It is a sad truth that politics and, therefore, politicians are necessary. There just are some decisions that have to be made collectively — by the nation as a whole.
Democracy is the least bad way, in Churchill's words, of organising that decision making, and so, politicians and their wage bills are a necessary evil.
However, precisely how those politicians are paid also matters.
Gifting them special economic privileges which they can then rent to others is an inefficient way of doing this – medieval Europe was full of monopolies granted to favourites and ministers as payment for their work and it really didn't work out well. Similarly, medieval Russia used to insist that officials pay themselves from the benefits of their offices – this also didn't work out well. The incentive was, obviously enough, to maximise the income of the office while minimising the amount delivered to the centre. A high taxation but also low revenue state just isn't a good idea: you get all the problems and disincentives with none of the potential benefits.
It's also true that we don't ever want to hide what the politicians are being paid. They're a cost to us and we deserve to know, publicly and clearly, what that cost is. For that's the way for us to be able to determine whether they're worth it to us.
This is an important consideration as we trudge to the voting booths. But, obviously enough, it’s also a good incentive for politics to want to pay itself on the side and not in a clear and transparent manner that we can all see.
It is with these basic principles in mind that we can evaluate the recent decision that, once during their term in office, each MP may import a vehicle, duty free.
No. Just no.
The benefit is of some unknowable amount, for it depends upon which vehicle, at what cost, is imported.
Duties do vary by the price of the vehicle after all. Quite why one politician should gain a greater tax break because they want a Land Cruiser rather than a Mini is not obvious. The benefit is also hidden, in that while we may all know of it, it is neither immediately obvious nor transparent.
It's also possible to complain about this on the grounds of privilege. The real meaning of which is “private law.” If we are to be a proper democracy, a free country with the rule of law, then the most crucial part is that all are subject to exactly the same laws. That's what “rule of law” really means. If it's illegal then it's illegal for all, if it's legal then equally so, we all enjoy that right.
Who you are makes no difference to how the law bites upon your actions and desires. This is that concept of equality before the law. Clearly, having different laws for legislators is the introduction of privilege. We're against it on these moral grounds.
Now it could be said that being an MP requires the use of a vehicle. Constituencies are large, travel around them is desirable and so on. So, why make a politician pay extra (by extra, I mean those import duties) for what is necessary for the work to be done?
Because that same argument can be made for many other jobs too.
A salesman travelling the country needs transport. So do doctors doing their rounds, researchers going to their places of research, and so on through a myriad of occupations. A farmer needs to get to market, a union official to workers' meetings and on. It's not obvious that there is anything more special about the politicians' needs than any of these others.
In fact, one could argue that we should deliberately being working this the other way around. Perhaps we do want privilege in certain sectors – doctors say – but one hard and fast rule should be that politicians never gain them. Because we don't want to exempt politicians from the rules they impose on the rest of us.
If import duties mean that people can't do their jobs properly then we should not be having import duties. Forcing politicians to pay them would bring this point home to them in a manner that their exemption from them does not. Instead of freeing politicians from their own regulations, we must insist that they, above all, must be subject to every single last line, jot, tittle and comma of them. We must insist they live absolutely as they decree others must.
There's a story about Margaret Thatcher when she was Prime Minister. The census was due so she sat down one night with the draft census form to fill it in as a test. The next morning that census form was simplified and an awful lot of highly intrusive questions dropped. For the hunger of the bureaucrats to know everything was over-ridden by the politician who actually subjected herself to their rules.
We should do more of this. Far from freeing MPs from import duties on cars we must insist that they have to obey every tax, regulatory and bureaucratic rule they've devised. Also, that they must do this themselves, with no aides or outside help.
We'd be pleasantly surprised how much easier life would become for the rest of us if this were done. So, we should do it, right?
Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.
