Interesting how often the noisy Lib Dems get things wrong. Back in february last year, one of the noiser Lib Dems, Nichola Harrison, demonstrated a complete lack of insight into the financial situation the council faced. She accused the sensible budget steps taken by the Conservatives as being daylight robbery. Without the increase in council tax last year imagine how much worse the cuts would be now. If you intend making lots of noise you need to be right. Would you trust your finances with that lot?
Cambridge Evening News 19/02/2009
Sheer robbery
From Cllr Nichola Harrison
Taxpayers of Cambridgeshire be warned – you may as well get your wallets open because, however much it will hurt you, the Conservative county council has decided on one of the biggest council tax increases in the country – 3.9 per cent, way above inflation and way outside what was needed or justified.
If your home is in band D, you will be forcibly relieved of an extra £14 this year and £19 next year, and you will pay much more if you are in a higher band.
And do you know why? Because they claim the council’s need for savings is greater than yours.
Your bank account is to be raided into order to raise the council’s bank balances even higher. The council’s reserves have increased by a staggering 27 per cent this year – a comfort not, I suspect, available to many ordinary people whose capital wealth and income from savings have crashed during the same period.
The Conservatives will tell you they are doing the best thing for you, that there is no alternative, that you must take your medicine and trust them simply because they are the Conservatives and they know best. They will tell you that anyone with a different view is dangerous and reckless.
All that is nonsense. The council’s Liberal Democrat opposition put forward an affordable, deliverable, balanced, verified, budget proposal which would have kept the council tax increase down to 2.45 per cent and also delivered more police on the beat and £7 million to improve the shocking state of our roads, pavements and paths. It was voted down by the Conservatives in a breathtaking show of complacency and arrogance.
So beware – the Sheriff of Nottingham is alive and well and resident in the Conservative leader’s office at Cambridgeshire County Council. Anyone fancy a trip to the forest?
Liberal Democrat Councillor for
Petersfield
St Matthew’s Gardens
Cambridge
