I am watching Cathy Jamieson on telly as I type. I find the hypocrisy of the Labour Party quite astonishing. They consistently attack the SNP for being light on detail yet have announced an entirely vacuous policy this very day.
Earlier in the day they announced their radical (sarcasm doesn't necessarily come through on typed format, so for avoidance of doubt that was it) proposal for local taxation. They have announced that they will create two new bandings for council tax in their manifesto launched today.
What Cathy couldn't say when pressed, is at what value of property will people (a) pay less on the new bottom band or (b) pay more on the new top band. This absence of detail is quite startling. As they always say, the devil is in the detail.
Clearly the Labour Party are reacting to the fact that the SNP has got off to a much quicker start in the debate on local taxation and are trying to be seen to act on this area. They have ridiculed the SNP local income tax policy despite the fact that it is transparent and fair. We desire fairness in taxation and taxing people on what they can afford to pay (i.e. their income) is clearly fairer than taxing them on something much vaguer, that being the supposed value of the property in which they reside.
The total and utter lack of detail in the Labour policy on council tax, as well as the fact that it fundamentally fails to make local taxation fairer (it is impossible to make the council tax fairer, thus the Labour Party will never square that particular circle) will surely find this announcement falling on deaf ears. This policy is neither fair or innovative. It is rather a damp squib.
1 comment:
29% of all Band 'H' houses are in Edinburgh, and there's only 2 band 'H' houses in the Orkney Islands. I feel sorry for the poor sod up in Kirkwall who's going to be forking out for everyone else in the islands!
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