Compare my two experiences with bills this April. Westminster Council sent me a Council tax bill for my small flat that imposes a 110% increase on me because I only stay there occasionally when I work a long day and evening in London. It means the only services I use are the local roads and the refuse service. I take my small quantity of rubbish to a large communal container on the ground floor for all the flats which Westminster can easily access. My small amount makes no difference to their collection. I cannot switch Council provider . I have to pay their rip off bill as it would be strongly enforced,unlike the UK border and laws on migration.
One of the supermarkets I use near home sent me a voucher offering me £9 or 15% off my next shop if I spent £60. I went along and saw they were also offering good extra product discounts to me as a loyalty card holder. I bought £69.98 of goods, qualifying for £9.35 off selected products as well as the £9 off. So I gained a discount of £18.35 or 26%.
What a difference. The shop gave me a big discount to buy things I needed and wanted. The Council mugged me to spend money on many things I do not want and many others I think are a dreadful waste as well as some necessary public services for others where I am happy to contribute. They sent no warning of their rip off and had no thought for what I would have to cut out to afford their over the top bill. They like putting out enforcement notices telling you what you have to comply with.
April 15, 2025
Good morning.
I mentioned on this site how, as a percentage, my Council Tax Bill was made up. It is a disgrace that I have to pay such a large sum for so little in return as so much of that bill is for things I will never need.
I think it would be fairer if I was presented with a list of services I used and the cost associated with them. I have just done such a thing with my accountant, asking him what are the likely costs of the various services he offers to me. This is so that I can shop around to get the best deal.
The power of the consumer, whether that be in the private or public sector relies on CHOICE ! CHOICE drives innovation and efficiency. CHOICE places the consumer in the position of power as their money is what drives things.
The sooner we can choose what and who provides our services the greater the chance we will get a better more cost efficient service.
April 15, 2025
We also have a council spending millions in revamping the town centre. It was perfectly good before with s very nice sundial. This is being replaced by some concrete blocks and a grass area. It will be ideal for the druggies and rough sleepers whereas nearby the roads are appalling.
We hope Reform take over and some sensible decisions can be made.
April 15, 2025
Talking about rip-offs, john we have the highest electricity prices in the world all because the market is rigged in favour of the renewable scammers by taxing gas at £60 per mwh
If this was removed then the wholesale price of electricity would drop and the mirrors and windmills would go bust.
April 15, 2025
A big part of council spending is for care homes for people who spent all the money they had and put nothing by for their old age. I resent having to pay for this as a tax. Offer me the option of making a charitable donation to their needs and I might be sympathetic.
Another big part of council spending is on education. I don’t mind this. Surely the older generation who are leaving the next with a colossal national debt owe it to the young people.
April 15, 2025
We should be able to opt-out of services. Would help the council with provision.
April 15, 2025
My Green council in Brighton spent GBP millions on bicycle lanes hardly anyone uses. They didn’t use paint as a bicycle lane boundary, they used the most expensive Scandinavian option of little, permanent bike kerbs. The eco-loons also permitted cars to park next to these little kerbs in the middle of the road! being a danger to motorists and even further narrowing what is left of the original road.
They spent over GBP 1 million widening an existing small roundabout just to narrow the traffic volume round it intentionally defeating the purpose of the roundabout.
Yet if one ever visits Brighton you will see filthy, unhygienic streets, dangerously dislodged paving stones, grass and weeds everywhere. The standards here have dropped to rock bottom. God knows what a Singaporean English-language student or an American tourist thinks of this place.
We pay a fortune for this dirty, eco-Socialism but local political parties do not take it on. Instead they talk about potholes. Brighton (and elsewhere) needs local political parties to show leadership, be themselves and offer the electorate a choice. In the absence of choice council sanity and efficiency can never exist.
April 15, 2025
Who keeps voting these idiots in Paul. Surely not the permanent residents who have to live with this excrement. It’s the same with Bristol having a large student population whe clear off home during the holidays and don’t have to suffer the inconvenience.
April 15, 2025
I also live in Brighton and only benefit from minimal refuse collection. The council uses the street wheels bin system which ruins the street scene. I also stay in London and there the council uses the orange bag recycling and black refuse bag system where bags are collected and there is no mess.
But the Brighton Council tax office is very efficient. I have a house which is let in order to top up my inadequate pension. Two months ago the tenant gave notice and moved out, leaving it unlettable with dark decorations and dirty with a garden overgrown. I had to refurbish it myself as the cost today would be unaffordable. I have received a demand for double council tax from the day the tenant moved out. Lord Gove allowed councils to do this and Labour are keen to tax anything going. Other BTL investors that I know are selling at reduced prices. Most of the prospective tenants who have shown interest are foreign.
April 15, 2025
Paul
Brighton Like many other Towns and Cities is pricing itself out of visitors.
Last time I went to Brighton, about 5 years ago, I found all of the usual problems of ever changing poorly signed speed limits, one way roads, entry restrictions, and very expensive and complicated car parking charges.
