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8:19am on Monday, 13th January, 2025:
Comment
Our Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has something of a problem. She needs to raise more money but the Labour Party's manifesto promised that she wouldn't. She's therefore having to cut services — perhaps including ones she needs the money for in the first place.
There is another way, though.
What she could do is raise the amount that local councils can charge in council tax. They'd be able to use it to cover all those issues that people complain about, such as potholes, infrequent bin-emptying and lack of council houses. What's more, she could then cut back on the government's block grant to councils and claw some money back for the Treasury. She could argue that it wasn't she who was raising taxes, but local councils, therefore the Labour Party's manifesto promises would remain unbroken.
I don't think she'll do this, although it might come as a consequence of the council mergers that Labour is planning.
This is what happens when you have governments full of social science graduates and lawyers: there are no programmers who can hack solutions for you. That said, the Conservatives have an ex-programmer as their leader, so we might see some unwanted consequences of this if she ever gets to be Prime Minister ("I know, let's leave the European Convention on Human Rights and join the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights! Or, if that's no better, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights!").
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).