HOW TO MAKE BRITAIN LESS CRAP

Five zero-net-cost measures that could be implemented at once:

• Increase vehicle tax to £500 a year and use the income to take rail fares down to Italian levels
• Integrate rail and bus service timetables
• Legislate to make the companies that own pubs allow their tenants and landlords to buy them at market rate as a right
• Legislate to allow private tenants the right to buy, with the same discounts allowed council tenants, paid for by a tax on landlords who provide substandard accommodation (which of course requires intrusive local authority inspection)
• Introduce a new zero-business-rates regime for bookshops, butchers, grocers, fishmongers, ironmongers and hobby shops in town and city centres paid for by increased business rates on out-of-town shopping complexes.

All right, none of it will happen, but ...