Why I Want Rid Of Council Tax

SNP plans for a Local Income Tax (LIT) seems to have become the target of choice for the opposition now that the budget and council tax freeze have gone through. As if on cue, out is being wheeled by Labour and others the archetypal hard-working, 2-income family, whom we are being invited to believe will under LIT be left subsidising pensioners in big houses who live off bloated share portfolios.

First things first - comparatively few people are in a position to live off their investments, but presenting a more balanced picture wouldn’t have the desired effect in terms of trying to whip up opposition to LIT. However, as a strong supporter of LIT, I thought I’d throw two very real examples into the mix, which have resulted from my own domestic arrangements over the past few years, which help explain my complete disdain for the council tax, or for that matter any kind of property based tax.

I own a flat in Edinburgh, which when I lived there at first, I shared with my partner of the time. As a band ‘B’ property, our combined water and council tax bill came to about £1,200, or £600 each. However, after we split up, even with a 25% single person’s discount my bill shot up to £900 – or about 5% of my household income at the time. I hadn’t become any wealthier in the intervening period and made no more demands of local services than I had previously. However, purely as a result of a change in my personal circumstances, my Council Tax had increased overnight by 50%.

Fast forward a few years to the present. As work for the moment requires that I have somewhere to live in London, I rent a room in a 4 bedroom semi-detached house in Lewisham, in the south-east of the city. Nice as our bit of town is, Notting Hill or Hampstead or trendy north London it most certainly isn’t (actually, that’s probably a good thing). It’s a very diverse area, with a high proportion of young families and a large number of homes of multiple occupancy.

There are 5 of us living together in the house – myself (parliamentary researcher); an IT consultant; a banker who shares a room with his fiancée (who is also a parliamentary researcher); and another banker. Fortunately, we all get on very well, although this may be helped by our different work start times and the fact we have a big kitchen and 2 bathrooms, so it isn’t quite as cosy as it sounds!

Based on salary alone, the five of us probably have a combined annual income of between £250,000 - £300,000 (I should make clear that myself and the other researcher lag quite some distance behind the rest). However, as a band ‘E’ property, the bill for us all comes to just over £1,500 – or £300 a skull if we split it 5 ways – just 0.5% of the total household income. It’s quite a difference from the £900 I used to get stung with for living on my own in Edinburgh, and an obscenity when you consider the couple with two pre-school kids over the road who have to pay an identical bill out of just one income.

And that in the end is my beef. Council tax hits households with low incomes disproportionately. Since it is based on the value of the house, there is little correlation between this and one’s ability to pay. Worst of all, the eventual bill you end up paying hits those who live on their own the hardest.

While being young, professional and childless means we don’t make huge demands of the services of Lewisham Council, on balance, we’re happy that we’re making a contribution towards policing, parks, adult education, libraries, schools, trading standards, refuse collection, the fire brigade, social services etc in the area. Splitting the bill 5 ways makes us better off financially, but I don’t think any of us would object seriously to being asked to make a bigger contribution given that we’d all be more than capable of so doing.

There will be winners and there will be losers in any change to a tax system – something which those calling for council tax revaluations and extra bandings and additional rebates would be wise to remember. Instead of conjuring up grotesque, false spectres of families being downtrodden by the supposedly idle rich, Labour and the Conservatives should be honest enough to explain why they believe that the rich man in his castle should pay a lower marginal rate of tax than the poor man at his gate.

There's Nothing Like Being Organised...

Another day, another change in plan. The selection meeting for the next seat I'm in for has been postponed for a week, which means that I'm reverting to plan 'A' and am now on the train back to London using the ticket I'd bought earlier. It means returning again next week, of course, but frankly, the thought of living out of a suitcase as a 'guest' in Edinburgh for another week and a half when there's work to be done elsewhere didn't really appeal.

I have to admit, that thought came as a bit of a jolt to someone who considers himself to be an unreconstructed Edinburgher. London doesn't feel like home yet, and if I'm being honest it probably never really will. That said, while staying with my folks' and at friends' houses is all well and good, if you're like me, you still need to get back to somewhere that's 'yours' eventually. It's not so much that you no longer belong, but the feeling of being itinerant in a place where only a short while before you'd been fixed, is a strange one.

