Lilian was in her 80s when I first met her. A reserved widow; small, stooped, and shy. She was my next door neighbour. I called her Mrs Smith out of deference to her age.

I found her in my garden one day, pale and shaking. Whatever had occurred, she felt unable to speak of at that moment. Instinctively, I put my arm around her, though I would not normally be so bold. ‘Come and have a cup of tea, Mrs Smith’, I said, the English panacea for all troubles. ‘Please, would you call me Lilian’, saith she, ‘there’s no one left who calls me Lillian’.

Revived with tea, she told me what had happened. She had been dozing that afternoon, in front of her gas fire, when she was rudely prodded awake. Two large gentlemen of African appearance stood over her. In her front room. They were holding a knife.

‘Open the drug box’ they said. Lilian, half awake, was bemused. ‘Drug box?’ She fumbled for her plastic box of daily medicines on the side table. It was rudely thrown aside. More shouting, more swearing – though she dare not repeat the words they said – and eventually, in frustration they had picked up one of the pair of intricately carved dinning chairs by the table in the window and smashed it against the wall. After that, they had rampaged through the building and left empty handed.

On Lilian’s front gate was a tarnished brass plaque. ‘Donald Smith, Dental Surgeon’ it proudly proclaimed. Indeed, he had been, 40 years before. I had realised that she was widowed, but never knew the circumstances until that afternoon.

Her parents had owned the cafe, still in existence, on the ‘green’ a few yards down the hill. Next door to us was the Dental School. 60 years before that, young Donald, trainee dental surgeon, had been in the habit of taking his evening meal in the cafe, and they would talk. Eventually they married, and bought the house on the hill for the terrifying sum of £350. They had never had children, and now she was alone. Donald had taken his own life, bowed down by troubles she couldn’t bear to relate in detail, so I know not what.

I had called a couple of largish male friends, always useful in this sort of situation, and all together, we walked back to Lilian’s house, armed with a crowbar, to ensure that it was empty. My friends went off to buy new door locks; and one suggested, for it was the nature of his business, that he donate an alarm which could be rigged up to ring in my house should Lilian ever find herself in this position again. It was long before personal alarms had been thought of. Thus secured, we set about picking up the pieces of broken furniture.

Those carved dinning chairs were beautiful, some of the finest I had ever seen. Fruit and flowers cascaded across the back and down the legs. It was heartbreaking to think that someone could have destroyed one in mere thwarted anger. Lilian moved over to the desk in the front room, and took out a bunch of keys. She selected one and handed it to me. Would I unlock the next room and fetch her another chair for her table?

I opened the door, and gasped. I was in the waiting room of Donald’s surgery. There were ten more identical chairs and a pair of matching armchairs! Even 40 years ago, I was looking at a couple of thousand pounds worth of furniture. Not minutes before Lilian had told me that she couldn’t possibly afford to have such a delicate chair repaired, she only had her pension – Donald had left her nothing but debts. ‘Lilian’, I said, ‘these chairs are worth an awful lot of money, don’t throw away the broken one, I can find you someone who will buy them’. ‘I couldn’t sell them’, she replied, ‘when Donald first started in business my Father gave them to him, they’d been given to him to start the cafe with, I’ve lived with them all my life’.

Fair enough; the older you get, happy memories are worth more than money.  The chairs are not the point of this story though, just my usual digression. The point of the story is what had happened around Lilian in the intervening years.

It had become fashionable to live in unfashionable areas. The fine Georgian houses in that part of South London had become deeply desirable. Some houses had the mortar in between the bricks carefully picked out in brilliant white paint – they were the province of the Jamaican community. Some houses were meticulously restored with ‘fading’ green paint, the brick work sandblasted – they were the province of the nouveau riche who desired street credibility.  Neither Lilian nor I had the money or the desire to do either to our homes, but the effect on the area of those who did have the money to do so was that our houses became more valuable. Had Lilian lived longer, or had I remained in my house next door, we would both have become ‘millionaires’; triple millionaires as it happens. Not through our own doing, nor through our ability to buy a multi-million pound house, but simply through the aspirations and desires to follow fashion of those who became our neighbours.

We would both still have been pensioners living on our basic state pension – but according to the idealistic student politics world of the Lib-dems, it would be ‘obscene’ for us to have free bus passes, or TV licenses, and we should both have been forced to pay a ‘mansion tax’ based on the value of our homes. Or move out, sell up, leave our memories behind. Evil ‘rich bastards’ living in million pound houses, who should bear a greater proportion of the national debt than others, like students, with their entire voting working life ahead of them.

