Local Elections - 3rd of May 2012

[beanzontoast]

Hi straight talking, the police and fire departments, DONT have tax raising ability, only National governments Have that both fire and police can only go cap in hand to the local council for extra money, they are none the less powerful, ie they know your registration number so ( this is hyperthetical ) if you where caught drunk driving well, but realistically both departments depend on gov money which is yes you guessed it TAX PAYERS, they will always want more they will always be wedded to the Labour Party, god forbid someone says to them no more.

[beanzontoast]

Vincent,  It has always been this way i have mentioned it before, Police and fire debts always want more, i know i have been there, when they turn up at council meetings, they only turn up for more resourses, they are intimidating, many councillors disagree with their demands, but a Labour controlled council will always agree. Tke the fire brigade as an example, Labour got booted out at the last election, the fire brigade were going on strike for more pay and no change in their work patterns, they called it off because the newspapers published data which said many were running buisinesse`s, one an undertakers, some were living abroad ( you heard it right ) and were flying in to London start their shift, life was so good it could only be dreamed of, but of course they only vote Labour because those nasty U.K.I.P. or tory`s would stop it all.

[beanzontoast]

Mark`s GOT IT, simple isn`t it  I would like to expand on this i propose people who have paid in through work in the national insurance stamp, for 45 years ( they have retired ) dont pay council tax, tv licence, and should they need care they dont have to sell their homes to get it, What an incentive, what a change, for the better you decide.

[beanzontoast]

POLITICS IS WAR WITHOUT BLOODSHED, WAR IS POLITICS WITH BLOODSHED, can some of you bean counters out there tell me what is ONE of the top 6 industries for export is for Great Britain,( Clue ) David Cameron took them to china recently, Tony Blair was also similar, same as same as.

[Straight Talking]

So to make it quite simples to change a country you need a popular national party.
...... Many good people died in two world wars to give you that choice.   

Hitler was the head of a "popular national party" and in fact the world wars were not fought to give people the vote, the first one was to keep world order ie. The Rich to retain their position and the masses to accept their lot, the second was to rid the world of a fascist dictator namely Hitler.

Don't even flirt with this stuff, you might get what you wished for.

[Straight Talking]

...In his weekly article in the local rag Mayor Drummond openly stated that he would have liked to increase council tax instead of taking the "hand out" from the Gov. if  they didnt increase it....His logic being that once applied an % rise  lasts for ever.Therefore a similar rise next year cuts deeper.   Who needs friends like that. I wish I had kept the article however we give the Mail to an elderly neighbour  although I could have copied it.This was printed during the troubles with his desenting cabinet.

The issue about the Council Tax and whether to take the Governments money or not is much more complex.

Each year the Council Tax is set (if I describe it as a row of bricks in a wall) it remains part of the wall forever. What the Government has done over the last 2 years is to provide the equivalent of a 2.5% increase last year for 4 years and this year for 1 year. What that means in practice is that next year the row of bricks for this year disappears 2 years after that the row of bricks for last year disappears too.

What you end up with is a pile of bricks, not a wall.

[for fawkes sake]

Of course you could always examine the profligate way HBC spends its money rather than simply blame the Coalition for the next 2/3 years. Heaven forbid eh?

[beanzontoast]

F.F.S. Why blame anything nobody should, every five years you have a choice to vote, well for a national party, i dont know who you are or your what you believe in, but i respect you and your view ( at this time ) but there are local elections soon, u must vote

[notinshadow]

...In his weekly article in the local rag Mayor Drummond openly stated that he would have liked to increase council tax instead of taking the "hand out" from the Gov. if  they didnt increase it....His logic being that once applied an % rise  lasts for ever.Therefore a similar rise next year cuts deeper.   Who needs friends like that. I wish I had kept the article however we give the Mail to an elderly neighbour  although I could have copied it.This was printed during the troubles with his desenting cabinet.

The issue about the Council Tax and whether to take the Governments money or not is much more complex.

Each year the Council Tax is set (if I describe it as a row of bricks in a wall) it remains part of the wall forever. What the Government has done over the last 2 years is to provide the equivalent of a 2.5% increase last year for 4 years and this year for 1 year. What that means in practice is that next year the row of bricks for this year disappears 2 years after that the row of bricks for last year disappears too.

What you end up with is a pile of bricks, not a wall.





All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

[beanzontoast]

CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN WHAT IS REFERED TO AS  A ( RED FLAG OPERATION )

[The Shadow]

The arguement that freezing CT for 2 years will mean we have a shortfall after the freeze and will need to double the increase to catch up simply doesn't work. That is a lazy, lazy tax grabbing socialist way of looking at things.

Despite 'all these savage cuts' HBC managed to achieve a £4m underspend last year (roughly the same amount the year before too). A £2.5% increase in CT equates to a smidgen over £1m right?
Then we take public sector pay freeze, reduction in managers and other outgoings so we don't need to increase CT to cover those inflated costs.

Could someone explain to me exactly why we NEED to increase CT after the government grant ends?

[Straight Talking]

Shadow I think your taking the p, but I will again try to explain.

Beanzontoast can also be flippant but I think may come to realise like others when it is too lat.

The wall analogy is actually quite a good one.

In 5 years time the last 5 years bricks will have gone, which means those years above the gap will fall if not maintained by increases locally. At best it means that in a real sense the Council will be trying to deliver services to a population that is increasingly elderly and at the same time dealing with family breakdown due mainly to poverty amongst our younger population, all this will have to be done on finances equal to or less than they had in 2010.

[Straight Talking]

Hi straight talking, the police and fire departments, DONT have tax raising ability, only National governments Have that both fire and police can only go cap in hand to the local council for extra money, they are none the less powerful, ie they know your registration number so ( this is hyperthetical ) if you where caught drunk driving well, but realistically both departments depend on gov money which is yes you guessed it TAX PAYERS, they will always want more they will always be wedded to the Labour Party, god forbid someone says to them no more.

Sorry but you are WRONG - Both the  Police Authority and the Fire Authority have the power to raise income via the Council Tax, they are authorities in their own right, they do not go cap in hand to the Council.  Yes they get a large slice of their income directly from Government but they also raise local monies via the Council Tax.

[notinshadow]

I don't know the answer so asking the question..

Why do councillors vote it through then?

[testing times]

If you work it out, Labour have had 25 years out of the last 50 when they had a Labour Council, a Labour MP and a Labour Government - everything they needed to improve the town's lot if the motivation and imagination was there. But here we are, still with the same high unemployment, poor health and high levels of deprivation. Why would anyone believe that a few more years of Labour will make the slightest difference?