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  Most of our continental neighbours that are quoted by the likes of DC etc as models for this or that have higher general income tax rates than we do, they also have much higher social taxes on employment (paid by employers).
  
  Their education systems are generally regarded much more highly than ours is, partly due to greater funding and partly due to different social attitudes to education, How can they put more funding in? because on the whole they do not fund healthcare out of tax revenues to the same extent as the UK but rely on health insurance to pay the cost of treatment (funded generally by employers as part of the employees benefit package, most employees top this up so they get 100% cover), they also generally have much lower levels of defence spending per capita than we do, as with the exception of the French, they do not believe they are world players...
  
  I agree with Barry that the way out of poverty is education and work, not benefits.
  
  I also agree that we need to look beyond peoples "rights" and start to emphasise responsibilities and duties as the flip side of "rights".
  
  However I disagree with Barry in so far as I believe that taxation should be progressive and based on ability to pay, balanced against the potential disincentive when it passes a certain point. There is a world of difference between a self employed individual/general partner/owner director earning a large income from success and an employee or director of a public company earning a similar income and I do believe there should be a different tax regime for the former to incentivise enterprise.

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