Thursday, March 15, 2007

Local tax for local people

A fantastic piece in the Evening Standard today by Jonathan Freedland on the fairest way to reform council tax. [Can't find a link as yet.]

He responds to leaks suggesting that Sir Michael Lyons’s soon-to-be published review of local finance will add bands to the top end of the council tax scale, adding as much as £4,400 to some people’s bill.

Freedland is spot on when he talks of council tax reform as a ‘third rail’ - instant political death for any politician who champions it and as a result, long overdue.

Bravely, he champions a policy from the 2005 Liberal Democrat manifesto – local income tax – as the solution.

I remember studying this through an early-morning alcoholic fug at Cardiff Journalism School, recognising it as a good idea in principle, but flawed due to the disparity in collectable income between poor and rich councils.

But Freedland imports an idea from the US: redraw municipal boundaries so that no one area can be exclusively rich or poor. Redistribution of funds would be managed locally, without need for costly and time-consuming involvement on the part of the Treasury.

But when the Lyons report comes out - undoubtedly amid considerable middle class outrage - what politician with an ounce of nous is likely to grasp the live rail?
Not one who wants to keep his seat at the next election. QED.

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Original copy of Guantanamo Bay press release [censored portions included]

[After six years of daily beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture], Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted to being the mastermind behind 9/11, the Bali bombings and plots to attack Heathrow or Big Ben. [He also claimed responsiblity for the Kennedy assassination and the Viet Cong, before curling into the foetal position and begging to be strapped into the electric chair.]

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