"Vote for higher income tax, much fairer system, and get cheaper fuel. Vote for low income tax, unfairer system, and get high priced fuel. The tax for all those things the state is expected to provide, health service, schools,police, army, planes,ships,..etc etc.. has to be gathered. Brits vote for low income tax everytime....so the fat cats pay less and the poor cats pay more through indirect taxes."

Seems reasonable, but that is not the way it would work in practice. One thing to remember. What the "state" provides with the revenue it collects has a cost that never decreases, never remains constant, it only ever increases.

Take the proposal outlined in the first sentence. The assumption that such a system would produce cheaper fuel prices is based on what exactly? In Norway a country with a strong "social" conscience, they do vote for higher taxes, or at least they do not complain when they are imposed, their tax system is judged by many to be extremely fair, their fuel prices are roughly the same as those in the UK, although Norway exports far more than the UK.

The "fair" system proposed by Harvey, is judged to fair by whom? Make it too stringent and the money moves out of reach. With that movement of money, follows people and jobs - is the country better off? - is it in a position to gather increased tax revenue to provide the services required? - No it is not, it's in far worse shape but the costs remain and the burden of tax on the poor is likely to increase. By the bye, everyone pays indirect taxes, rich and poor, each according to their needs, or budgets. The fact that there are always more "poor cats" than "fat cats" automatically means that the bulk of the revenue derived from indirect taxes always comes from the majority, i.e. the poor cats - there's more of them.

High taxes tend to act as a brake on incentive, low taxes mean that there is always more money in circulation, there is more being spent, therefore, it is better for the economy as a whole, and the government gets it's revenue in indirect taxation. But while it is doing that jobs are created and more people are earning.

Now Harvey, if I remember correctly, lives in France. A lot of people who work in the same industry as myself, also lifted and shifted to France in the 1970's and 1980's. They did not intend to work in France, they intended to work outside metropolitan France. The advantage being that if they worked more than 180 days outside France, they were only liable for their local taxes not national tax, they seemed to thrive on it, all the advantages of the French funded social system - but paying the absolute minimum towards it's costs.