Death and Council Tax

In 1817 Benjamin Franklin re-used a previous quote originally written by Daniel Defoe and said  "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Many things have changed since 1817, but death and taxes have certainly survived!!

This week saw Shepton Mallet Town Councils annual fist fight over the budget and precept, to be fair, this time things were dealt with fairly amicably and entirely predictably, more of this later. The whole process set me thinking as how it is possible that a small group of people, from a small town in Somerset, with, well lets be charitable, honest intentions for the good burghers of the town, can have such wide ranging views on just about everything!

On a National level we are all pretty accustomed to the differences between the major parties, Labour spend, spend and spend some more until as Liam Byrne said "there's no money left", the Conservatives come along after Labour and sort out the mess left behind, and the Lib Dems, well what can I say, basically have no idea at all, and need to be kept locked up in a darkened room without a key.

We have seen what the Lib Dems do when let out of their box, at Somerset County Council they increased the debt from £15 million to £347 million in less than 10 years, while at the same time increasing Council Tax every year, and by over 60% during one notorious 4 year period. Luckily the electorate called time on their disastrous tenure in 2009, but not before they had destroyed the county's finances for a generation or more.

The Lib Dems in Frome, similarly racked up the tax year on year to the point where Frome is now by far the most expensive place to live in Mendip, the Town Council's precept is rapidly approaching the same level as the District Council. There was never any attempt to control spending, just the inner arrogant belief that they know best how to spend your money. The Lib Dems in Frome have now been superseded by the IFF's, a rag tag bunch of Independents who have formed a party to run the council. (Independents forming a party, how does that work then!!!!!). The IFF's have just announced that they are going to put the Town Council precept up by 23% this year, no that's not a misprint twenty three percent increase at a time when families are seeing their budgets squeezed from all directions, I bet the voters in Frome are delighted that they voted for the very iffy IFF's now!

So lets compare and contrast the Conservatives to our Labour and Lib Dem opponents, Labour more or less bankrupted the country and were spending more than they were receiving in tax even at the height of the boom, when finally McBroon had to admit that he hadn't ended boom and bust after all, it was all much too late to put the spending genie back in the bottle, hence the dire mess Cameron and Osborne inherited.

The Conservatives at Somerset County Council have had to take much more difficult decisions thanks to the legacy left behind by the Yellow Peril, where servicing their huge debt is a major part of the budget, and spending on debt repayment is money that can't be used to support libraries, youth services, road repairs or anything else that everyone cares about.

Spot the difference at Shepton Mallet Town Council, under Conservative control since 2007, the Town Council finances are, or at least were sound, we had seen a period of 4 years where the precept had not been increased at all, and where at the same time the councils reserves, money put aside to help to smooth out the inevitable peaks and troughs in spending, had been steadily increased. The situation at the moment is that we are still working within the budget introduced by the last Conservative administration, and it is predicted that at the end of the current financial year the council will have just over £45,000 in reserves, enough, if spent wisely, to cover any increases in council tax for the next 3 or 4 years.

However, the electorate, in their wisdom, decided not to give the Conservatives a majority on the Town Council at the last election, and as a result we have 6 conservatives, 5 Lib Dems, 4 Independents and a solitary Labour councillor. During the last 8 months or so the unholy alliance of Lib Dems, a couple of Independents and the lone Labour supporter has decided to tear up the blueprint left behind by the Conservatives and to embark on a spending splurge worthy of Gordon Brown at his most profligate.

The budget proposed on Tuesday evening sought to increase the precept by 3% as well as spending £39000 of the £45000 reserves IN ONE YEAR. All the hard work put in for years by the Conservatives to balance the books, blown in one go by people who appear to have no idea how to run a business.

The Conservatives managed to head off some of the increase in spending by forcing through a vote to reduce the budget by £10,000, however, we are merely delaying the inevitable tax increases that will have to follow. To add insult to injury the unholy alliance then agreed to increase the tax by 3%, with the Labour chairman not only voting in favour of the increase at the first vote, but then using his casting vote to force through the tax rise when the vote was tied at 7 all, I guess leopards never change their spots.

Benjamin Franklin was right about death and taxes, especially if you vote Labour, Lib Dem or now as it appears Independent as well. Frome desperately needs a Conservative council to protect its citizens from the excesses of the IFF's, I think the people of Shepton will start to rue their decision last May as soon as the council tax bills start landing on the mat.