Local authorities – alongside government in general – seem to be able to work to a different economic model from the rest of us. They can charge for "services", such as public transport, which they then don't supply, or for which they make extremely poor provision, having siphoned off the funds for other enterprises.

Having thus milked the accounts, they can then charge even more money to, on the promise that the money will be used to "improve" the services that they should have already been supplying but have not.

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This is really just an illustration of what you have previously said about Council's using stealth taxes to raise revenue. From a political point of view the Council tax is a bad idea. If falls on a majority of the population, who night be inclined to vote you out at the next election if it's getting too burdensome. The joy of this tax from the point of view of the Council is it will largely fall on people who can't do anything about it at the ballot box, as they live outside of the area, hence their need to commute by car. I believe Bristol is looking at using the same wheeze, to finance some public transport scheme or other. Similarly with raising other charges, not everyone pays them, hence much smaller political risk. I predict by the end of the decade it will be unusual not to have pay to park at work.

Idiots. It was intended as a warning, not a manual.

Someone's going to have to plug their massive pensions gap, maximise revenues - all taxpayers in the frame especially those poor bas***s who still need to use a car.

The arcane [Socialist/Trots] argument that somehow more public sector jobs means a multiplier effect [ballsy's fav'] is such utter sh*t - how about another idea, slim down councils to 1950's size, bring back local UDCs and then business rates and local council rates will dive - see an economy springboard jump in activity and then productivity, who TF needs local government other than what they were originally for; police, street lighting, refuse disposal - though not education - that should always be independent.

When did they become the local enforcers - now then back to Heath and the local government reorganisation - that's where the EU apparats came in - twinning meant 're-education' of the local apparats and they have never looked back. Imperious, above the law and stoutly defended, the Town Hall bastions - the life blood/force of the EU in Britain.

Slash the town halls, central gov' and quangos and the EU disappears.

I live in the countryside and only just about get one of these three

There is, I think, some cunning here: by loading the charge on to businesses, most of whose directors and employees do not live in the local authority's area (they live far enough away to make driving viable), they are fleecing people without a vote – instead of local motorists/voters visiting the high street etc.

ADDITION: Apologies, Ian, I didn't see that you'd made the same point more elegantly first.

This reminds me of the anarchist view that governments are simply settled brigands. They are obviously setting out to milk the populace as far as they can and are forgetting that there are limits which will bring it all tumbling down.

No one would consider most of the services they provide as remotely worth paying for, had they a choice. The demand has to be manufactured and payment extorted or tricked out of us.

I think this comes down to a point made previously. We have a huge government machine which seeks to grow itself and no one is in charge or held accountable.

Not instead of ... in addition to.

Well said comet, especially the final sentence, a monster which needs to feed regularly and it has outgrown it's feeding enclosure, so much so - that it is now 'killing the hand that feeds'.
Mass Murder committed by a genocidal bureaucracy, it is not going to end well at all.

Dont panic, the Northern Ireland Executive is leading the way, again...

http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/index/inform ... t-ecar.htm

"Formerly, under the monarchy, the bureaucratic armies did not exist. Few in number, the clerks... directly served the king. … [In modern times,] the clerks have become, in spite of our fine patriotic ideas, the employees of the government, and their superiors are buffeted by the winds of a power called a minister, who does not know from day to day whether he will be in office tomorrow. Since the routine of business must go on, a certain number of indispensable clerks survive; indispensable but at the mercy of the administration, they want to keep their positions. Bureaucracy, a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs, is thus born."

Honore de Balzac, The Bureaucrats, 1838

and we have learnt what in the past 174 years?

IanReid said:-
That is exactly how Ken Livingstone got the London Congestion Charge in. He got Londoners to vote on a charge that would be paid for by out of town Non-Londoners.
All those non-car users & owners being asked whether car owners should pay more tax so Londoners could have more buses... silly question.