Vowed then never to visit again, and have not done so.
Bristol is another City that seems to hate cars with a passion. It also has a ULEZ charge, but with different criteria than some other schemes.
April 15, 2025
+1
April 15, 2025
Sorry, but all you can do is move, as far as I can see. In your last council elections, Labour and the Greens won 72% of the vote. That’s the sort of people you’re living with. They want the place to be as you describe it. They’re ‘anywheres’, so of course they have no civic pride in the place where they live. Wouldn’t you be better somewhere else?
April 15, 2025
@Mark B. Some will retort that we have “choice” at election time. But that’s a pathetic argument.
Firstly, elections come around every few years – not when you’re given a rip-off bill which you can’t refuse to pay. Elections are not about any specific bills, either. This year even elections have cancelled, for political purposes. Secondly, the politicians who claim they’ll cut costs in office often renege on this when they have power. Thirdly, bureaucrats running councils have the nouse, determination and ability to keep spending high, despite the efforts of most truly well-meaning elected representatives. I could go on.
My greatest disappointment has been the rise of a “Local Party” in my town, which gets elected because of the disdain electors have for the big Parties. However, the newcomer spends freely on civic garbage and has increased the precept by the maximum, whenever the law allows. For years under the major Parties it was at the £50 level; now it’s over £150. Project that mismanagement to the higher tiers of Councils, and you can see what a mess we are in.
April 15, 2025
“Some will retort that we have “choice” at election time. But that’s a pathetic argument.”
Indeed it is a choice under first past the post between two or perhaps three candidates with any change who will lie to get elected and then probably do the reverse once elected as we saw with Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak, Starmer… even if they want to do as promised they will fail due to the blob, international bodies, quangos, civil servants, the legal profession, legal acts that tie their hands, the Lords…
Monopolies or rigged markets in Energy, Law, Education, Transport, Refuse, the BBC, Banking, Housing…
April 15, 2025
Lastly, I think your example here of the supermarket is a category error. As you ultimately see the UK and how it should work and pay for itself as one big supermarket! That to me is clearly wrong from the POINT of view of economics (how is this supermarket-mentality going to pay for our military, roads, education etc). At some point, the supermarket mentality does work (clearly for consumer needs and wants but not for the basic infrastructure of our country). And the simple solution to your problem is not to go to the extreme of the supermarket example but for you to pay the same (no more or less) than everyone else in your area regarding your council tax bill. Your argument is flogging a dead horse. And never going to run
April 15, 2025
You choose to have two homes. You are lucky to be so rich. If you really resent paying a small tax to pay for essential public services used by Westminster residents, you are free to sell up
April 15, 2025
Probably the best thing to do is sell up. This as you will pay CGT on it (without and indexation for inflation) or IHT eventually and pay double council tax and all the bills. Might be cheeper to stay at the East India Club or an hotel!
April 15, 2025
MPs have to have somewhere to stay in London unless they have a local constituency. The second home was a necessity, not a luxury.
April 16, 2025
John Redwood is not an MP
April 16, 2025
Many of them sleep in Parliament.
April 15, 2025
From personal experience, bar what I see as my responsibilities, I would return to life in Mediteranean Spain.
Cost of living in every aspect I can recall much cheaper than the UK. Supermarkets offering ranges of food you never see in the UK.
A public health service that is readily available and highly competent. They revere the elderly.
A police force that is constantly visible and responsive to crime, combined with personal biometric identification. Absolutely no recognition of woke. Legendary good weather such that life is largely conducted outdoors in a very healthy environment.
Motoring on pothole free excellent roads that brings back memories of the UK in the 60s. All motoring costs markedly lower than in the UK. Railways that are clean, swift, inexpensive and invariably on time.
The Spanish are very friendly people to be among.
SJR, you could see out your years in contentment, still commenting on the obscenity of life in the UK , with the occasional cheap two hour flight to Gatwick to conduct lectures at All Souls. Westminster Council do not deserve or earn your contribution to their pension provision which is what 20% of it is directed towards.
April 15, 2025
Maybe go away then, if you dislike Britain so much
April 15, 2025
I do not dislike the UK nor Europe (I have a house in France and my wife and children have Italian passports – just the dire politicians who have made such a mess of them.
April 15, 2025
Read what I wrote before your preconceived thoughts took over.
April 15, 2025
I resent paying council tax which is calculated on the size of my house and not my income or what I use. I resent the mandatory increases each year whilst services are withdrawn. I resent paying extra for the police when they have closed the police station. £90 for garden waste that used be collected within the council tax budget. ( that is how they increased the tax without having to include it in the increase percentage) I also resent the excessive wages which I have no control over. I resent paying for DEI departments and staff that produce absolutely nothing whatsoever. I also resent their tick box consultations that never ask the correct or relevant questions. Just look at the 5 million dished out for the junction at Finchampstead that nobody wanted and was so ridiculous in its design it hit the national papers. Don’t say you can change things with your vote because the things I have mentioned will never change. Whatever party is in the nose goes straight into the trough. There is no point voting as democracy is just a word that is thrown about to justify the status quo.
