Apr 01 2007
Ken Livingstone’s tax and grab
<p>My Council tax bill for my London flat has just come in.</p>
<p>Westminster have put up their demand by 2%, whilst Livingstone wants an extra 5.3%. A massive 44% of the total bill is taken by Livingstone and the GLA, a level of government we didn’t need or have 10 years ago.</p>
<p>It is not surpising he has done this - it was exactly what he did provocatively with the old GLC before its abolition. On this occasion it is difficult to think of anything the?? Mayor and the GLA does that we want, and outrageous that he should charge us so much for doing it.</p>
<p>The Borough provides the schools, cleans the streets, empties to dustbins and looks after those who need social services. I don’t mind paying the relatively reasonable amount they charge us for all that, but I really do resent the large sum for Livingstone to wind us all up. He spends our money to promote his own causes at our expense. It’s a pity we disagree with so many of his c auses, but??still have to pay for the propoganda machine.
It is April 1st today. I keep hoping the large sum he wants is just an April 1st hoax, but unfortunately it’s not - the bill will still be there tomorrow.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
So will the Tories abolish the Mayor of London, Regional Assembies, what was the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and all the rest of the New Labour machine? I don’t expect to see any of it in the manifesto (except perhaps the regional assemblies that were grossly unpopular anyway) but I reckon a Tory government will go about dismantling the New Labour policy establishment. They’d be mad if they didn’t really. In fact this is about the only discernable change I reckon we’ll see, then it’ll be a question of how long they can stay in power as to just how much things do change.
Personally I’d like to see a lot of New Labour legislation abolished too, but for some reason legislation seems to survive regime change better than the bureaucracy does.
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