In France, they have a much simpler system than the one proposed by the ‘politics of envy’ Lib-dems. We have a ‘wealth tax’ here – but it is voluntary, for a while. You can elect to pay it whilst you are alive, if you wish. If not, when you die, if the value of your estate exceeds the wealth tax barrier, then it is deducted from your beneficiary’s inheritance. Surely fairer than expecting people to fund a tax out of their pension when, through no fault of their own, indeed, through the actions of their neighbours, the value of their home exceeds a certain level?

No, I have no idea where the chairs ended up – probably in some Banker’s boardroom, being sat on by the great and the good, discussing the pain others must go through on their behalf; the mirror she left me still hangs in my bathroom, I comb my hair in it every morning and think of her. What would I say if someone suggested I sell it to pay a new tax? I wouldn’t dare tell you; Lilian might be listening – she didn’t approve of bad language.

Lew September 27, 2012 at 20:39

God i hate champagne socialists, the likes of bloody Clegg and the other
mouths, encouraging a brainwashed ignorant greedy and envious proletariat to
despise those who worked hard and didn’t piss it up the wall…don’t mind real
genuine haven’t got two ha’pennies to scratch me arse socialists, its the well
heeled hypocrits that gall.

This is all leading one way, and that is for those good folk who are not
considered productive comrades by The Party apparatchiks to be allocated
sufficient space as befits their needs in due course.

Older more genteel folk are not part of this new bolshevik utopia sought by
the current three main parties that are one, they will be encouraged and
eventually forced to vacate the homes that they own, for their occupation is
not efficient or condusive to the new mantra of ‘entitlement despite no
effort’, goodness me think how many multi child families of umpteen different
fathers and not a breadwinner among them could be housed in more keeping
should a no longer useful retired person leave the substantial home.

This mansion tax idea is simply a frightener/persuader, urged along with
the propaganda of guilt and envy….eventually things will be decided by someone
socialist and correctly qualified and a Party member to decide just how much
square footage a person of no further use…in their piggy little
eyes….needs.

Such criteria won’t apply to those who design the system, maybe they will
be allocated a complimentary Dacha recently seized from some capitalist who
simply didn’t have enough accrued Party points and thought stupidly that as
they paid for it and lived there for the last 40 years they might be entitled
to a bit of peace and quiet (those sort need to be taught a lesson and Comrade
Clegg is just the leader to do it), you might have seen a few Party members
and Commissars being wafted swiftly along the Zil lanes at the recent Olympic
bread and circuses events….those equal only slightly more so.

Ted Treen September 27, 2012 at 15:37

When one observes the general levels of contempt for, and despair of our
professional political classes, it is any wonder that they’re all so
viscerally opposed to permitting the population to have arms?

Any talk of protection and safety of the populace is cynical sophistry:-
it’s their own protection, safety and continuance they think of.

A pox and a plague on all their houses!

ivan September 27, 2012 at 15:14

Maybe there should be a change in the way those that would lord it over us
are paid or not. Anyone elected to parliament should pay to the Treasury £100
per week for the privilege of being there and receive nothing in return. If
they require payment for being there, that should be paid to them by the party
they represent. They should also collectively be responsible for any monetary
loss by the state, this should concentrate their thinking.

Another thing that should be undertaken is the reduction of the civil
service by 66% if for no other reason than as they stand they are not giving
any form of service. Oh, and the mandarins should be financially responsible
for any monetary loss in their department.

With those two in place tax should reduce to about 1p in the pound and
everyone should be happy.

The Cowboy Online
September 27, 2012 at 09:49

What no Mark Wadsworth? Isn’t the ‘old widow in a large house’ one of his
bête_noires?

right_writes September 27, 2012 at 09:06

Well I went to a talk by Eamonn Butler last night on the subject of F A
Hayek at the Adam Smith Institute… And very good it was too.

So I guess it is clear where I stand on Lib Dims and so-called wealth
taxes.

What taxes really do, is keep these useless politicians in banquets and
fact finding missions, so I think I’ll forego the chance to pay a wealth tax,
dead or alive.

john malpas September 27, 2012 at 02:08

If you are right about the coming generations welfare fondness – the
situation will resolve itself.
They willl not marry, not procreate without
profit, save nothing and just learn the appropriate Alzeimer symptoms later
when they feel the need to be looked after.
The state will have no choice
but to care for them as it does the young depressed etc nowadays.
Humans do
learn.

minktulip September 26, 2012 at 20:22

Politicians are talking about paying a “fair” amount of tax. Yet everyone
knows that, as a group, politicians spend time and energy arranging transfers
of public money to their own pockets in a way that Genghis Khan would consider
unfair. Clegg himself, under EU dispensation will not pay UK tax on his EU
pension, will not even have to declare it to UK tax collectors.
So why does
anybody listen to him? Somehow, it seems, we just cannot accept that what we
would like to be proud of-parliamentary democracy- is really this bad. Like a
devout peasant scandalised by the turpitude of a Renaissance pope, we are
looking for a reason to believe.