April 15, 2025
+1 I would like to pay taxes with a light heart, knowing they were doing good – alas in the UK I know they will be pissed down the drain.
April 15, 2025
Nobody likes bill increases, but like most people that post on this blog, I expect that you can afford them.
Mrs Gold and I have given Old Jim our gardener an increase in his hourly rate and an extra afternoon a week. His landlord wants a 35% increase in rent and if he can’t afford to pay it, he is being threatened with a no-fault eviction. The agency that supplies our Bulgarian cleaner has subjected us to a 10% increase.
This April everyone’s council tax has gone up. So has broadband, TV, water bills, energy costs, buildings and contents insurance, car insurance and vehicle excise duty. Though the state pension has received a triple-lock uplift, these cost of living increases are going to absorb all of it and more.
About 3.5 million people, many with two and even three jobs, are forced to use foodbanks in this country. Maybe you could consider donating your supermarket savings to one near you.
April 15, 2025
SG aren’t you a member of the good life. A gardener and a cleaner. Have you ventured into the real world
April 15, 2025
Good for you, poor Old Jim – the garden and hothouse to care for.
The wages must be good because the commute from Bulgaria is not insubstantial. Of course Bulgaria is a very cheap place to live.
April 15, 2025
Whereas Westminster Council is wasteful and inefficient, tailoring charges to suit wide ranges of individual circumstances adds complexity and costs itself.
HMRC income tax has much greater effect on what people have left to spend each year. If that is efficiently spent on sensible things and fairly applied, most payers would be content overall.
We all need and buy many things but use only parts, or waste them unintentionally.
A man once caused a tiny nick in the wall of his car tyre, but that rendered the tyre illegal. As the nick was almost invisible, he asked the tyre shop for a discount on the new one.
The tyre fitter replied: “I’m sorry but, No. We have to replace the whole tyre, Sir”.
April 15, 2025
And what approach do you think the supermarket would take Sir John if it had a limited weekly stock and floorspace such that it could only accommodate a limited number of shoppers? Do you think it would encourage your small shop or put a premium on it.
Second homes prevent others from owning or renting and put prices up. How fortunate for you that you have two properties. I am going to assume that the taxpayer should really own your Westminster flat.
Reply No, I paid for it out of taxed income.
April 16, 2025
Noted
April 15, 2025
Council Tax was created by the Local Government Finance Act 1992 which came into force on 1st January 1993.
Who was Minister of State for Local Government on 1st January 1993?
Reply Yes I was and it did not include double taxes on anyone.
April 16, 2025
The current Council Tax double taxation rules were introduced in the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act 2023 (under the Conservatives) and the council choosing to charge you under them is also Conservative-run.
April 15, 2025
My small 3 bed house in a nice part of Dorset has a Council Tax Bill of £282 a month (pre 25% discount).
It’s a lot of money but fortunately (at the moment) I don’t have to suffer the consequences of all the marvellous “enrichment” successive governments have foisted on us – as long as I don’t venture anywhere near Bournemouth which has deteriorated considerably since I moved west 9 years ago.
The Council went from semi-sensible CONservative, to far less sensible LibDem at the last election but that was the consequence the LibCONs deserved for betraying their electorate so comprehensively. They’ll find it impossible to regain complete control of the Council because Reform UK is now getting very well organised down here.
April 15, 2025
@Donna – its sad to see the malicious destruction of Bournemouth. Used to be affluent, now effluent. The LibDem’s know that inexactitudes get you elected and unfortunately CONservative have caught the disease – probably as they only have a team wanting LibDems onboard.
They all miss the fact there will be a time that you need to deliver.
April 16, 2025
Two decades ago it was a genteel seaside town. Now it has been so marvellously “enriched” it is dirty, run-down and beginning to resemble Birmingham. Violence and sexual attacks are commonplace. It’s no longer a place where any sensible female would venture out alone at night.
April 15, 2025
If Govt provides a budget for an MP’s constituency office, Councils charging Council Tax is daft. An Exemption would be sensible.
Allowances and deductions chasing each other back and forth through accounting systems just add complication and waste needlessly.
Far too many processes are disguised in muddle, preventing those buying, receiving and using the services from clarity of understanding and value.
April 15, 2025
@Bloke – that about sums up the UK tax system as a whole. Allowances, deductions and even your suggested exemptions ( I guess you mean it in a different context) all cloud the need and purpose. Reliefs on reliefs even at the basics must be a costly nightmare to administer. We end up for some having tax on tax to pay – more costly administration. They all cloud the idea that things we want and demand have to be paid for – everyone is happy as long as it is not ‘us’. Steve Wozniak ( Co founder of Apple) once used the computing power of his company and found that if every one earning paid a flat 2% tax( or some such ridiculously low figure) the same revenue would be earned and every earner would contribute according to ability to pay.
