The Spectator

Thursday

The Spectator

Time to tax

From our UK edition

From ‘The coming budget’, The Spectator, 18 September 1915: At present the large majority of householders and electors pay no direct taxation of any kind. They know nothing of the Income Tax collector’s demand-note, and they never receive a call from the rate collector. This system is not only fiscally but politically unsound, and a Cabinet which includes both parties in the State ought to take advantage of the present opportunity to remedy one of the worst features of our Constitution. The simplest method of dealing with the problem is to require employers to collect the Income Tax on wage-earners at the source, exactly in the same way that bankers collect at the source the Income Tax on dividend-owners.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 10 September 2015

From our UK edition

Biblical suggestions Sir: I wish to offer a couple of comments on Matthew Parris’s observation that although his ‘Christian atheism’ provides him with a moral framework, he feels the urge to help people in need, yet feels let down because Jesus offers no guidance about who to help and to what degree (‘Christianity is silent on my great moral dilemma’, 5 September). Jesus wants us to use our minds and our experiences, rather than simply applying set rules, and here is an example of how this works. Take the golden rule of ‘Do unto others’, add to it the Good Samaritan, and stir in the parable of the sheep and the goats, and there’s a fighting chance that the Syrian refugees will not be left to drown.

The Spectator

Barometer | 10 September 2015

From our UK edition

Old bags The government announced details of a compulsory 5p charge for single-use plastic bags in shops. Plastic bags have only been around since 1960, when they were first produced by the Swedish firm Akerlund and Rausing, later to give the world the Tetrapak. The first store to use them was Strom, a shoe-shop chain whose owner had complained paper bags were too weak. The first plastic bags had cord handles; a design with integral handle was patented in 1965 by the Swedish company Celloplast, which went on to enjoy a decade of monopoly. Places of refuge David Cameron said that Britain would take 20,000 more Syrian refugees over the next five years. According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UK had a population of 126,055 in 2013, the 25th highest in the world. Who had the most?

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 10 September 2015

From our UK edition

Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, told Parliament that he had authorised the killing, on 21 August, by means of an RAF drone, of a British citizen near Raqqa in Syria, Cardiff-born Reyaad Khan, 21, an adherent of the Islamic State. Ruhul Amin, from Aberdeen, also an Islamic State activist, whose killing had not been approved in advance, died in the same attack, along with another Islamic State supporter who was with them. Mr Cameron called the strike a lawful ‘act of self-defence’. Khan was said by government sources to have been plotting an attack during the VJ Day commemorations in London on 15 August, and although that had been thwarted, he was thought still to have a ‘desire to murder’ people in Britain.

The Spectator

The fog of law

From our UK edition

Not even Jeremy Corbyn lamented the death of Reyaad Khan, who was killed by an RAF drone in Syria after joining the Islamic State. He was a straight-A student from Cardiff who had the freedom to do anything with his life, but chose to turn his back on Britain and join a band of Islamofascists. He had been working hand-in-glove with Junaid Hussain, a talented computer hacker from Birmingham who fled to Syria; the two of them had been making detailed plans for attacks on Britain. But the RAF’s involvement in the strike marks a new chapter in British warfare. The motive for the action was simple: Khan was planning to inflict great harm on British people, and in the absence of alternatives, the RAF struck when they had the chance.