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08/03/08 : Labour nails Tory lies on Council Tax
In letters to both the Reading Chronicle and the Reading Evening Post, new Tory Leader Andrew Cumpsty claimed that Council Tax increases in Reading over the past few years had been 5% in each and every year.
In fact, recent increases have been 3.7%, 4.7%, 4.7%, 3.5% and then this year 1.9%. As Labour Leader David Sutton said, the low increase this year was the reward for the difficult decisions in last year’s Budget. Did Cllr. Cumpsty know the truth about Council Tax increases under Labour? Did he care?
In those letters Cllr. Cumpsty claimed that Labour’s 1.9% increase represented “a Conservative budget”.
In fact, the increase in Council Tax this year in Conservative West Berkshire was 3.9%, in Conservative Wokingham and Conservative Bracknell Forest it was 4.9%, and in Slough, where the Conservatives are the biggest group in an anti-Labour coalition, it was 4.99%.
In his letters to both the Reading Chronicle and the Reading Evening Post, chairman of Reading East Tories Mike Townend claimed that the 1.9% increase was just an electoral gimmick and next year’s increase would be “extortionate”.
In fact, Council Tax increases are capped by the Government and cannot be “extortionate”. This year the cap was 5%, and three local Councils where the Tories are in power came in at 4.9% or higher! Over 2004-8, a full electoral cycle, the difference in average Council Tax increases between Labour Reading and Tory West Berkshire is less than 0.25% a year.
In Conservative leaflets distributed across the town, Andrew Cumpsty says that, in the light of the 1.95% increase in Council Tax, it would have been “churlish” for the Conservatives not to have supported Labour’s budget.
In fact, a Council budget is not mainly about how much you spend but about you spend it on. Reading’s Conservative neighbours spend less on community care, less on support for the voluntary sector, less on public transport, and less on leisure. And at a time when Reading Tories claim to be on the verge of taking power they are unable to say which of these examples they would or would not follow!
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