28 September (Part 1) - Where’s the money gone?
There
is one part of Teresa O’Neill’s propaganda sheet that is almost true. The bit
about Council Tax. Not absolutely true of course, that would be asking too much.
Teresa’s claim that “Bexley’s Conservatives have frozen your Council Tax Bill for
three years in a row” is another of her lies. Only a little one this time, for the
increase three years ago was quite small. On the other hand the last time Labour
was in charge of Bexley, taxes indisputably shot up by 40%. That’s what Labour
does but the occasional reminder is not out of place.
When I was buying my first house along came Harold Wilson to devalue the pound
in my pocket and Denis Healey had to bring in the International Monetary Fund.
When I was raising two children Jim Callaghan set the scene for a 27% inflation
rate. I recall buying Christmas presents in May because I might not be
able to afford them in December and more recently along came Blair and Brown to
wreck my pension and savings. Ed Miliband may show signs of having learned the
lesson but I’m not so sure of his cronies. So Labour in Bexley robbed you
rotten; where’s the money gone? The Tories are still raking in that 40% extra every year.
My guess is that the borough got so ‘fat’ spending it, it just cannot slim
down, it enjoys spending our money and doesn’t want to set the clock back.
Will Tuckley’s salary comes to mind as a prime example of wanton extravagance.
Inflation in recent years has hovered around the 3% mark which is what the
Government’s inducement to councils to freeze the tax rates has been each year, so covering
inflation has been largely taken care of by government. Has the cut back in the
grant really been as much as 40% to justify hanging on to Labour levels of
taxation? Why the need to cut £35m. from services to maintain the status quo on tax?
Yesterday I got hold of a copy of the 2011/12 Accounts. Maybe after I have waded
through it I will understand better why Bexley’s Conservatives are taxing us
even more than Labour did in 2006. Once upon a time Bexley council had the third
lowest tax level in London. Now it is
close to highest.