Ancient + Tattered
Airman September 26, 2012 at 20:16

A most moving essay, beautifully written. Thank you.

GildasTheMonk
September 26, 2012 at 21:04

Quite!

Lerxst September 26, 2012 at 18:10

I would agree with so much of this, and would oppose a French-style
inheritance tax as well. However, I would disagree with the way the article
conflates introducing taxes, taking people’s property off them, with ending
state handouts such as free bus passes or universal “winter fuel payments”
which involve taking other people’s property and giving it to pensioners
(let’s not get into TV licencing, which should be scrapped completely).

By all means have a means-tested safety net to aid pensioners, but the idea
that someone should get free transport just because they are 65, 70 or
whatever age is ridiculous. Even my own pensioner mother, who is comfortably
off but by no means wealthy, thinks it’s a joke.

JimS September 26, 2012 at 19:51

The age is 60 but creeping up in line with the state pension age for
women.

The ‘free’ bus pass is surely cost-neutral at least. An empty bus doesn’t
earn any revenue either on the road or in the garage. It has to be paid for
somehow. Empty buses means higher fares for the ‘workers’. If I had to pay
for the use of the bus I wouldn’t use it, I would take the car and I
wouldn’t drive into town.

So for a relatively trivial sum buses are kept running for the ‘workers’
during off-peak (useful for half-days, medical appointments etc), there is
less traffic on the roads and fewer cars taking up parking spaces and a
boost for town centre trade. In addition there is the social good of keeping
the retired active. Getting rid of the bus pass is just short-sighted sour
grapes ‘equal misery for all’. Without them there could be fewer buses,
fewer bus drivers, fewer mechanics, reduced trade, fewer shop assistants
etc. Yes! Spread the misery!

JuliaM September 26, 2012 at 20:16

Plus there’s the huge state apparatus that’d be needed to administer a
means-testing programme, and check the means-testers, etc.

Lerxst
September 26, 2012 at 21:13

Julia

This may sound like a dig, which it isn’t. It’s a genuine question.
If you’re opposed to means-testing, does this opposition extend to all
benefits – for example, Jobseekers Allowance (which becomes income-based
after 6 months) and income-based lone parent support – or just those
relating to pensioners? If you accept means-testing in the former cases,
why not the latter?

JuliaM September 27, 2012 at 06:27

I’m not a fan of benefits at all. I’d rather see far lower taxes
than means-testing for meagre benefits, frankly.

Lerxst
September 28, 2012 at 00:51

Well, I’d agree with you there! But if we’re going to have benefits
I’d rather they were targeted. Unfortunately, the benefit culture is
just so widespread now, with all sorts of interest groups clamouring
to stay at the taxpayer teat, including ones clearly with no need of
government support. Nevermind the pensioners, just look at the fuss
over child benefit.

Andrew September 26, 2012 at 20:30

“An empty bus doesn’t earn any revenue either on the road or in the
garage. It has to be paid for somehow.”

Yes, it can be paid for by the people that use it.

“Without them there could be fewer buses, fewer bus drivers, fewer
mechanics, reduced trade, fewer shop assistants etc. Yes! Spread the
misery!”

Who’d have thought they were only introduced in 2008?

When Gordon Brown said he saved the world maybe this is the scheme he
meant.

Lerxst
September 26, 2012 at 21:06

“Yes, it can be paid for by the people that use it.”

Absolutely. And if they can’t find a model that enables them to be
run economically, just maybe it’s because there isn’t sufficient demand.
Not running a bus costs less than running a bus that no one would use
unless they were a pensioner being given a free ride.

Of course, if there are so many people using the buses that they
actually make a difference to traffic on the roads, they won’t need the
subsidy.

binao
September 27, 2012 at 12:44

Sensible thing to do with Gordon’s everyone on welfare bus passes
and heating allowances is to consolidate them in the state pension;
then they’re tax free to the poor and 20/40/45% clawed back from the
better off. No admin costs either, so probably cheaper than means
testing.
Talking to other oldies the most common excuse for taking
these benefits despite lack of need is MP’s expenses- legitimate or
bent. That matter will be remembered for a long time.

re buses- in my own rural area huge subsidies are paid to keep
these running. Vast sums funded by developers’ s.106 contributions
(legal bribes to councils) have been gobbled up by little used
services. Volunteers do run community minibus services, but they can’t
provide scheduled bus services, nor, as a driver myself, do I think
there would be much appetite for doing so.

On Cleggy’s soak the rich policy, it’s always a good game, but
there really aren’t enough of them. He hasn’t grasped that the issue
is a spending problem rather than a lack of income.
MT once made
the point about socialists eventually running out of other peoples
money to spend- seems to be a universal habit now, unless of course
the Tories and their libdem buddies are the new socialists?

