International

People are annoyed that their energy bills are rising and that they are being chased up to pay the costs of the range of climate change measures which have to be taken. For this reason the SP has proposed an alternative, fairer source of the necessary finance: the major corporations, responsible for 80% of pollution, should pay more tax. Many have spoken about this, but the SP has put forward a concrete proposal, one which we have subjected to analysis by the independent environmental service CE Delft. What does this show? Even a minimal tax on the polluters would mean that 70% of the Dutch population, people on low or middle incomes, would gain.

This year we celebrate the fact that one hundred years ago the Dutch government introduced universal suffrage, giving all citizens officially an equal political voice. In comparison, a hundred years before that only a handful of rich men elected the parliament and the vast majority of the population had no say over the running of the country. “We want the vote – or revolution” was the slogan of the movement for a broader franchise.