#A06* - Government Finance Is Nothing More Than Criminal Incompetence!! (#A06*) - (G016)
IsItFair
An Independent , Nationwide Campaign Calling for the Reform of the Council Tax System. Please Visit http://www.isitfair.co.uk/
Council Tax Payers to bail out Local Authorities?
1. No, no, no!
Local authorities have more than £1bn tied up in Icelandic banks. With the fear that this money might not be returned, the Local Government Association (LGA) went running to the Treasury asking for help and protection.
It has also emerged that since September 2007, rankings by credit reference agencies should not simply be taken at face value. This was the Chancellor’s advice. However, the lure of high interest rates was too much to resist for some. To make matters worse, some of this money has been borrowed.
We have also seen the start of the ‘no blame game’. No one has done anything wrong, acted improperly or irresponsibly. Oh no. Local authorities have all followed the guidelines set down by John Prescott in 2004. How reassuring.
In total, it is estimated that local authorities have £8bn invested globally. Kent County Council alone has £163m invested. The total of all investments by public bodies globally is estimated at £30bn.
To make matters worse, it has also emerged that many local authority finance directors are baffled and confused by the money markets and have to take advice from external consultants about the investment of tax payers’ money.
2. £30bn invested globally
If local authorities have £8bn invested globally, it begs the question ‘why are they holding so much?’ This does not include council reserves of a further £11bn. These two amounts alone total £19bn which at a conservative annual interest rate of 5% generates £550m of interest income, which is nearly half of the annual increase in council tax for 2007-08.
Council tax receipts are now nearly £25bn per annum, and rising. Year after year, increases in council tax outstrip both inflation and wage increases. Yet, year after year we are told that councils are ‘cash strapped’ and threaten to cut services unless council tax goes up.
With at least £19bn in reserve or invested, councils are anything but ‘cash strapped’.
3. £25bn annual council tax
Some unnamed, so called "experts" are reported as stating that if local authorities don’t get their £1bn back then council tax payers will have to pay this again. Who are these "experts" and what right do they have to make such an assumption?
The consumption of public services is available to all, not just council tax payers. When you call the police or fire service, they don’t refuse to help you if you are not a council tax payer.
Any loss that any local authority may suffer, and it is too early to know if this will be the case, should be met by the Government. This problem is the result of local authorities following national guidelines. The Government can find £50bn to bail out the banks. Another £1bn really won’t make any difference. If the Government refuses, then there are plenty of reserves to fall back on locally, even if this means re-prioritising some spending decisions.
4. Public Finances are in "good shape"
Gordon Brown stated this in the Commons this week (w/c 20 October 2008) in order to justify his decision to spend his way out of recession. If this is really the case, then why are local authorities claiming to be "cash strapped"? These two statements are contradictory and require clarification. Local authorities have benefited from over 10 years of above inflation rises in their council tax receipts and now receive £25bn p.a.. On top of this they receive a further £10bn plus in fees and charges and continually claim to be saving millions of pounds in efficiency savings. Yet, every year, we get the same tired old message when they pass the ‘begging bowl’ round – ‘council tax must rise or services will be cut’. The Government allows them an annual 5% increase before they consider applying any cap yet still they want more. Clearly, something is very wrong – spending would seem to be out of control.
5. Helping hard working families
We have been told time and time again by Gordon Brown that he is doing everything he can to help hard working families and that he is acutely aware of the problems that families face. Yet, this message seems to have failed to reach the local authorities who are already announcing even more council tax increases for next year. Do these local politicians live in a parallel world? Are they so detached from reality that they have not noticed the credit crunch, the huge rises in the cost of oil, food, electricity and gas? Council taxpayers have to bear the brunt of these massive price increases and adjust their budgets accordingly. It is now time for profligate local authorities to rein in their spending too. Helping hard working families does not mean increasing their taxes.
6. Cash Strapped Council Taxpayers
What will happen when the council taxpayer runs out of money? Many thousands already have to make hard choices when managing their meagre incomes. The economic climate is certainly not going to get better or easier in the short term. It has been said many times already that the current level of council tax has reached its limit of acceptability. Another year of inflation busting increases may see history repeating itself as all peaceful means of encouraging the Government to reform local authority funding and to make it fairer have simply been ignored and treated with utter contempt.
7. No more council tax increases
In Scotland this year, the SNP in consultation with all local authorities achieved a freeze in council tax, thus proving beyond all reasonable doubt that with the right political will, council tax increases are avoidable.
In London too, Mayor Boris Johnson has also announced a freeze on the GLA precept to 2010/11 at the earliest. His longer term aim is to actually reduce the precept by cutting out waste. The GLA precept in London has rocketed by 152 per cent since 2001.
Since its introduction in 1993, the annual amount of council tax raised has increased by 300 per cent, from £8bn to 25bn.
It is now time for the Government to put a stop to this incessant, year on year inflation busting increases. People are sick and tired of seeing their hard earned money being taken away from them by local authorities who think that they can spend it better. Much of this is simply squandered. For example, one council spent £5k on squash court signs in Braille for blind people only to discover afterwards that blind people don’t play squash! Perhaps this is because they can’t see the ball, which is blindingly obvious even to a blind person. How stupid is that?
8. Action is needed now
Write to Gordon Brown, your MP and Local Authority Chief. Tell them that this decade of irresponsible council tax increases and spending must stop. Where known, quote examples of waste in your locality. The present system of council tax has been exposed as fundamentally flawed and should be replaced with a fairer system based on ability to pay.
