Douglas Mason

In 1989, before the handover of Hong Kong to China, Mason proposed the creation of a 'New Hong Kong', located off the west coast of Scotland, in which Hong Kong Chinese holding British passports would be able to settle. The idea was ridiculed by George Galloway, then Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, as 'bizarre and unbelievable'.

In 1989, he collapsed outside the House of Commons. 1990 he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and his prognosis was "months, not years". It was also during this time that Mason fell out publicly with the Scottish Conservatives, when Lord Sanderson of Bowden succeeded Michael Forsyth as Scottish party chairman, forcing Forsyth appointees out of Scottish Central Office. Mason resigned from the party, accusing Sanderson of "behaving like a Victorian mill owner". He nevertheless continued to lead an active life, travelling and lecturing, until his death in December 2004.

Mason argued that it was unfair for 13 million householders to finance council services which benefited 40 million. If all voters had to pay for local spending, it would act as a natural cap to council extravagance. This accountability appealed to Thatcher, who adopted Mason's 1985 report Revising the Rating System as her Government's policy.

He did his most influential work for Adam Smith Institute, run by fellow St Andrews alumni Dr Madsen Pirie and Eamonn Butler who founded the institute in 1977. Mason became one of its regular authors. In 1982, he led the Adam Smith Institute's "Omega Project" report on Local Government Policy. There he argued for the compulsory contracting-out of most local services such as refuse collection, proposed scrapping the existing local-government tax, in favour of a per-capita charge. Other policy recommendations included the privatisation of the Royal Mail The Last Post (1991); the privatisation of free British reading Ex Libris (1986); the privatisation of the Forestry Commission the complete removal of arts subsidies Expounding The Arts (1987), abolition of restrictions on drinking Time To Call Time (1986), and ending free reading in public libraries Ex Libris (1986).

Following his graduation from university, Mason settled in Glenrothes in the 1960s. Mason became a constituency agent for the Conservative Party, and he served on Fife County Council from 1967 to 1970 and on Kirkcaldy District Council from 1974 to 1988. In the 1983 general election, he stood unsuccessfully as Conservative candidate for Central Fife, a safe labour seat.

Douglas Calder Mason (30 September 1941 – 13 December 2004) was a Scottish policymaker, writer and antiquarian bookseller. He came to be known as the "father of the poll tax".