Viewing Thread:
"Council Tax, education and those north of the border"

My council tax has gone up by a whopping 20%, only a year after a not dissimilar Tax hike. This has resulted in me having to shell out £95 a month for the privilege of living in Runnymede.

There are two well known reasons for this. The first is that our borough council is determined to fulfil the governments ideal of "education, education, education", and hence more than 50% of the £95 a month I spend to live where I do goes on an education budget which, as somebody with no children, I object to mightily.

Ah, the council argues, the education of today builds the people that you will rely on in future years.

To this I say "bullcrap". The people currently flinging themselves through modern education will tomorrow be the snotty little upstarts that threaten to steal my job from under my feet direct from school or college or what not. I don't want these people to succeed. By all means throw them on the sports field and create a generation of sporting behemoths, but I'll be damned if I want a whole generation of people given better opportunities than I ever was.

When I have kids, I'll bloody well teach them myself if I have to.


The second reason, which irritates me even more than the first, is government spending policy. The government has decided that, since the south is a fairly "affluent" part of the country, they don't need to spend any money maintaining our services. So they're pumping more and more money up north and ignoring us, leaving people like me, who pay more tax than some people up north earn am consequently seeing nothing for my money, and being made to pay yet more so that people I really don't care about can have better services.

And as for being in an "affluent" area. That's crap. Yes, wages are high around here, but so is the cost to live. My monthly rent is more than I'd be proud to be earning if I were living in Wales. If I could live on the North Wales coast and rake in £800 a month after tax, I'd be laughing. But instead I'm made to carry a tax burden so that others can make good.

And then the few services I DO get for my council tax quids are nothing short of bad comedy.

Refuse collection, where I have to wheel my own bin outside every tuesday morning, and wheel it back again when I'm done? No thanks, I'm just leaving it out the front permanently. If the people getting paid to take it away can't be bothered to actually get it themselves, then I really don't see why I should help them out. They're getting paid to perform a service, and by hellfire they should be doing it themselves. Next they'll be ringing on the doorbell and asking for a quick brew before they move onto the next street. Wasters.

Then onto the police, who reside scant few metres from my doorstep, yet on the one occasion I've required their services, they took 20 minutes to arrive, when I could have walked to the station myself, paced around the building for quarter of an hour and walked home again while I was waiting. Of course, they arrived far too late to be of any use. A domestic dispute in the flat below me having raged, broken furniture made children scream and cry, have extremely loud abuse screamed at full lung capacity at 2am and then finally halted 5 minutes before the police arrived when the bloke left the house and drove away on his bike, probably drunk.

What else, one is forcved to ask, do I get for £95 a month? Clean streets? Not likely. Broken bottle glass has littered practically every step from my flat to the train station for the last two weeks. If someone is cleaming the streets, I think they're due for a review.

Do I get anything else? Because if I do, I'm not seeing it.

Damn children and their education. Damn the north and its supposed poverty. Damn public services which don't perform. Damn council tax and damn the blasted government.

Damn you all.

Insane Bartender wrote:
> Excellent.
>
> Make sure you attend those knife proficiency classes that my tax money
> pays for.

Then blame the stabbing on "not having had a holiday to the somewhere tropical recently" and the court will order you, at taxpayer's expense, to spend 3 years on the Mauritius Islands contemplating the error of your ways.

IB's dead body will be sold to medical research and the proceeds given to you for beer money. You can later sue the Crown Court for turning you into an alcoholic and IB for allowing his body to be sold for beer money.

Then you take the Bank of England to court for allowing the existence of money, which can be used to purchase guns, drugs and Sclub7 CDs...

Thatcher slapped the Argentinians. She didn't up my Council Tax by 35% in two years.

It's all Thatcher's fault

Excellent.

Make sure you attend those knife proficiency classes that my tax money pays for.

We'll just stab and rob you more then

SHEEPY wrote:
> Then we'll rob your house, slash your tyres and stab you to death.


ye canne slash ma tyres lad, i dunnae have a car.

LOL

Pay for my education Insane Bartender
Pay for my health Insane Bartender
Pay for my safety with police/fire/ambulance Insane Bartender

Then we'll rob your house, slash your tyres and stab you to death.

Thanks

Insane Bartender wrote:
> What gives?
>
> My water bill just came through, and seems to have leaped in value to
> the tune of £20.
>
> Have we been through a period of hyperinflation or something? If so,
> I'm probably due a 20% payrise.
>
>
> I'm getting very very ****ing angry now.

wait until you see your air bill, daylight bill and Moon bill (10% discounts available for madmen and Lycanthropes).

What next a tax on windows?

What gives?

My water bill just came through, and seems to have leaped in value to the tune of £20.

Have we been through a period of hyperinflation or something? If so, I'm probably due a 20% payrise.


I'm getting very very ****ing angry now.