Patrick Hennessy (Extracted from "Government to tax the view from your house", Sunday Telegraph, 6 November 2005)

"Having a nice view or living next door to a golf course are going to cost householders more in council tax under Labour plans. Taxpayers are set to be charged hundreds of pounds extra a year if they are in a conservation area, next to an open space, have a swimming pool or tennis court or enjoy full or partial views of the sea, hills, mountains, lakes or rivers."

[Ed: When the sun is low on a cloudless evening, the Georgian houses and buildings on the hills opposite my house start to glow with a beautiful golden sheen -- due no doubt to some of the trillions of microscopic seashells within the Bathstone which redirect the sun's rays to our eyes. For this, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now wants to charge my partner and me extra tax -- never mind that we have already paid a premium for the view when we bought the house. He is getting desperate now. He has been giving out subsidies and creating almost a million public service jobs in the last eight years. But still the rich have become richer and the poor poorer and the country now follows Japan, America and the Western European countries into deep government deficit. Gordon Brown and most economists still don't understand that something significant started happening to the conveyor belt of consumer goods in the 1980-90s period, average wages have declined everywhere since then, and the governments of developed countries are now approaching the limit of their ability to tax.]