Author Archives: Ben Rayment

Ben Rayment is a second year international relations student with a keen interest on the United Kingdom after Brexit.

A liberal approach to corporation tax reform

By Ben Rayment | Mon 11th February 2019 - 8:06 am

As the values of liberalism direct us towards what David Laws highlighted as the four pillars of liberalism – social, political, economic and individual, we must identify a fine balance between all four. The application of tax reform, of all kinds, must be utilised as a means to desirable ends. Here, we must also look to the reasoning of taxation, of which there are two prominent reasons; to collect money to fund social programmes and to discourage certain behaviours. The discouragement of actions by taxes is, of course, an uncomfortable idea, for why is the government so moral as to …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tax reform | 15 Comments

Foreign aid in a post-Brexit world

By Ben Rayment | Mon 13th November 2017 - 12:45 pm

With the recent forced resignation of Priti Patel from the Department For International Development, it is time to develop the Liberal Democrats’ foreign policy in a post-Brexit Britain. It is time for the Liberal Democrats to call for a more liberal approach to the world and we should do this by following Patel’s good work on ‘trade for aid’, promoting workers’ rights and promoting freer and fairer trade.

Ms Patel started to transform what the foreign aid budget was used for, yet with her forced resignation, the Liberal Democrats must surely take up this gauntlet to champion further reforms in the …