PLACARD-CARRYING Isitfair council tax protestors will meet outside the county council chamber in Winchester on Wednesday, February 22, to register their deep disappointment over a council tax rise that seems likely to be double the rate of inflation. Hampshire County Council will be ratifying a £568 million budget for 2006/07, only £120 million of which will come from government grant, forcing HCC to propose a council tax rise of 4.7 per cent. The increase will see B and D properties paying £910.62 for the county council's share of the council tax, a figure which Isitfair protestors find unacceptable. According to Isitfair leader Christine Melsom, many members are adamant: they will pay an increase in line with inflation, and not a penny more. "Some would rather go to prison than pay what amounts to 61 per cent of their pension increase (set at 2.8 per cent) on council tax. What will be left is a paltry 38 pence," said the Headley-based pensioner. Taking into account above-inflation rises in utility bills and fuel costs, Mrs Melsom says that many people – not just pensioners - are seriously contemplating following the lead of the Devon pensioners who last week announced that, unless the government came up with a tax based on people's ability to pay, they would be paying their council tax bills to December, but no further. "We are currently consulting with members to see if Isitfair wishes to go down that route as well," says Mrs Melsom. "A 4.7 per cent increase is just not on, especially when we hear that, in the country as a whole, there is millions outstanding in council tax. In Scotland alone, the figure is £121 million and some £30 million of that is owed by council employees." And she added: "I know there is a move going on to slim down council staff levels, but a lot of that will be through redundancy and early retirement, leaving the tax payer to pick up the bill." Christine Melsom will be at Foyles Bookshop in London on February 28 for the launch of a book written by Matthew Elliott and Lee Rotherham of The Taxpayers' Alliance, entitled The Bumper Book of Government Waste. These two young men were on the first anti-council tax march led by Isitfair campaigners in 2003. Published by Petersfield-based Harriman House, the book is said to take readers through a "twilight zone of crazy spending, political correctness, utter incompetence, and fantastic jollies, all funded by tax payers." The figures are said to have been compiled from independent reports, media coverage and official statistics. Added together they come to a staggering £82 billion of waste. According to Elliott and Rotherham, while in 1997 the government "plundered" the nation to the tune of £2 billion a week, in 2004-05 that figure had risen to £4.8 billion. Other examples of waste are equally thought provoking: • The Arts Council spent £77,000 sending a team to the North Pole to make a snowman; • Quangos cost over £22 billion per year; • Local government pension schemes are now in deficit to the tune of £27 billion. The taxpayer will fund the difference; • Ken Livingstone's office now costs £13.9 million to run. His staff includes 58 media and marketing personnel; • Between 2000 and 2005, one in every two new jobs created was in the public sector, many of them administrative; • Each European member of parliament (MEP) costs £2.4 million per year in salary, expenses, perks and administration; • In 2005, 20 out of 24 government departments overspent their budgets. The total overspend was £7.1 billion. Harriman House believes it has tapped into a sense of frustration among taxpayers that the massive contributions to Treasury coffers have been dissipated on bureaucracy and generous public-sector pensions. One of the groups that suffers most from government extravagance is pensioners and Harriman House is donating 10p from every copy of the book sold to Isitfair. Christine Melsom is delighted with the recognition and is urging everyone to buy a copy. She says that 10,000 pre-launch copies have already been sold and another 10,000 are winging their way to the shelves. In the meantime, local Isitfair campaigners will stage their protest outside the county council chamber, before filling the public gallery for the ratification of the 2006/07 budget. When council tax bills fall through the letter box next month, Isitfair is urging all campaigners to make a copy and send it first class to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, with personal messages of protest written on the front. "The greater the number of bills landing up on John Prescott's desk on the morning of March 31 the better – he won't know what's hit him," said Mrs Melsom, who intends heading a deputation that will hand-deliver copies of council tax bills to the ODPM on that same morning. She said the message was clear: "Dignified silence is unaffordable."