All this introspection is fine, but I'm going to try and balance it now with some blatant self-promotion. Iain Dale is in the process of publishing the GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING 2007, and as a trailer, is announcing various lists of what he and others consider to be the top blogs in their respective categories. In so doing, your gast will no doubt be flabbered to learn that the efforts of yours truly have made it to spot number 5 in the list of the top 20 Scottish Blogs.

All right, there wasn't a popular vote or anything, and the fact that they were chosen by Grant Thoms (who modestly left his own efforts out) means that they should more accurately be termed the 'Top 20 Scottish Blogs which didn't fall into any other category and aren't written by Grant Thoms'. Still, it appeals to my rampant sense of egomania in spite of that, and thanks go to Grant for inclusion. Just so long as he doesn't expect me to return the favour by attending any fringe meetings in Aviemore about windmills ;-)

"And Tonight, Matthew, I'm Going To Be Badly Overdrawn Boy"

In Edinburgh this week as the hunt for a seat continues, which means that my train ticket to travel back south on Wednesday is now surplus to requirements. I estimate that with cancelled flights and unused train tickets etc, I've spent the best part of £500 this month on journeys which I haven't been able to take.

Then there's the postage for writing to SNP members, the phone calls, the hotel rooms and the travelling I have actually undertaken. Oh, and I've also got a big upcoming repair to pay for on my flat in Portobello, and the car needs its first service. My credit card bills are going to be horrific this month - not so much a credit crunch as a payment crunch for me when the bills come in.

Anyway, I've got a meeting tonight with some SNP folk in Edinburgh, then having spent last night on a friend's couch, it'll be back to my folks' place for a couple of nights. It was always my intention to be a Westminster candidate for the SNP this time round, but with the accelerated selection process now underway, it's beginning to look as if my move to London has been very badly timed indeed - I think I've spent more time out in Edinburgh these last 3 months than I did when I lived here!

Back Home

I was back in Edinburgh this weekend to be vetted as a potential parliamentary candidate. It's been a while since I last stood as an SNP candidate, so this time I got the full treatment of an assessment session and interview alongside other hopefuls.

It was all good fun, though I will admit to a certain sense of relief at being excluded from the 'here's a random subject - go and talk on it for one minute, starting now', section of the day. I've done it many times before, but for me, it still falls into the category of a cruel and unusual punishment.

Anyway, it was good to get home for a bit, and to spend a bit more time with my friends than I managed when last up a fortnight ago, when I spent most of the weekend in a lecture theatre. I also managed to get a decent Sunday breakfast with the papers down at the Iso-Bar in Leith (a favourite haunt during the day, never been so keen at night). It defies all probability, but I still haven't found anywhere in London where its worth doing the same. Obviously I've been looking in completely the wrong places so far.

Family and friends have been saving the Evening News cheap GNER fares promo vouchers from the Evening News for me. I'm sure they'll come in very useful, as I've a feeling I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time in Scotland over the next few weeks as the SNP candidate selection process begins to get underway. Time to start hitting the phones and seeing into which rings it might be worthwhile throwing a hat...


Oh, yes. Almost forgot. I know I'm just adding in my own small way to the man's publicity machine, but any pangs about missing out on the Festival were dulled quickly when I saw Ricky Gervais' billboard above the Rutland, informing us all that he'd sold out his show at the Castle. I used to think his acting in 'The Office' was pretty good, but now I realise he was just being himself all along. What a pointless, obnoxious, irksome, seemingly unflushable excrescence the man truly is.

(Pic filched shamelessly from Bruce Dessau's blog on the Evening Standard site)

UPDATE: Since I posted the above, Ricky Gervais has apparently announced that any profits from the gig in question will go to MacMillan Cancer Relief, which makes me feel a bit bad for unloading on him like that. I'm sure he has quite a few reasons for so doing, none of which should detain us here, but credit where credit's due.

