However, I just loved the timing of the SNP postcard and its message that was going out over the weekend.
What the SNP tell you:
We have frozen Council Tax.
What they failed to mention:
At the same time we are asking you local council to do more and more. Provide access to a full time nursery teacher for all nursery child. Provide free school meals to every child in primaries 1-3. We've also appointed Ebenezer Swinney in charge of Holyrood's budget and he's not going to give you sufficient additional funding to pay for all this if any.
What the SNP tell you:
We will axe the council tax altogether.
What they fail to mention:
They want to do away with a local councils ability to raise their own finances, replacing it with a National Income Tax. They want to centralise all power at the centre, in their case Holyrood, in ways that surpass anything birthday girl Baroness Thatcher or NuLabour would have dreamed of. They want more power for Scotland but they don't want your council to maintain the power's it has had to best serve you on the ground for key local services.
Considering that just before the weekend COSLA was meeting due to the majority of councils realising that the concordat they were suckered into is being stretched beyond all limits by additional spending powers being heaped upon them by the Scottish Government, the timing of these messages must backfire. People will be seeing just that the Nats are saying, know exactly just what it ends up doing and doesn't lead to a lot of trust in what they will end up promising over the coming weeks.
Meanwhile on the Labour side as I navigated the Forth, Clyde, Tay, Tweed and Don and surrounding streets I did see my first signs, a handful admittedly, of Labour support. But just how can Lindsay Roy be a new voice for Buckhaven or Fife? Surely he is only a different person declaring the same tired, old, increasingly redundant Labour message? It's like John McCain advocating change hardly a new voice, just a different one singing from the same stained hymn sheet.
At the same time we are asking you local council to do more and more. Provide access to a full time nursery teacher for all nursery child. Provide free school meals to every child in primaries 1-3. We've also appointed Ebenezer Swinney in charge of Holyrood's budget and he's not going to give you sufficient additional funding to pay for all this if any.
ReplyDeleteHow high does council tax need to go, considering a massive £3 Billion increase from central government this year?
The Truth, The Half Truth, The Spun Lib Dems Part?
bsh that depends on what extra costs the Scottish Government is intent on putting unto the local authorities surely. The fact that is hasn't increased from 2007 level and will not be doing so until 2011 is a fact of the concordat.
ReplyDeleteThe Lib Dems have always said that the level of location taxation should be maintained locally as they are aware of their individual budgets. All the recent revelations of the SNP adding more and more to the expenditure side while maintaining a freeze on the income side shows even more why those links are essential.
I agree entirely with the sentiment of devolving taxes locally, but looking at the council tax trends over the past ten years as property prices have boomed, so have council tax revenues (as houses moved up the scale).
ReplyDeleteLikely, if the councils had been slightly less greedy and prudent none of them would have funding problems at this moment in time (unless they put all the money into Icelandic banks of course, but that aside!)
Precisely the reason for scrapping a local tax based on propery values, as said values are outwith the remit for measuring inflation.
ReplyDeleteA locally set, local income tax is the way to go not a National Income Tax set centrally to be returned to the local councils as the centre sees fit.