tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-627081175329856970.post2133638168253131358..comments2024-03-19T13:44:11.451+00:00Comments on Ambush Predator: Whose Money Is It Anyway….?JuliaMhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07844126589712842477noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-627081175329856970.post-29007758792721957542008-05-30T09:10:00.000+01:002008-05-30T09:10:00.000+01:00This is sadly symptomatic of the attitude of most ...This is sadly symptomatic of the attitude of most councils. In theory, we elect the councillors, and the coucillors run the council in the manner that they agreed with us. We then pay for the whole exercise through our council tax.<BR/><BR/>In practice, the councillors are sidelined and the civil servants run the council as they wish, i.e. to suit their more immediate paymasters, Whitehall. There is only ever a tangential relationship between what the council actually does and what the local people want.<BR/><BR/>As a result, the council spends most of its time stopping me doing things I want to do, taking money off me, and making life more difficult for me.<BR/><BR/>And the most breathtaking rudeness that I have seen in a long time has come from council officers.patentlyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00602962323262055007noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-627081175329856970.post-23850492684891289842008-05-29T21:18:00.000+01:002008-05-29T21:18:00.000+01:00No John Ward, you are wrong, Councils have been co...No John Ward, you are wrong, Councils have been committing serious criminal offences in order that they protect the revenue stream; Fraud, perverting the course of Justice, there is already a Police investigation in Leeds and many many more are likely.<BR/><BR/>Councillors do not run the show, the unelected civil 'servants' that sit in their ivory towers that rule the roost, many of them are going to find themselves in a cell with bubba, asking where it all went wrong. You people asked and applied for decrim parking, you got it and all the baggage that comes with it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-627081175329856970.post-64422082049740454172008-05-29T17:47:00.000+01:002008-05-29T17:47:00.000+01:00"...local government financing nowadays falls far ...<I>"...local government financing nowadays falls far short of wht is needed in order to fulfill all the requirements inflicted upon them by Whitehall."</I><BR/><BR/>And not <I>just</I> Whiehall. <BR/><BR/>The bin taxes being proposed across the country stem from EU regulations regarding landfill taxes. This is, funnily enough, rarely mentioned in articles concerning it in the MSM.<BR/><BR/><I>"..Thus the local authorities become the bodies in the public eye that are associated with problems and controversial issues.."</I><BR/><BR/>I'll agree that in some cases, as above, their hands are played for them. <BR/><BR/>But there is a certain core of local council officers who are only too glad to take the new powers and duties proposed for them and gleefully indulge their inner dictator. On <I>both</I> sides of the political divide...<BR/><BR/><I>"Without that change of government there can never be an improvement in society."</I><BR/><BR/>That's certainly true, but I wonder how much of a real change the Conservatives would be with the Boy Dave at the helm..?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-627081175329856970.post-9945401219349772842008-05-29T15:37:00.000+01:002008-05-29T15:37:00.000+01:00Now you see the position into which local councils...Now you see the position into which local councils have been placed, effectively forcing them into becoming money-grabbing outfits.<BR/><BR/>This wrong!<BR/><BR/>They should never have been put in such a position. I know -- until recently I was an elected member of a Council myself. We kept (and still keep) Council Tax very low relative to the rest of our county and indeed the country as a whole, but local government financing nowadays falls far short of wht is needed in order to fulfill all the requirements inflicted upon them by Whitehall.<BR/><BR/>Thus the local authorities become the bodies in the public eye that are associated with problems and controversial issues, but in most cases (but not all) are just the symptoms of the underlying problem.<BR/><BR/>Having a go at them dilutes and diffuses effort, as well as diverting it from the true cause of near-enough all of these problems -- the Labour Government.<BR/><BR/>Although a change of Government will not produce an immediate and complete solution to all of this (it is far too deeply embedded now), at least it changes direction so that solutions can be found in years to come. Without that change of government there can never be an improvement in society. It is as black-and-white as that.<BR/><BR/>Sorry to have to be so forceful on that, but it is hardly my fault that this country is now in this statre...John M Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06251285057595626917noreply@blogger.com