Dear Editor,

It is my sincere wish for Mr Wignall to develop some objectivity in his weekly columns.

I refer specifically to his stance on the alcohol tax issues and his stout defence of Red Stripe versus tonic wines and J Wray and Nephew in his column on December 23.

Mr Wignall has complained about the tax “loophole” on tonic wines, but it is my understanding that this has now been fixed and has not been part of any “flip-flopping” on the government’s part.

What the government has instead sought to do is to revise the specific tax on beer so that there is no “financial windfall” for any company, as the original specific rate of $960 announced December 1 was such that it allowed Red Stripe to collect and pay less tax per case than before.

In these difficult economic times when we are all being asked to pay more, how can Red Stripe be asked to pay less and why is Mr Wignall not acknowledging this?

If it took Wray and Nephew hauling the prime minister out of his bed on a Saturday to wake Mr Shaw up to the fact that his taxation policy on alcohol was erroneous, then I say well done! Not to mention that their efforts seemed to pave the way for good sense to prevail in the taxation of the hotel industry.

This lack of objectivity reminds me of Mr Wignall’s blind stance taken in the months preceding the Olint fiasco. At that time he was a staunch advocate of the now failed alternate investment scheme, defending and promoting David Smith in his columns right up until the alleged fraud was uncovered. Since then, we have not heard a peep out of him on the matter and this must certainly serve to damage his credibility in his readers’ eyes.

He runs the risk of similarly damaging his reputation with his stance here, as there are many “loopholes” in his own argument.

Please, Mr Wignall, let’s have some objectivity for 2011.

Walter Spence

Kingston

wagspence@gmail.com