Tell them, in no uncertain terms how you have to adjust your budget to make ends meet. If we all ran our home budgets the same way as Government has run theirs, we’d all be bankrupt. We can’t simply turn to our neighbour and expect (demand) that they pay for our poor financial mismanagement. These politicians need to be told and told and told until our message gets through.
Yours in the cause,
Christine
c@isitfair.co.uk
October 2008
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9. None of these figures above includes the sale of approximately 600 tons of gold at the very bottom market value when at very least gold has risen in value since the economically illiterate idiot Brown’s mean average income price per ounce by £300 per ounce!CONSIDER:
£300 x 16ozs. x 2,240lb x 600 £6,541,200,000 Loss incurred selling off OUR Gold.
10. This Government is Criminally insane in economic terms. This also is separate from the £9,111 per second debt which Prudence has incurred for the peoples of these United Kingdoms Plus of course the huge losses he has orchestrated seeking to find ways to credibly devalue the British Pound to dupe people into acceptance of having our economy run by undemocratic foreigners The Euro through the ECB.
11. The incredible tragedy is that the opposition are such utter fools
This looks like the hysteria of over tired 3 year olds at a party!
The B.O.A.Ps.!
Bit Of A Pervert
Bit Of A Pratt &
Bit Of A Plonker!
Do YOU find the mess Government has made remotely funny?
12. NOT Once has Her Majesty’s Government,
be that front bench or loyal opposition, spoken out in ANY comprehensive or constructive way to address the utter, total and complete incompetence and irresponsibility of The Treasury during 11 years of criminal incompetence.
13. The Tories today had the opportunity of selecting
a debate for the House of Commons and minded of the Credit Crunch, the oncoming Currency Tsunami, the burgeoning Unemployment, the catastrophic repossessions, the Bankrupcy rate, the inability to fund the NHS drug requirements, the ……..What topic do YOU think the Tories found the most important that required a debate?Yes – you’ve guessed it Theresa May chose to have a debate on whether the BBC correctly handled the vapid, repetitive, childish behaviour of the sordid little rip off merchant Johnathan Ross correctly – well that will change the world I guess and save millions of lives!
14. Then again one has to realise it was the Government,
having incurred a debt of around £2Trillion in 11 years due to economic dishonesty and incompetence without a single solitary debate – Yesterday they had their first full debate on the non science and dishonest propaganda of Global Warming on the very day when for the first time since 1922 snow fell in London in October!
15. Next we have the Racist Police Organisation acting so typically
– they invited David Davies to address their Conference and found they had gone to the wrong address and pulled the wrong geezer! Instead of being addressed by the ex shadow David Davis they had by mistake invited Special Constable David T.C. Davies MP for Monmouthshire who in robust fashion and with complete accuracy and honesty pointed out that the organisation was racist, unacceptable and outside of the law, with quotes from their own web site to prove it – including pointing out that it was counter productive and anti police – Oh yeah they were a coloured organisation – mostly looking black as thunder at the exposure to the truth, red with embarrassment having pulled the wrong geezer and utterly stupid having shown just how dishonest and corrupt they were!Well done David! However instead of being promoted David will no doubt be ordered to scurry back to parliament either to behave like a fool as shown in the pictures above or debate something of world shattering importance like the imbecilic little Johnathan Ross!
16. The Government are like a dysfunctional family of Liverpool scallies in a soap opera – aware the bailiffs are drawing up the papers to seize the house & shinny cars whilst the occupants are spending money like drunken sailors on credit cards they have stolen, meanwhile the entire family squabbles over who controls the TV remote control and which of the 500 crass, foul languaged programmes, that now constitute TV entertainment, to watch!
BUT NOR ARE
THE BLUE LABOUR TORIES
or
THE IDIOTIC & MUDDLED LIB. DIMS.
3 LEADERLESS INCOMPETENTGROUPS OF CLOWNS
OBSCENELY OVER PAID!
& Johnathan Ross?
17. Perhaps someone can tell us how Anthony Charles Lynton Blair came
to office too broke to pay for minor repairs in his constituency house,with a wife with a VERY average career as a part time Barrister a father in lawon the fiddle on benefits and 4 children to fund.1997 > 2007 on a salary of around £175,000 as Prime Minisyter with a Free House2007 Blair left office with a property portfolio running to many £Millions and with an estimated net worth of approaching £1/2Billion.HOW did this skin crawlingly odious pervert and his revolting doxy manage to make so much money whilst acting as both Party leader and Prime Minster – I can not see any way he could have made so much money honestly but that leads one to remember he WAS First Lord of The Treasury!!”Draw your own conclusions!
18. NEVER forget in 1997 Gordon Brown and the claque
of anti British crooks and useful idiots he and Blair surrounded themselves with took over responsibility for the British economy taking over balanced books – today 11 years later Britain is in debt to the tune of approaching £2 Trillion which if counted at one Pound per second would take 63,000 years to count YES Sixty Three Thousand Years!
19. It is now probable that by 2010-12
Britain is likely to have uncheduled power outs due to the incompetence of the Government to implement a programme of building Nuclear power stations as the backbone of a clean fuel industry and building coal fired power stations and trash burner systems with chimney scrubbers – the ONLY way to provide sufficient power for survival alongside the omni present and readily available Oil supply which seems on EVERY scientific model, based on discovered resources so far, to be sufficient for mankind’s needs for over a century.
Regards,
Greg L-W.
01291 – 62 65 62
MAY I SUGGEST – since there is no political party of repute advocating or campaigning for withdrawal of these United Kingdoms from the EU and restoration of our independent sovereign democracy, with Justice & the right to self determination in a free country:
Write Upon Your Ballot Paper:
LEAVE THE EU
