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is it any wonder no-one votes in local elections? they are not in charge of anything any more. they only have adoption, social care and bins.I did read that if all the smith commission things went through Scotland would have the same level of responsibly as a small french city. whoop e do.
Have you ever met any local counselors or attended a meeting ? These are the people that aren't nearly good enough to be MPs and we know what we think of them. I wouldn't put them in charge of anything.
That article you read re: French cities must be wrong, towns do have a degree of flexibility of local business taxes for example but France is very very bureaucratic with huge amounts of rules and regulations set centrally. They have no power to set income taxes.
"we pay no vat on...gambling including bingo"
Iirc there's a special regime for taxation of gaming turnover and it's quite high when you consider punters keep feeding the machine (actual or metaphorical) until they lose all their money.
Btw the 0% income tax rate in Bosnia is wrong, it's 10% in both entities and brcko.
this nationalisation/centralisation does make me sad.Especially when it's accompanied by rhetoric about how they are doing the exact opposite.
In a classic example of 'unspeak' (Sir) Eric Pickles 'Localism' bill was in fact a massive centralising power grab from local authorities to bring more decisions under Whitehall control, while simultaneously spouting a load of guff about empowering local communities
Have you ever met any local counselors or attended a meeting ?
yep 😆
In their defence there are some great ones but i realise there are very many very poor counicllors but i view it as a viscious cycle, why would you be one? Make them organisations worth leading and the applicants would get better is my hope.
In a classic example of 'unspeak' (Sir) Eric Pickles 'Localism' bill was in fact a massive centralising power grab from local authorities to bring more decisions under Whitehall control, while simultaneously spouting a load of guff about empowering local communities
Which is why it makes me sad.
In defence of local counsellors it is an unpaid (and often unappreciated) role, so you're not going to get your high flyers as they're working 70 hour weeks in the City......
In defence of local counsellors it is an unpaid (and often unappreciated) role
It's not actually, they can pay themselves quite generously. The former Tory leader of Croydon Council appreciated himself so much that last year he gave himself a pay rise of 18%, taking it to well over £1,000 a week, far more than most Croydon residents earn.
It's not actually,
Only a few full time positions get a salary, the majority just get an allowance.
http://www.beacouncillor.org.uk/howto/payment.htm
It's all called "an allowance", if you read my link you'll see that it says : [i]"Cllr Fisher asked council officers for his allowances to be increased from £53,000 to £62,352."[/i]
Perhaps MPs could try that stroke, ie, scrap their salaries and just have "allowances" instead.
[i] teamhurtmore - Member
...when you suggested tax freezes pre-election
A five year ban on income tax, VAT and NI???
The three largest revenue earners capped. Hmmm.....seems quite extreme/ballsy (you decide)[/i]
Sorry, haven't read the entire thread. However, perhaps its as simple as this:
A ban on increasing certain taxes may be a "nice to have" but at this stage I take that proposal as an aspiration and I have no doubt that if that policy doesn't produce the desired result, that the policy will be revised.
And for me this is more important than the BS. As we all know, nothing is written in stone and nothing is constant and so if things don't go exactly as planned (as surely they can't, always) then what I need is someone in charge who will alter their policy to adapt when required rather than sail the ship onto the rocks to save face.
My mother was a Councillor, she was certainly better informed than Jamba, although that is a relatively low bar. She received an allowance of a few thousand a year which did come in handy.