected by and from among the license-payers, and let the license fee itself be made voluntary. Likewise, let there be a flat fee, payable to the council, for registration as a local government elector, and let such registration itself be made voluntary, with the fee paid through the benefits system where necessary, so that nobody would be disenfranchised on grounds of poverty. The National Trust and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution not only survive, but thrive. So would the BBC. And so would local government.