18 December (Part 2) - Suckered
Somewhere in the back of my mind I had the idea that the GLA Council Tax precept for 2021/22
is going to rise by 21% and then this morning I spotted the comment (below) from Sir Kneel Starmer.
He very easily gets up my nose and was complaining that Council Tax is to be allowed to rise by 5%
next year. The word hypocrite sprang to mind as I compared it to Khan’s projected 21%. A
fair amount of Googling ensued as I planned a critical blog, but where did the
21% come from, the Daily Mail or some such rag?
Google was not my friend. It found only a selection of
PDF files about a GLA budget consultation going on now and every likely figure for a tax increase
I could found was in the region of 2%. I began to suspect that my limited
knowledge of accountancy was causing the 21% to be hidden from sight.
But eventually Google got me to the bottom of the conundrum. The 21% comes
from a spoof leaflet put out by Conservative Mayoral candidate hopeful Shaun
Bailey. If he is prepared to make things up to scare voters including me it
becomes a case of hopeless rather than hopeful.
It is a disgraceful thing to do and I do not like being suckered. So that’s two
candidates I cannot vote for should there ever be another election.
Incidentally, Robert Jenrick’s claim that Council Tax is now cheaper in real terms than it was
in 2010 is pretty much correct for Bexley. The Bank of England
inflation calculator does not yet extend to 2020 but the figures suggest that
the 2020/21 tax rate in Bexley is about £100 to the good over the past ten years
at Band D. All of that is just about to fly out of the window!