As with the UK the top 10% pay 60% of all income tax. then we have 54% of all individuals receive more than they contribute.
The balance is wrong. We would all be paying a lot less if those who suggest they are the management started managing, managing their expenditure for results. Then release those that know their needs, their local needs to provide for them. Socialism is killing the Country
April 16, 2025
Ian B:
The UK Tax Code takes 10 million words just to describe its basis.
Government needs one large sum to fund what it spends.
A concept of having solely ONE source might start simplification, such as charging an extremely high tax on energy.
Work is good. Tax on work seems odd and should be focused on bad things.
Fundamentally, tax exists to pay for Govt expenditure and adjust people’s behaviour.
The existing multi-variate routes via allowances, deductions, taper reliefs and the myriad of other complications serve only generations of waste and worthlessness.
However it is charged, whether in one lump or thousands of odd bits, the consumer has to pay the full amount.
April 15, 2025
Local councils have long since ceased to be only about providing local services, they are a platform for ambitious politicians to move up the ladder, indeed one of my former local councillors is now in the cabinet. As a result of this my local council now issues proclamations on a range of national and international matters (eg. the EU, Gaza, Trump, NHS reform) entirely outside their remit.
April 15, 2025
In effect we have wealth taxes in this country: double council tax on 2nd properties, extra VED on more expensive vehicles, punitive rates of stamp duty, frozen IHT threshold. Not so long ago council tax on 2nd properties was actually lower as it was recognised that local taxes were a kind of service charge for services used. Likewise stamp duty was to cover the costs of providing the service associated with change of ownership. But ever-grasping politicians of all main parties milk all these subsidiary taxes because of the toxicity associated with raising rates on income tax, NI, and VAT.
April 15, 2025
@Burning Injustice – you are right and wrong to one degree or another.
Council tax on 2nd homes, the services not consumed are still having to be paid for, the roads, the schools, the bin collection are still needed. Either those locals left have to pay the shortfall or leave causing more local decline. As a generalisation the 2nd home owners don’t even use local businesses, use the pubs, shops, supermarkets for the 365days of the year but they have this 2nd home because they are the things that make it, and the area attractive. Communities exists as a result of their local income for a full year.
The Shop keeper still has to pay the extra NI etc, the shop is part of the community, the attraction – but if half the area has full time homes elsewhere how can this attraction be maintained?
But yes just doubling is poking someone in the eye because you can. This is the UK nothing is proportional or fair that’s why we have TTK to maintain the double standards
April 15, 2025
Those council tax bills will only get worse – Time to give up the flat and use a reasonably priced hotel for odd occasions – IF you can find one, I never have.
Councils are becoming ever more dictatorial. My council allegedly sent out a survey on a number of issues, which according to them were acceptable to most people. The proposed changes included moving to multiple wheelie bins for rubbish, with pickups alternate weeks for organic/recycling.
I have no doubt this will all be imposed on us before long.
There was a very brief description given of new developments in the town centre, with an ominous comment about ‘car restrictions’
We can no longer trust councils to look after our own interests – they will like Bristol and London pursue net0 plans to constrict movement and block off roads.
All of which will be made so much worse when the super-councils come into being. Interestingly HMG is not doing much of the work for this. Councils are being told to prepare their own plans to exterminate themselves.
April 15, 2025
I’ve been moaning about ‘council tax’ for years. I live in a cul-de-sac, there are five dwellings. It’s approached via a private road. We are responsible for the maintenance of the road and party wall boundaries. We have no street lighting.
This years council tax bill is £3400. That’s a hell of a price to have our bins emptied ……….
April 15, 2025
Bins emptied 25 times a year ….if you’re lucky
April 18, 2025
Plenty of other stuff councils are legally obliged to provide.
For example housing “asylum seekers”and or other non native citizen who may or may not be working or net taxpayers.
Once the number is large and it is, its a major problem. Some consider it part of a multi faceted form of hybrid war against states in the west. Using the welfare systems to cripple them. Clever and effective.
April 15, 2025
Everything a council wants to do, how much they charge, who they hire etc all need to be put to referendums.
If that were the case we would have low spending councils across the country.
What is ironic is that on some media one hears the term “cash-strapped” council.
They have got to be joking.
April 15, 2025
Government, both local and national, don’t give a jot for those whom they purport to represent. Our so-called democracy is a charade.
April 15, 2025
We’re giving another £120million to the Sudan ……a muslin country surrounded by rich upon rich muslin neighbour states ….so why are we, a ‘poor’ christrian state (Islamic Aid is the led agency in Sudan), some 5 thousand kilometers away giving aid when we can’t even empty bins in birmingham
April 15, 2025
The only thing that was wrong with the Community Charge, or so called ‘Poll Tax’, was the failure to sell it properly. It had the merit of affecting all voters, and was manifestly a charge for service. John Major made a great merit of changing it for Council Tax, just as people were getting used to it, and the fuss was dying down. Council Tax, paid only by the home owner, lacks the same directness and has become in effect just a tax on owning property, as evidenced by punitive taxation of second homes, such as your Westminster flat.
