From Mr Rory Knight Bruce Sir: Rachel Johnson's remarkable restraint
in writing about death duties is, in part I suspect, because she has not yet had to pay them. Her highlighting of John Major's deal to absolve the Queen of the burden wrongly faced by millions of hard-working subjects serves to highlight its arbitrary injustice.
What the war did not ruin, lawyers and death duties did their best to undo, particularly in the English countryside. It is a miracle if any reasonably sized landowner has any time for voluntary community work while pondering the misery and proportion of his inheritance that will be stolen by the government on his death.
While the Conservative party is casting around Europe for good examples in health, crime prevention and transport, they could do worse than examine family values and the work ethic in the majority of countries where death duties do not apply — and pledge their abolition forthwith.
Rory Knight Bruce
Crediton, Devon
Previous page
