Tax is not bad – it’s how we afford and build a better, fairer society

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People of ‘pensionable age’ should continue to make payments towards the cost of the health service (Getty)

When looking at how to fund social care and the NHS we should remember that our economy is built upon the low tax, low public services philosophy of Thatcherism that abandoned manufacturing and trade in favour of the casino economy of speculators and the right-wing view that tax is bad and must be cut. Tax is not bad, it’s how we afford and build a better, fairer society.

Thatcherism was a radical departure from a more inclusive and caring, but in no way faultless, post-war philosophy that started in 1948 with the foundation of the NHS by Labour, which was vehemently opposed at the time by Conservatives, who have never really embraced it.

It has left us with an economy where many businesses rely on the state subsidising workers’ wages through universal credit that enables owners and shareholders to pay themselves excessive salaries and dividends, often untaxed. And it’s not just multinationals; small businesses are established with plans based on paying workers less than they need to live, leaving the state to pick up the tab. This must be wrong, if not downright immoral.