JimS September 26, 2012 at 17:31

I have long thought that Nick Clegg is the stupidest man in UK politics and
he continues to confirm that view.

What is the point of the ‘Mansion Tax’? Just envy? Put the money in art,
horses or use it to make more money and that is OK. Have it in a house and it
isn’t.

As for the latest bid for millionaire’s bus passes, well maybe most don’t
apply for them and if they do, so what, they pay tax don’t they? Bus passes
are, anyway, a useful subsidy for public transport. Without them there might
be no off-peak bus services. They help town centre shops too; no free bus,
take the car, don’t park in town.

If Nick is looking to save money and boost democracy then stop paying
‘Baroness’ Mrs. Ashton’s salary. I’m sure we are all grateful that, on our
behalf, she says that we think that an illiterate, demented, adulterous, lying
killer, who may, or may not have existed 1400 years ago is worthy of
‘respect’. http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/132512.pdf

Engineer September 26, 2012 at 17:23

If government spent half as much time working out how to alleviate the tax
burden on all of us (rich, poor and middling) as it spends trying to extort it
from us and squander it, the economy would be in a much better shape.

Barman September
26, 2012 at 18:38

Agreed!

Joe Public September 26, 2012 at 17:01

“……according to the idealistic student politics world of the Lib-dems, i…..
we should both have been forced to pay a ‘mansion tax’ based on the value of
our homes.”

Should someone tell the Lib-Dems, that in the UK we already pay a “Tax
based on the value of our homes” – it’s called Council Tax.

Mudplugger
September 26, 2012 at 17:26

I suspect all the political parties already know it and the recent
floating of the Mansion Tax idea is probably a bit of ground-preparation,
some advance softening-up, for a ‘review’ of the range of Clouncil Tax,
enabling further layers to be added at the top of the scale in the next year
or two. It could achieve all the same objectives without needing to invent a
whole new tax regime (and a parallel avoidance regime) with all its
associated admin costs.

Lilian is but one of many thousands who find themselves in that position
after a lifetime of work, taxation and contribution, finally discovering
that, in their declining years, their revenue streams struggle to maintain
their anticipated lifetsyle, yet they possess illiquid assets of
considerable worth.

It’s a tough one to solve sympathetically, especially when the last
generation or two have become accustomed to leaving substantial ‘value’ in
their estates. It may be that a culture-change is required for people to see
a each life as a a unique ‘closed capsule’ – you accumulate your own wealth
when you can, but expect to use it all later in sustaining you when you
can’t. That means no more chunky legacies for the offspring, it’s up to them
to build their own ‘capsules’. Tough love indeed.

Ted Treen September 26, 2012 at 15:46

A real story about real people, written with sympathy – no, empathy and
understanding. It should be printed out and nailed to the Clegg, Millipede,
Balls etc. foreheads with (at least) a six inch nail.

Despite their smug, arrogant complacent self esteem, you Anna, are worth a
thousand of their ilk. And your intellect & humanity is likewise a
thousand times theirs.

Engineer September 26, 2012 at 17:17

The six-inch nails would need bl**dy goods points on them to get through
something that dense.

Dave Holden
September 26, 2012 at 17:56

A good quality industrial nail gun would do the job!

Ted Treen
September 26, 2012 at 21:13

Now THERE’S a thought…

Bunny September 27, 2012 at 17:42

Self tapping screws with hardened tips

GildasTheMonk
September 26, 2012 at 15:09

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh

Anna
Raccoon September 26, 2012 at
15:17

It may be an indelicate question, O Monk, but are you, er, well, er, it’s
just that the sound effects, you know…..?

GildasTheMonk
September 26, 2012 at 15:40

Sorry! swooning at the story and the writing.

davemcwish
September 26, 2012 at 16:43

I think it’s spelled ‘awwwwww’, anyway I digress.

The problem with taxation isn’t just with the Lib Dems or the other
two parties, it’s all of us. We all want more things from the state but
expect someone else to fund; in the case you’ve highlighted, the Lib
Dems are just advocating a dog-whistle policy of envy without any real
thought. It’s not a suprise that until the 2010 election they targetted
the young, idealistic student vote.

Barman September 26, 2012 at 17:35

** We all want more things from the state but expect someone else
to fund **

Speak for yourself – I’d like the state to do far, far less….

JuliaM September 26, 2012 at 17:41

I can only echo Barman’s comment – we don’t have enough money for
the state to continue doing the things it does? Oh dear, what a shame,
never mind.

Single Acts of
Tyranny September 26, 2012 at
20:55

Similarly, I would wish from the state, only it’s own letter of
resignation and disappearance into the pages of history.

GildasTheMonk September 26, 2012 at 21:05

That’s me told twice over!

Lerxst
September 26, 2012 at 21:16

What Barman said! Twice over.