Council Tax

Mark Wadsworth — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 21:06:26 +0000

... is the most hated tax, possibly vying with Inheritance Tax, or even the BBC licence fee. All taxes that I will roll into Land Value Tax on the day I become Chancellor. And people will hate Land Value Tax just as much as what it replaces. We have a long uphill education thingy ahead, dear Jock.

Do you realise your captcha seems to be case sensitive?

I didn't say how much hope!

Jock — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:15:02 +0000

I didn't say how much hope!

Dave's speech

James Graham — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:00:59 +0000

... it wasn't.

Cameron's vacuous localism

Jock — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:56:42 +0000

So, we're going to get to hear later today what Dave means by "localism":

BBC NEWS | Politics | Tories offer votes on council tax:

Councils should hold referendums if they want to bring in "high" council tax increases, Tory leader David Cameron is due to say. If people voted against a rise, they would get a rebate the following year, he will add in a speech in east London. This would replace the current system of central government "capping" bills in England and Wales...Mr Cameron is expected to say he wants to improve "democratic accountability".

Under the plan, there would be a "trigger threshold", above which councils would have to hold a referendum. In England this would be set by Parliament, with the Welsh National Assembly deciding the level for Wales. Bills sent out to households would ask whether they supported any "excessive" increase, with a referendum form attached. In his speech in east London, Mr Cameron will say: "All politicians in opposition talk about giving more power to local councils. But all governments seem to end up centralising power.

Right - so how are we going to reverse that, I wonder? Oh yes, we'll decide at Westminster what's excessive and force local government to hold a referendum. Like that's decentralizing? Not only that, but a post hoc referendum which will, it appears, do nothing to tell a local authority what it ought and ought not to be spending money on, and after the budget is set.

It seems to me that this is a man making a bid for power on behalf of his party. Power which, in this country, will allow him more or less to do as he pleases with local government. And yet not only is he not making any visible attempt actually to do something about what he describes as and the Taxpayers' Alliance found in summer polling to be the most hated tax, but he's taking the current system and adding another layer of Westminster control over it.

Dave, it's this simple - you cannot make local government more accountable without making it raise more of its own money. The very fact that your Westminster cronies set the levels of central funding that goes to councils means that council up and down the country have to make up for shortfalls with disproportionate council tax changes. If you want to set them, and local people, free, you need to trust them to raise their money and trust local people to boot them out of power at local elections on the whole of their record.

This has got to be one of the most inept, unimaginative, populist policy pronouncements yet from Dave, displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of something he has repeatedly said is at the centre of Tory policy - localism. I do hope the speech is better than the press release.

Jock's Place - Cameron's vacuous localism - Comments

Council Tax

I didn't say how much hope!

Dave's speech

Cameron's vacuous localism