April 15, 2025
I used to live in Hove, and about five years ago, we went back for a long weekend. We moved north in 1990 when Brighton and Hove were pleasant places to live. We were shocked by how scruffy and dirty it was, with weeds growing everywhere. Equally shocked by the difficulty in parking and the cost of doing so.
To be blunt, we thought it was a dump and will never go back.
That is what a green-controlled council does for you. I have no idea what the council tax is today, but I am certain it will be one of the higher ones.
The contrast with a shop that wants your business and has to fight for it in a competitive market could not be greater.
April 15, 2025
Sir John
It the usual corrupt Central Government imposition on the captive tax payer – the one size fits all in every individual circumstance.
Second home owners in picturesque parts of the Country have squeezed the local inhabitants out, therefore destroying the very fabric of those communities. In those situations, the incomers were NOT contributing to what made the area attractive. Their money spend activities were back somewhere else out of the area but expected this community – so the very thing that created the area was destroyed.
We have this Century focused on having a destructive WEF inspired Socialist cabal in Parliament – hence the word the Uniparty. There Socialist mentality is their center command a control knows best is the rule. So, all areas of the Country have to be compliant and accept the Politburo diktats – that’s how Socialism works. Westminster is down in the gutter nowadays like the whole of London
Back when Conservatism existed the rough rule was that people could manage themselves better so let them get on with it and take on the responsibilities.
April 15, 2025
This is wrong. Terrible. I can’t believe it. You should just pay the same as others are paying in your area – no more or less.
However, council-tax payers aren’t consumers. It’s a tax similar to paying income tax (unless you believe income tax should be reduced to 0% ?!).
At end of day, we are still a country – not a consumer company or a consumer market. Otherwise, what does it mean to British? And why, therefore, should politicians command any respect or loyalty? Politicians are not meant to be 100% business leaders. Our country or local community is not meant to be this.
There is also another issue we have to look into and that is non-British residents buying flats in London that they never live in. At some point it costs our country more as our young middle-class (and working class) aren’t able to buy their own house and so can’t marry (and procreate the new generation) etc). And our nurses and others can’t find places to live near the hospital they work in. But this needs to be figured out in a way that doesn’t harm capitalism but that doesn’t harm either the needs of our young to buy houses and marry and of our nurses etc.
April 15, 2025
Easy to stop people who do not living in the U.K. from owning residential property here. They should be able to invest in every other way. They should even be allowed to have bank accounts! They buy flats and never let them because that is their ‘bank substitute’.
April 15, 2025
Maybe we should scrap the council tax and replace with a 100% central government taxpayer grant
April 15, 2025
We received our Dorset Council tax bill last Friday. It is now going to be £4,800pa.
There are just my wife and I and we receive no benefits of any kind, it’s 25 years since our two children left school, and we have no use for the millions recently spent on miles of unused cycleways. All these have done is increased traffic delays and slow emergency vehicles from reaching their destinations. We don’t use the library either.
What exactly are we getting for our money other than bin collections ?
April 15, 2025
You get bin collections! But not every week as previously surely?
April 15, 2025
I’m sorry, Mr. Redwood – people like you bleating about tax is a bit strong. I shudder to think how big your MP’s pension is – provided by the rest of us over your 37 years in Parliament.
April 15, 2025
Ah – so you think MPs should not be paid?
April 16, 2025
I wonder how you make that leap? I didn’t say, or suggest in any way, that. What I did say was that MPs have a very privileged life. Many of them have a second property in London paid for by us. Any profit on that second home should be the taxpayers’. But some of the used to swap which property was their main residence to avoid Capital Gains Tax. MPs decide how much to tax us. MPs created the ridiculous council tax system. It’s a bit rich to hear them complain about it. Here in Dorset we have the 3rd highest tax rate in the whole country for a Band D property.
April 15, 2025
Presumably, your objection is to the Second Home Council Tax premium applying now across most of England from the beginning of April. It’s another wealth tax promoted by Michael Gove and brought into law by the last Conservative Government. I hope you objected at the time. Another reason I shall not trust the Tories for a very long time.
April 15, 2025
Some highlights from WHO’s latest draft Pandemic Treaty.
The WHO continues to work on a draft that will be accepted by a sufficient number of countries – 60 minimum.
We still do not want it.
April 15, 2025
Well according to reports, Starmer is planning an even closer relationship with the EU via the backdoor ….the WHO treaty is just another tick in the box
April 15, 2025
Sir John
Amusing that you think your Loyalty Card is offering you something. It is strange don’t you think when UK Supermarkets have a promotion, they suggest they match the German Supermarkets on price. The you get the caveat only if you have a Customer Card, something not required by the Germans.
