Politics and principles
Sit: With all due respect to your view's ' on the speculative reclamation and other land* dealing activities 'undertaken by members of Harold Wilson's staff, surely the whole point is not its legitimacy and usefulness, but the unacceptable hypocrisy and ignorance
of property on the part of those who attacked the rather more worthy activity of development investment and management sides as obscene and deserving of extra special taxation plus an imposed freeze of rental incomes; :solely in order to gain votes for a party -whose leader and personal staff are alleged to be.tnixed up in the game in a dodgy sort of a way themselves.
When purchase and sale of land and waste areas revolve around the chances of planning permission and who is going to get it, and taking a chance on the political hazards involved, then naturally the rewards may well be high for those who are both lucky and successful; they are, however, taxable in the normal manner. But when those risks are considerably reduced on account of the operation being conducted by people with extra special political pull, the matter is very different, and the activities of Wilson's staff and indeed others now being complained about by a Labour MP are open to criticism.
It is to be hoped however that the quite unfair scapegoat treatment of the whole property investment scene be now recognised for what is, what it has been, ie sheer humbug, and that the various politicians, popular news media and industrialists (who should have known better) will now realise they would do well to cease their sniping at legitimate private enterprise.
D. M. G. Pilleau Oak Tree House, Old Green Lane, Camberley, Surrey
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