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I'm a councillor in the London Borough of Wandsworth; this blog mainly covers that, sometimes general politics and policy and occasionally anything else that takes my fancy.
Tag Archives: council tax
More direct democracy
Another edict extending direct democracy has come forth from Eric Pickles. This time that a local referendum will be forced whenever a local council increases council tax by more than a pre-set amount. As a government fan boy you would expect me to support it, but while I’m definitely in the fan boy category (why
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Wandsworth sets lowest council tax, again
It’s not really news, since the intention has been known for weeks – and could have been guessed for months, if not years – but Wandsworth formally set a 0% increase in council tax for 2010/11 last night at a special meeting of the full council. They are always odd meetings. You would expect them
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Posted in Politics, Wandsworth
Also tagged Labour, Lord Ashcroft, Lord Paul, socialism
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Zero council tax increase, again
Wandsworth is planning on keeping council tax at the same rate for the third year running. In one of those bizarre twists of local government finance Wandsworth’s average council tax is dropping because the Putney and Wimbledon Commons Conservators (who levy a precept to maintain the commons) are reducing their precept. The video features Deputy
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Mayor freezes council tax again
Last week I touched on the Labour gimmick of freezing council tax in the eight London boroughs they control and suggested that, actually, if you wanted value and quality services you were better sticking with Conservative authorities that already had a track record. I failed to mention yesterday the Boris Johnson has again frozen the
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Posted in London, Politics
Also tagged Boris Johnson, budget, Ken Livingstone, Mayor
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Labour’s flexible, and political, approach to council tax
Today’s news that all the Labour councils in London are to freeze council tax next year (I say all, they only have eight) came as something of a shock. First of all, I don’t think London Labour have a particularly good track record of keeping council tax low. If you take the inner London Labour
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Latest Battersea ‘In Touch’
We are currently in the process of distributing the latest issue of ‘In Touch’, our consitutency wide paper. If you prefer paperless, you can download a copy by following this link (543kb). The issue contains: Zero council tax increase this year A message from Wandsworth Council Leader Edward Lister Boris tackles City Hall waste to
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Posted in Politics
Also tagged Battersea, Council, David Cameron, Edward Lister, In Touch, Jane Ellison, recession, Residents' News
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More on the council tax…
I’ve blogged and Tweeted at length about the council tax setting, and I’m aware that there’s only so many ways that you can announce we’re keeping tax at last year’s levels…published a YouTube video of Maurice Heaster, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Corporate Resources talking about the announcement. I’m really pleased, not just because
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Do Labour have any answers to the recession?
Labour did not cover themselves in glory at last night’s meeting. You would expect me to say that, wouldn’t you? But actually I’m rather disappointed in them. I expected a coherent set of arguments and reasoned alternative budget from them. Instead, it seemed every time one of them stood up to speak we got a
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Posted in Politics, Wandsworth
Also tagged Council, dog fouling, Malcolm Grimston, recession, Sadiq Khan, Tony Belton, Tooting Together
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Is it worth Tweeting council meetings?
Last night I Tweeted from Wandsworth’s council tax setting meeting. You can see the Tweets in my last post. As with anything in life, it’s worth a little bit of reflection. Why I did it It seemed a worthy experiment, but beyond that I can’t give any really good reasons. I’d seen a few examples
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Tweets from last night’s council meeting
As an experiment I posted some updates from last night’s council meeting. They follow, in chronological order below, along with a few others that didn’t carry the #wwcnl hashtag. Most notably the shocking revelation that I stayed up to watch Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason when I got back. I am in touch with
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