Out Of The Frying Pan?

Good to see that the Fopp name will live on in at least 6 stores. However, even if new owners HMV do manage to "preserve Fopp's unique identity and trading culture", given their current financial travails, might this not be a case of leaping straight into the fire?


I've always had a soft spot for Fopp, even as an adult, although that might be down to guilt from my early teenage years, having flicked and thumbed my way through various displays (usu. the extensive Iron Maiden back catalogue), without ever actually buying anything. It's a proud tradition which the minigoths hanging around the top of Cockburn Street continue to this day.

Ah well... even if it does all go Pete Tong for the reincarnated Fopp, at least there'll still be Avalanche, Vinyl Villains and Ripping Records to choose from on trips home.

Valuable Lessons

That's me back flathunting again, having learned 2 extremely valuable lessons:

1. Never move in without meeting your flatmates first, and:
2. Never move in with someone whose parents are also the landlords.

That latter point is crucial. I received a letter from my landlord on Thursday night (written Tuesday) to the effect that it had been a mistake to allow me in with a cat; which took exception to my even asking whether it might be possible to allow someone in to feed the cat if we were both away; and which declared that their daughter and I were incompatible as flatmates.

The latter point is probably true - even from the (fewer than) 5 hours we've spent in eachother's company this and last week, I knew I'd be getting out of there at the first opportunity. However, after ploughing through all this verbiage, the nub of the matter quickly became apparent: the desire of their daughter to live closer to her work in Croydon and their need to sell up in order to buy another place for her.

I don't mind admitting to being a bit disconcerted at finding house schedules scattered over the floor on day 2, and having the house valuation explained away early in the week by their daughter on the grounds that 'it hadn't been done for a while', was frankly comical. However, to have this point justified on the grounds of 'your cat smells and our daughter doesn't like you', is more than a little insulting, and not only to the intelligence. To take in a tenant while considering selling up may not be against any code, but it doesn't strike me as straight dealing.

Anyway, on the upside, I'm back in Edinburgh today, having taken 10 1/2 hours to drive up yesterday through the worst rain I've ever experienced in my life. The cat is now staying with my old Stirling Uni mate Richard (of earlier co-driver fame), and no doubt will be spoiled rotten while she's there. I'd like to think it's only till I find somewhere else, but realistically, I think she's going to be there for good now. If the flat had worked out as planned it would have been fine, but it's not fair to risk having to keep shunting her about. It's a shame, but it's also probably for the best.

I'm also having a nice, relaxing day at my parents' house, with plenty of home cooking. My flat in Portobello is ready for my new tenant to move in the week after next (don't worry, Pat - you won't be getting kicked out so I can sell it!). So I'll be back for work on Monday morning, having to worry only about myself and finding a more suitable place to stay. And I also found out today that I passed my Accountancy exam resit. Things are getting better already :-)

Resurfacing

Apologies to any regular readers for the lack of postings this week. I was at a wedding on Saturday, recovering on Sunday, driving to London on Monday, and flathunting both yesterday and today.
Reassuringly, my budget means I won't be in a complete hovel, though I'll admit my heart did sink a bit when the estate agent showed me a bedsit in St John's Wood for which they wanted the best part of a grand a month. That'll be right, as they say...

Luckily, there seems to be better value places around, especially in Ealing, where I am just now. I've one more place to check out tonight, which is apparently less than 10 minutes walk from Westminster, but with any luck, I should be sorted with somewhere to stay by close of play tomorrow. Then the fun can begin getting my place in Edinburgh ready to rent out.

First impressions? Mainly how relaxed everyone seems to be. I've thought for a while that Edinburgh was becoming quite an angry and aggressive little city. Londoners seem to make a better job of taking it all in their stride, probably because if you reacted to every door left to slam in your face or car cutting you up, you'd be dead from a heart attack in short order.

Anyway, time to go. I've got a hotel to find and a security pass to update. Thankfully I won't be negotiating the underground with this amount of luggage every day.