Opinion
Featured in: Bath Chronicle, August 2009
Dear Editor,
With the Government being widely criticised for trying to pretend to voters that there is no spending squeeze to come, it is astounding to see the Liberal Democrats come forward with such wild and uncosted spending figures here at the local level.
Voters are not fools, and it does not take a mathematician to work out when certain figures and proposals dreamt up by politicians simply do not add up.
Lib Dem Councillor Nathan Hartley last week made the astonishing claim that he and the Lib Dems could give every single young person in B&NES a free bus pass – and the B&NES tax-payer would not feel the slightest pain through their council tax.
Like most people, I somehow cannot see how this £9.25million a-year scheme would have no impact on council tax. In fact, this is equivalent to a 13% rise in council tax. This would even top the 9% tax-rise the Lib Dems achieved before.
Even more seriously though, it is this sort of uncosted and careless attitude towards public spending which has got our national finances into such a mess. It is this sort of ‘promise the earth with money from thin-air’ attitude which makes voters cynical about their politicians.
For Cllr Hartley to also pretend that central-government money which has been ring-fenced for bus lane improvements could be used for other purposes is either misinformed or misleading.
After many years of council-tax hikes and lack of direction from the Lib Dems, the Conservatives will instead continue with positive measures to improve transport and council services for the residents of Bath and North East Somerset.
Yours faithfully,
Cllr Gordon Wood,
Conservative, Satltford