Mission creep - how UK councils are overstepping their bounds to impoverish residents and reduce all prospects for growth - utility companies too
Generating economic growth is a simple proposition - people have more money, they do more things and th economy grows.
Socialism does the opposite - grow the government, tax more and inflict poverty on those that can’t afford it. The costs for running the “big government” of the UK have been raised by the Marxists that are the Labour “government” that has no “mandate” - it received around a third of electoral support. Two thirds of the electorate did NOT vote for Labour,
Here’s a taste of what is happening at the central government level.
Here is a glimpse of what is occurring at the grass roots level - using one street in London as an example.
The street is in central London, is a mile long, it has around 250 street numbers - each with 10 sub-lets, 6 hotels, 4 B&B’s, around a quarter is of the buildings are corporate leases, a primary school, a doctors surgery, a supermarket rear entrance, and has 3 large blocks of flats at each end.
All up 500 dwelling units housing around 5,000 people.
The average local authority council tax per person - Greater London plus City of, say, Westminster has just been increased to around £900 a year,
That works out at £4.5 million pounds a year for the council “services”.
This is for one street, a mile long. It does not include all the congestion charges levied by the Sunni Muslim in charge of Greater London plus the costs for off-street parking (London does not have a lot of garages!).
Most of the street consists of one house with ten x one- or two-bedroom apartments, around 50m”2 to 75m”2. It’s crowded!
London has 32 local government councils plus the City of London. How many streets? A lot! Ler’s take a look at what residents get for their money.
From Brave AI:
Westminster City Council Responsibilities
Westminster City Council is responsible for various services and initiatives within the city, including managing council tax, planning, parking, licensing, libraries, recycling, and more.
They also oversee the maintenance of communal areas in buildings and estates, while leaseholders are responsible for the majority of repairs in their properties.
Additionally, the council partners with organizations to enhance community services and amenities, such as offering top-tier golf instruction and improving public space,”
There was me thinking “schools, street cleaning, rubbish collection, parking and lighting, parks and a few other things that keep the city looking clean and tidy. The Sunni Muslim mayor is responsible for the police, fire and public transport system.
We do have this little nugget from h Westminster City Council website:
https://www.newwestcity.ca/budget2025
“In crafting the budget for 2025, the City will remain guided by the principles of financial health and sustainability.
Our approach will integrate key priorities outlined by City Council, including advancing our climate action goals, enhancing public services, and promoting equity and inclusion across all city operations. The success of these initiatives relies on maintaining robust infrastructure, effective public safety measures and community services.”
Climate Action Goals? From Brave AI:
“Westminster City Council has set ambitious climate action goals, including becoming a carbon-neutral council by 2030 and a carbon-neutral city by 2040.
The council has also declared an ecological emergency and published a new Greening and Biodiversity Strategy in 2024, with a focus on reducing greenhouse gases and promoting biodiversity.
Additionally, the council aims to launch a Greening and Biodiversity action plan later in 2025, which will further contribute to their climate action efforts.”
Probably echoed in each of the 33 other local authorities.
The costs of these futile policies are not detailed but are likely to run to millions of pounds - none of which can be reconciled or are visible in our “mile long” street.
Someone living amongst those 5,000 people on that London atreet will not have noticed any improvement in their “services”, despite the propaganda pushed out by the council. Maybe a few have been provided housing, but on the whole, 99% of people have not enjoyed an uplift for the recent annual increases of 5% this year, nor will they,
That street in Westminster will be paying an extra £225,000 for what? National Insurance increases for staff!!! A central government tax increase!
The cost-of-living increases do not stop there - of course, they don’t.
The UK has a lot of regulations, overseen by unelected bureaucrats, who set the cost of living - these regulators do not call it taxation, but they set prices in the same way as monopoles set prices.
OFGEM sets a “price cap” on which all energy companies base their charges. These are up 20% in the last 9 months - with all energy bills increasing for our own street of 5,000. Increasing from around £1,200 to £1,440. Way ahead of inflation in order to fund the lunatic climate goals and National Insurance increases.
Then there’s water and swage - up by 5% to pat for the national insurance increases.
Th TV license is a tax that costs £174.50 a year and is set to increase.
All these cost increases are compulsory - a tax on the cost of living.
Put it all together and you geta cost for basics BEFORE you pay any rent, travel to work, do any shopping or buy cell phones, broadband, etc of around £3,600 a year - which comes out of your net pay - which means you have to earn around £5,000 gross pay,
Our 5,000 people in our mile long street have to earn £15 million before they can live.
I suspect that residents in our street received just, at most, half a million pounds in value for the £4,5 million they pay in local taxes.
I suspect also that our 5,000 residents are overpaying by a huge factor for their utilities and water/sewage.
(100) Before the “renewable energy” scam, there was and is the hydrocarbon energy scam.
Does this mean that our 5,000 residents should be paying HALF of what they are being charged because of “woke” insane socialist policies that are necessary to prop up big government, full of incompetent and unnecessary bureaucrats/?
It would be a start.
DOGE local AND central government!!!
"Grace and favour" or disgrace and corruption - the burgeoning cost of the UK’s civil service
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Onwards!!!