So why loyalty cards? Simples, Loyalty Cards are about collecting personal ‘data’, farming humans to sell to data banks outside of the UK, outside OK the UK’s jurisdiction. They the companies make a lot of money selling you, the customer – you have become their commodity.
Some of it seems harmless, but you, me, us are not allowed to know who gets the data and what they do with it. Government security and safety laws add to this obscurity
A year or so back I was commissioned to ‘try’ and track back the data usage by one of the Social Media giants for a client. The seemingly innocent data collection was at around 34 data banks initially collecting personal data on each engagement on the website. These in turn where they admitted it sold the data on, who also sold it on, so 34 suddenly became 1,000’s of outfits around the globe collecting personal data. No one is allowed to know in the UK where this data ends up, it is clearly collected for profit of some sort – otherwise why do it.
Consumer Loyalty Cards of Human Farming cards – they are there for profit of the supplier first
April 15, 2025
Personal private data – sold by NHS to the Chinese Government for profit
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/15/china-uk-patients-health-data/
Will they honestly say why? Or is Government looking for lessons of Control from their masters?
April 15, 2025
Of course you can switch Council provider. You can move. Or try owning one house, not two
April 15, 2025
Ah , just like the smart-meter
April 15, 2025
I have to send the reading from my smart meters every month. Brand new they are too. If they can’t read them are they only able to switch off the electricity/gas?
April 15, 2025
Afraid it runs through everything that the Government Departments are involved in or with, expensive, complicated and very poor value for money.
For an example just look at some of the Public inquiries, takes years, costs a fortune, and delivers poor recommendations which are rarely followed.
April 15, 2025
Lifelogic has admitted he lives abroad because of tax reasons (because he thinks taxes here in UK are robbery). I do not judge him / begrudge him etc. Good luck to him if he’s found the good life abroad where he doesn’t have to pay taxes like here in the UK.
But he’s also admitted he has tonnes of money (and again good luck to him! I wish I had tones of money).
And I bring in the money because I think the UK is the best country to live in by far. So, in my view, he’s missing out on sooo much whether he was rich or poor.
And if I had Lifelogic’s money, I’d be having a ball. I’d have my own house in the country and in London. I’d be going to big football games all the time. Eating out in restaurants with my friends. Going to the horse-races etc etc
But even when it comes to money, there is far more to the UK than what you can buy here that makes it GREAT. I even love the dreary weather here (I love sunny beach holidays in Bali too!). Or going into the local butcher and hearing a local moan about prices or something. Or hearing some good banter from a taxi driver or in a pub. And the English countryside. And London. Just walking along. I get endless more pleasure out of the free things here in the UK than things you have to pay for.
So I think one can become overly obsessed about saving money and about inefficiency and the socialists stealing your money (I agree, they are to a degree / sometimes to a big degree). But money can’t buy time. And time is passing quick. And money can’t buy the so many wonderful things to experience here in the UK. And why, if rich or poor, I’d much rather live here in the UK than anywhere else (even though I’ve been to some fantastic places abroad – many – but still not enough!).
(Also, our country needs you Lifelogic! We need people with brains etc in our country to make our country better!).
April 15, 2025
Well if I we t back to the UK for more than 90 or so days (the rules are complex) it would cost me over £2M PA in extra tax PA. Tax that I know would largely be pissed down the drain and for nothing back, then 40% IHT on death too.
April 15, 2025
I live in a little relic of England. It’s just the same here as it always was. But I am increasingly loath to go to the other places I knew and loved – because they have changed beyond recognition. Friends return from trips to London ashen and seriously shaken.
How long before the little quiet corners like ours are a memory too?
April 15, 2025
Digital water meters are being imposed, just like they will shortly be in the UK.
They are planning to borrow billions and they enjoy some of the highest tax rates in the entire EU, but they still don’t have enough money.
The new coalition government has ambitious spending plans… Various economic institutes, including the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) and the German Institute for Economic Research … calculate a funding gap of around 50 billion Euros in view of these plans.
So, we wonder, just how long will Germany be able to function with debt hitting such extreme levels – will they also emulate the economic crash that the UK will suffer from?
It will all be a lot worse than the big banking crisis – that is for sure.
April 15, 2025
Last year the debt to GDP ratio was 62% in Germany and near 100% in the UK.
The UK debt per citizen is £50.6 k. The German equivalent is €25.5 k.
(worlddebtclocks.com ‘National debt of …’)
Up to last year, the German deficit was constitutionally limited to 0.35% of GDP. The new Chancellor has said he will not go on following this constitutional constraint, mainly for reasons of increased defence spending. Therefore the €50 bn announced.
In 2023/24 the UK deficit was £131 bn (4.8% of UK GDP). ‘The budget deficit: a short guide’ 17/01/2025 commonslibrary.parliament.uk.
I don’t think the Germans will worry as much as you do, not reading the biased literature you appear to be fond of. Or is it you are unable to draw proper comparisons?
April 16, 2025
Strange how die-hard armchair socialists always give themselves away by quoting distorted and specially selected numbers while managing to add a personal insult.
