On 22 March 1922 Hopkinson wrote to "The Times" to suggest that ballot papers include a box in which voters could express their disapproval of all the candidates on offer. He was by now of this opinion himself: the previous month, he stopped receiving the Coalition Liberal whip, which he explained, his friends in the Liberal Party had been sending him by courtesy but which he had never considered binding. He strongly criticised as "humbug" the 1922 budget which reduced income tax without any corresponding reduction in government spending.