Major Conspiracy Ron Brown of Tamworth Examiner is against Council Tax rises. We are going to have to lie down after we say this, we don’t like it when it rises either, and yes we agree, we do think Council Tax would go up more if there wasn’t a tricky referendum to get past. Oddly enough that’s the democracy Ron spends most of his time harping on about not existing. What he forgets is that everyone pays council tax whether they’re a politician or one of us plebs, yet liberally uses the royal ‘we’ as if politicans aren’t included in the ‘we’. Regardless of what people think, they generally are normal people, especially on a local level (well most of ’em) doing a job we wouldn’t want to do as we’d have to deal with people like Ron. We can’t imagine anyone voting for a council tax rise. They are however necessary, because our civil servants and their unions demand their extra pennies every year, and who are the unions heavily associated with and funding? That’s right, the Labour Party and they’ve got them by the short and curlies. Even our MP for Moseley North Sarah Edwards was a union employee and part of that cyclical problem.
Professionals running the country don’t come cheap, and yes we know full well that some of those aren’t particularly professional and they hide until they retire on a decent amount of public wedge. Those that are good at their jobs are worth every penny, and they’re likely to be paid quite a bit less for their skills than they would be if they were in the private sector.
So it’s a bit of a catch 22, we stop paying more council tax, the good civil servants don’t get pay rises and leave and we end up with more mediocre civil servants running the show. So it’s a somewhat simplistic view to have that Council tax rises are somehow evil. Those that can’t afford to pay it aren’t paying it anyway, and those that can are admittedly having their belts tightened and more money squeezed out of them than they’d perhaps like but aren’t yet sinking. Fact is though if you asked anyone to pay more tax for nurses and fire fighters, they’d likely say no. We want a lifestyle and services in this country that none of us ordinary people want to pay extra for, and there’s plenty of people who definitely could pay a bit more for the greater good. It’s not quite all even right now, that much is true.
Suggesting that those in the two party system are expecting people to vote for either of them is a bit of an odd assertion given how much time effort and money they spend to win over the centre ground. Unfortunately that group of people who don’t know who they’re going to vote for until they reach a polling station or just simply don’t bother are getting larger. They wield an ungodly power over the rest of us and they generally have no clue what impact they have. They’re also generally not very clued up people who believe everything they’re told. The kind of people who follow the likes of Ron Brown’s Tamworth Examiner, and Brina’s Tamworth Voice and Tamworth Spotted pages.
As ever, the devil is in the detail with a political party. We also know that there’s not been a successful third party (Lib Dems don’t count sorry) because they just don’t have what it takes, they are just not credible and generally they’re unnecessary. All of these fly by night parties and independent people who stand for election promise the earth and that they’ll change things. They can’t, never will, why’s that? Because the civil service is actually in charge of the country and will be until someone actually has the cahonies to whip them into shape, and thats never likely going to be the union loving socialists is it, or the smaller parties that are just a variation on the same themes and have zero experience. Until someone is given the long term mandate to go all guns blazing, you’re going to be paying your increased council tax every year to keep the civil service in the manner to which they’re accustomed. Otherwise they’ll just go on Labour supported union strikes until someone gives in. Nice work if you can get it, and you’re mediocre to boot.
