Campaign up and running

Peter Prior launched his campaign to become the next MP for Maidenhead, in an interview with the Maidenhead Advertiser today (25 March).

In a positive interview that focused on the radical proposals of the Freedom & Responsibility party, he spoke of the idea to reduce bureaucracy and disincentives to work, by replacing swathes of micro-managed taxes and benefits with a simple Flat Tax on income and a Basic Income to provide a universal safety net. "We would take away the impediments to enterprise, encouraging employment and discouraging people to be layabouts".

The interview also provided a glimpse of other radical proposals, such as privatization of schools (made affordable for all parents by the Basic Income), and replacing the many complex, bureaucratic, ineffective and expensive interventions in the energy and environment sector with a simple tax on fossil fuels at point of production or import (spreading the costs more evenly over all energy-use, resulting in a reduction in the cost of motoring).

He spoke affectionately and ambitiously of the town in which he was born and has lived his whole life: "We are almost the most convenient place to live in the world, I think. You can get by road, rail or aeroplane to anywhere pretty quickly from Maidenhead. We’ve got that advantage. The problem is the town centre has not really reflected that."