Anybody that imagines that Germany, like France, is not going to go down the same economic drain as the UK needs better glasses.
Both countries are bust and increasing national debt by the day. There can be no doubt that the approach used by both countries is contrived and coordinated.
April 15, 2025
But what’s the solution? How do we get more public involvement to determine how money is spent, particularly on “green” projects? Why is there no accountability when “investments” go disatrously wrong? Why is it that those working on the public payroll never get sacked let alone prosecuted for laziness, negligence, incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, misbehaviour, insubordination or even treachery? The current uniparty system with 300+ quangos is not working and human rights legislation is destroying democracy by prioritising the rights of minorities over the majority. Perhaps we need to move to a system that uses referendums for major national and local decisions as they do in Switzerland?
April 15, 2025
What is Donald Trump doing to enhance SKILLS in the USA?
He focuses on tariffs but NOT skills.
Reasons so many US companies important their parts from outside the USA is because of SKILLS. China in particular. They don’t focus on China because of low wages (they do to a degree but not like the did 30 years ago). The real reason is SKILLS. The Chinese are highly skilled in manufacturing. Skills that are sorely lacking in the USA.
And notice how it is NOT the job of private companies to educate workers to have these essential skills (private companies will help advance their skills but only if they are already well-skilled). So US companies settle in places like China for the skills (and to a degree lower wages).
But this is something Donald Trump doesn’t discuss. Because he just doesn’t get it. Just as it’s madness to go out on all out tariff war (where everyone loses). Tarrifs are useful but only when moderate and well-aimed.
April 15, 2025
This is Apple’s excuse, but they will have to change their tune if they want yo keep selling these devices at the exorbitant prices they charge in the west. They ‘skilled’ Chinese will not pay the price. That’s why China is in such big trouble – no consumers! Hardly any in BRICS – loads of people but vast majority poor.
Don’t forget the USA funds China’s massive debt, so it’s not just the mad imbalance of trade that puts the screws on China.
April 16, 2025
I’m under the impression it is the other way round. China is the biggest holder of USA debt. The USA has a debt in excess of $30 trillion. There is a sell off in US treasuries taking place at the moment as, this time, T Bills are not regarded as a safe haven. The Fed is apparently about to step in with another load of QE disguised as something else.
April 17, 2025
MW, you’re right.
visualcapitalist.com 10/12/2024 ‘Charted: Here’s who owns US debt’.
In 2023, the total US debt was $34.4 tn, with $26.4 tn owned by domestic agents and $7.9 tn internationally owned.
Of this last bit $1.1 tn owned by Japan, $820 bn by China, $680 bn by the UK, and $5.3 tn by the RotW.
As for the actual China’s debt, see flybynightgraphics.com ‘How big is China’s debt and who owns it? (2025)’.
April 15, 2025
So American manufacturing workers want more money whilst offering lower skills (that’s the real issue) compared to Chinese and other workers. It’s a no brainer why US companies like Apple and Boeing and so on buy so many of their parts from abroad (and to some degree, many US companies have their products assembled abroad). But Trump just doesn’t seem to get this. And so many other ways his tariffs war will greatly harm the US economy (as Michael O’Leary argues recently. He – like 99% of CEOs of successful companies around the world – just think Donald Trump is ********* (fill in your own word to describe him over tariffs).
April 15, 2025
@Ed M – in the US some of the biggest distortions come from US companies themselves. When NAFTA was announced Ford closed down all(except for the Mustang) US car manufacturing and moved it to Mexico.
April 15, 2025
But what do you want companies to do? And why?!
Also, by taking some of their company’s work abroad, they are avoiding the need to bring immigrants into the country.
If Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to the USA then he has to address the lack of competitiveness of US workers compared to say Chinese (China: cheaper wages, much higher skills). But where is the discussion on skills? It’s not the job of companies to build up the skills of people from scratch (unless you live in a Communist country where companies are forced to do that). Companies are happy to build up people’s skills but not to build them up from scratch (it costs them time and profits).
Trump’s vision here is UTOPIAN. Not practical. And that’s partly because his business is very niche. He doesn’t understand the complexity of modern trade and how modern economies function. That’s it. There’s no argument here (99% of CEO of big, successful companies around the world would say there is no argument, too).
But if Trump wants to begin to address this problem then he has to do the HARD WORK of trying to address skills shortages (but that’s a big nut to crack too).
April 16, 2025
@Ed M – like all these things there is always more to it than what they appear at face value. For big corporations they will always chase the taxpayer handouts to encourage them to move in. Biden caused a lot of companies to take up US residence(including UK ones) for the IRA handouts. Countries keep weaponise trade by ‘giving’ taxpayers money away as inducements – it becomes a way of decimating trade not enhancing it.
Tesla grew from State and Country handouts, taxpayers around the World funded its growth it didn’t have to find its own money.
