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It’s all too taxing

Why is it that to appear to be clever and knowledgeable, politicians often take something that has worked perfectly well for years and then change it?

Usually these so-called improvements don’t actually improve things at all.

Take, for example, the changes that have been made to road tax on cars.

Before, it was quite simple. You taxed your car and if and when you sold it your could either claim a refund on the road tax remaining or let it pass on to the person who bought your car.

But the point here is the fact that these decisions were up to you.

Now, the ‘so-called clever person’ has changed all this. You cannot now let the road tax pass on to the new owner. This then entails more work in claiming your tax back. And furthermore there is the problem with getting you new purchase back to your home as it is not taxed.

Who on earth dreamt up this stupid system? Furthermore why weren’t the disadvantages of this system pointed out before putting it into practice? I would imagine that the changes have necessitated more personnel to run this new system, which in turn means more government money spent unnecessarily. This at a time when we are supposed to be trying to make everything more efficient.

Why then do they not put the road tax onto the cost of fuel? This would obviate the vast number of civil servants on highly-inflated salaries sucking up vast sums of cash. Get rid of ‘em.

Plus it would obviate the need to chase people up who haven’t purchased ‘road tax’.

It seems simple to me. Perhaps that’s why it hasn’t been done? It’s too simple, it would work and in the long run actually save money.

But, oh no, we can’t have that. These MPs think they always know better. That’s why the country is in the god awful mess it’s in today.

David Collins, Blake Crescent, Swindon

Wild accusations

With regard to Martin Webb’s letter ‘Ridiculed or demonised’ (SA, August 8), I did not condemn the Iranian authorities for their human rights abuses as he claims. Neither did I condone them.

I quoted from reliable sources verbatim. How can you build an argument on what was not said? He accuses me of ‘ridiculing’ Iranian migrants.

My ‘insulting’ paragraph: “Middle-class Iranian migrants (not refugees) who have no right to be here in the first place seek a better life in the UK. Other migrants pretend to be persecuted Christians or homosexuals to strengthen their asylum applications. One Iranian, interviewed by Panorama, in Calais, explained the reason for travelling across safe countries (where they should have first claimed asylum!) to reach soft-touch Britain. I quote: ‘”My friend reached England from here in a boat (illegally) and is now living in a three-bedroomed flat in Birmingham. He likes it very much’.”

It seems Mr Webb’s definition of ‘ridicule’ differs from the standard Oxford dictionary’s!

Are the above quoted examples ones you would class typical migrants fleeing persecution, Mr Webb? I suspect so.

Typically, he quotes no further examples, just wild accusations.

Martin Webb is unable to differentiate between refugees and economic migrants, which is odd coming from a man who frequently purports to be concerned about them.

Not once have I seen any of his letters condemning Christian persecution throughout the globe. A man never contented until our tiny overcrowded island is saturated with mosques and Sharia law implemented.

Jeff Adams, Bloomsbury