Until this week I had accepted without question our country's relatively high rate of VAT as an inevitable part of the coalition government's vital drive to get on top of our shocking, and still spiralling, national debt. That was before I had listened to the case for a lower rate specifically for accommodation as argued by the British Hospitality Association (BHA).
Most other countries in Europe have a lower rate of tax than we do on accommodation. This means we are comparatively expensive and therefore less competitive. A lower rate for hotels and other lodging here would enable prices to fall and we could then attract more customers, doing more business with our suppliers and employing more staff along the way. This is a "win win" for the economy and would get us closer to achieving the Prime Minister's ambition to see the UK move up the ranking as a tourist destination and close the gap between what foreign visitors spend here and what we spend abroad. Critically, it would almost certainly increase the amount of tax collected from the hospitality industry whilst getting unemployed young people into work.
I support our government's deficit reduction programme and hope ministers can be persuaded that a lower rate of VAT on accommodation would actually help us all.
So, the British public have kicked the Alternative Vote proposal into the long grass. We can now look forward to elections continuing to be based on 'one person one vote' and whoever gets the most votes in any constituency wins. As an meercat puppet advertising insurance might say, "simples!"
But it isn't just politicians who rely on votes for their trade. Hotel consortia like Pride of Britain are really clubs, with the members (the owners and managers of the hotels in the collection) entrusted with the job of voting for or against the admission of new members with the single aim of preserving the integrity of the brand, or club. We use this system every time a hotel gets past our inspectors and is therefore deemed worthy to be recommended to all members in a ballot.
At first I found the whole palava rather frustrating, it went against my earlier experience in a profit-driven business where getting customers was always the top priority. But as time has gone by I have come to value this element of democracy more and more. What better guarantee of quality could be invented? And as the consortium evolves so do the factors that our members think about when deciding how to vote.
So far this year I have turned away a small fortune in fees from potential member hotels and sponsorship - at least enough to pay for two weeks in the Goring's Royal Suite - all because we observe this democratic approach. We may not grow the consortium very quickly like this, but everyone who gets in knows they have satisfied the hardest critics of all.