But perspective vis-a-vie the USA and expertise, RollsRoyce has in the last year or so invested 1 Billion Dollars in just one US facility, that facility is now the Worlds largest producer of Rolls Royce products. Would that have happened if it was a lack of quality or to highly paid staff?
April 15, 2025
So let the Chinese pay US prices – then Apple and the globalist O’Leary will be able to earn their billions in BRICS. The genius O’Leary was going to leave the U.K. if we voted for Brexit. What happened?
April 15, 2025
PS I think China is one of the places where you can live on a £ a day. Can you do that in the west? Don’t we need more than that just to pay the Council tax?
April 16, 2025
LA, I don’t know where you get your figures. The average living cost in China is $1400/month ie £1055 ie £35/day (xe.com, copound.com ‘Cost of living for a single person in China 2025’)
Moreover the domestic consumption of China is 56%, much smaller than in the ‘West’ (UK 83%, USA 81%, France 79%, Germany 75% data.worldbank.org ‘Final consumption expenditure (% of GDP)’) but not negligible, with a current effort to increase domestic consumption (cnbc.com 16/03/2025 ‘China announces plan to ‘vigorously boost consumption’ in bid to shore up economy’)
As for China’s trade with the BRICS, that’s another of your ‘interesting’ comments: flow.db.com 26/03/2025 ‘China’s huge trade surplus – where next?’.
April 15, 2025
That’s politicians for you?
April 15, 2025
Dear Mr. Redwood,
You highlight the raw deal you get from Westminster Council. What about our national governments?
We are taxed to the hilt and in return for what? The importation of coal, oil and gas when we are sat on huge quantities of our own. Billions of pounds a year squandered on hotels for migrants. More billions for foreign aid. Even more billions for HS2. Millions wasted on DEI. The running-down of our motor industry. The list is almost endless.
We can switch from one of the established parties to the other every 5 years or so but what would be the point? We have to pay our taxes despite the proven uselessness of local politicians and national governments.
Given what has gone off over the last few decades, I am surprised the population remains so docile.
April 15, 2025
I’ve read that there may be grounds for legal challenge of council’s imposing the double council tax on second homes. Maybe there could be a crowd funder? There must be a large number of people who have second homes for reasons of work, spending time with elderly relatives or other reasons.
April 15, 2025
It was unfortunate that the Conservatives introduced the new law that allowed councils to levy this envy tax. It did not take a rocket scientist to see what would happen.
April 15, 2025
“I have to pay their rip off bill as it would be strongly enforced, unlike the UK border and laws on migration” is a classic statement, you should have the whole thing printed on T shirts, I would buy one.
You forgot the extra money the councils charge us to empty garden bins… when they mess up and fail to empty the bins we get no refund. That’s right the basic consumer rights laws do not apply, you pay for a service, it is not delivered, but you have no recourse to get your money back or do anything about the poor service.
April 15, 2025
119 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday; from the safe country of France …contravening the Illegal Immigration Act 2023
April 15, 2025
The higest ever numbers arrived today ….will supply actual number tomorrow when listed on govt website
April 15, 2025
It is not a logical deduction that simply because arriving “asylum seekers” are fleeing persecution and war in their own countries it means they are willing to accept our laws, customs and practices and integrate.
April 15, 2025
Its not a choice …its the LAW of the land
April 15, 2025
Looked at in the round Local Councils are not running their Local Area. They are not earning from local industry, enterprise or wages, they are accepting Diktats and money from Central Command. We don’t really have Local Democracy therefore local needs are what others impose, not what local areas need.
The reason for the most part that the Motorist is the target for extortion is that it is one of the only areas Local Councils can create and revenue stream.
Accepting of course that the Bristol’s, Bath, Brighton, Oxford’s etc and even the whole of Wales have found the need to discourage the use of private transport(cars), so they don’t have to bring their areas in to this century by have modern roads and infrastructure. The bit they miss is they are discouraging enterprise and vibrancy that causes wealth and areas to flourish – they encourage decline. At the end of the day it is Central Government that enforces decline and rising costs as the to get to meddle in things they haven’t a clue about organising and running.
April 15, 2025
The council’s approach was poor and possibly its attitude but we see more and more the public sector mulcting at every opportunity now, not just by the maladroit Wrecker Reeves although she demonstrates thus far at least the general lack of interest in spending wisely and well, curtailing rather than splurging.
(I do not cry out against splurging in itself but its merits if present at all depend on facts and circumstances. So, for example, your frenzy-esque adventure at the supermarket yielded tangible benefits that were worth securing and I commend you for it.)
April 15, 2025
What Westminster Council seems to have realized is that it has pricing power! It’s a wonderful thing when you realize that you’ve got it.
April 16, 2025
I thought councils had to give you 12 months warning if they were going to change your council bill? Is this another law this government has conveniently forgotten?
April 21, 2025
Only if the council increases by more than 4.99%. Above that the council needs to organise a local referendum (commonslibrary.parliament.uk 03/02/2025 ‘Council tax: local referendums’)