Is freezing Council tax fair to

[BCram]

the lowest bands of Council tax payers? I was very surprised at this rabbit out of the hat announcement. All the talk before had been about significant increases for Band D and above property owners.

I am very suspicious of this announcement. Have our local councils given Holyrood totals of the amount of council tax that would be raised under the original proposals? Is that figure going to be given to councils as part of their block grant?

Will there be significant increases in business rates?

This whole approach from Humza sounds very dodgy and I hope that local government will stand up for their constituents.

I watched an Aljazeera programme recently about democracy in the Middle East. The dictators like Saddam and Gaddafi were corrupt and surrounded themselves with people who were bribed with fabulous wealth to ensure that the dictatorship controlled the population.

Democracy was sold to these populations by the West, as a fairer way to run a country and they would be much better off if they changed to a democratic approach to running their countries.

It didn't work at all and new or perhaps even the same corrupt rich people carried on as before and the same poor people suffered.

Along comes religion and new leaders who make the same promises of a better world but this time the problem is a foreign power or different religion.

[The AuldYin]

I'd love to know where the moneys coming from? Where's it being diverted from? Who or what is going to have to go without?

[islaydarkblue]

I'd love to know where the moneys coming from? Where's it being diverted from? Who or what is going to have to go without?

It has been reported that in recent financial years the Scottish Government has had underspends at the end of each financial year.
Nicola Sturgeon previously diverted millions of pounds of taxpayers money to set up a Scottish Government department dealing solely with independence.
I understand that this department has been quietly disbanded.
I suspect that Humza has not worked out the full cost of his council tax freeze but that does not matter to him as he needed something to rally his troops at their conference last Tuesday in Aberdeen.
The Greens do not matter as they only put up a handful of candidates in a General Election.

[BCram]

That's a good point. Local councillors must not be bullied. My initial post, apologies got carried away with the Israel stuff, but the bullying ethos which simply negates any democratic process is absolutely rife with the Greens and SNP acting like dictators. Don't believe Humza has got the money to finance the council tax freeze. My bet is that he is hoping local councillors suck it up and accept whatever he offers.

[islaydarkblue]

That's a good point. Local councillors must not be bullied. My initial post, apologies got carried away with the Israel stuff, but the bullying ethos which simply negates any democratic process is absolutely rife with the Greens and SNP acting like dictators. Don't believe Humza has got the money to finance the council tax freeze. My bet is that he is hoping local councillors suck it up and accept whatever he offers.

This is not the first time that a Scottish Government minister has made an announcement at an SNP annual conference in Aberdeen without doing their homework.
Derek MacKay the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Finance announced at SNP annual conference in Aberdeen in October 2015 that the Scottish Government had just awarded the contract to build two new ferries for Calmac to Ferguson Shipyard at a cost of £97 million.
Derek MacKay and his Scottish Government civil servants had not done their homework as they awarded the contract without ensuring that Ferguson Shipyard had provided the necessary financial requirements and guarantees which other shipyards tendering for the same contract had provided.

[BCram]

This is not the first time that a Scottish Government minister has made an announcement at an SNP annual conference in Aberdeen without doing their homework.
Derek MacKay the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Finance announced at SNP annual conference in Aberdeen in October 2015 that the Scottish Government had just awarded the contract to build two new ferries for Calmac to Ferguson Shipyard at a cost of £97 million.
Derek MacKay and his Scottish Government civil servants had not done their homework as they awarded the contract without ensuring that Ferguson Shipyard had provided the necessary financial requirements and guarantees which other shipyards tendering for the same contract had provided.

If you take this thread down the ferries route, I will be cross. ��

[Deeranged]

If you take this thread down the ferries route, I will be cross. ��

To be fair it was always going to happen - the man's obsessed with it

[BCram]

To be fair it was always going to happen - the man's obsessed with it

But he is capable of choosing what he wants to say. There are many questions about budgets and how local government is "controlled" by central government. Maybe there are websites that show how much money is actually spent by local councils and how it changes from year to year. I think if we compared cash spent at the end of each financial year, like the accounts that companies prepare we might find things easier to understand?

[islaydarkblue]

If you take this thread down the ferries route, I will be cross. ��

I have no plans to do that.
I was just showing that a previous Scottish Government minister has previously made a ill thought out similar announcement at an SNP annual conference to keep their members sweet.

[Deeranged]

I have no plans to do that.
I was just showing that a previous Scottish Government minister has previously made a ill thought out similar announcement at an SNP annual conference to keep their members sweet.

What did you make of your Tory pal Sunak making promises to scrap policies that the Tories had never even thought about implementing before he 'scrapped' them? Meat tax? Seven bins? That speech was well thought out wasn't it? Or was it just lies hoping to con the gullible voter again and to keep Tory voters on his side? Give them something back that you never actually took from them or intended taking from them.

All politicians lie, regardless of party leanings, they have to because if they told us what they really planned we'd never vote for them - that's why we're now lumbered with an entirely incompetent UK Government, with an entirely incompetent Scottish Parliament and with complete incompetents running our Councils. They all had to lie to convince the gullible that they knew what they were doing.

Don't point fingers at one party without at least recognising that other parties also do the same.