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13/04/09 : Labour: "Tories are not telling the truth about business rates" :
Claims by Alok Sharma and Rob Wilson that business rates this year are set to rise by 5% have been slammed by Labour Press Officer Pete Ruhemann, who points out that, while a 5% increase would have been required in view of the rate of inflation last September, Alistair Darling has stepped in to limit the hike to 2%, while the remaining 3% will be spread out over the following two years to provide, as the Chancellor put it, "real and genuine help to firms".
"This out-of-date claim appears on the Reading West Conservatives' website," he says, "and I emailed them a week ago to point out they'd got it wrong, and were failing to acknowledge a move by the Labour Government which has been welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses and by the Engineering Employers Federation as showing a Government listening to their concerns.
"But I've not even had an acknowledgement from the Reading West Tories, who continue to peddle this untruth, as does Rob Wilson MP on his website So do a number of other Tory M.P.'s and Tory candidates across the country, and in virtually identical words, so this was obviously a 'campaign message of the week' from Tory Central Office, who haven't bothered to correct it either.
"An honest party of opposition, " he concludes, "would surely give credit where credit is due, but the Tories have cast themselves as a party of Mr Angries refusing to acknowledge the benefits of anything the Government does. And I think that's sad for our democracy."
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