George Osborne has designs on becoming the next Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer and that raises certain expectations. An understanding of economics would, of course, be pretty useful but, as a bare minimum, you’d expect him and his advisors to be able to deal with a bit of basic mathematics…

Unfortunately, mathematical ability seems to be in very short supply in Tory ranks and, to make matters even more embarrassing for George, its his headline conference announcement, a two-year ‘freeze’ in council tax rates, that simply doesn’t add up… Continue reading →

Boris Johnson made his first conference speech as Mayor of London yesterday. In it, he made the proud boast that:

“…for the first time since the GLA was created, for the first time since London has had a mayor. I will not be coming back to the people and asking them for more money in tax. There will be no increase in our share of the council tax next year…”

He justifies these cuts with the claim that we must cut tax, because the credit crunch pinches hard on wallets. That’s an odd defence. To fund the hole in the GLA’s budget the cut makes, Boris will no doubt need to cut public services and increase fees for those that remain; putting pressure on incomes, just in another place.

It’s an especially odd defence when you consider that, in fact, Boris raised London’s public transport fares by some 11% recently. Hardly a move likely to aid those commuters suffering from the economic downturn that Boris claims his policies will make easier. Many who regularly use public transport use it because they must; either a car costs too much, or is simply impractical.

So, the claim that these cuts come because it’d be criminal to foist yet more money from Londoners during a financial crisis wears very thin; as, actually, he will take more money from other Londonders, elsewhere. As Mr. Stop Boris points out:

By taking disproportionate sums of money from public transport users in order to keep Council Tax down, rejecting the option of spreading the pain relatively fairly among all Londoners in favour of penalising those using public transport, Boris is benefiting those in suburbia with big houses and cars, who could best afford to pay more, at the expense of those living in poverty and reliant on the buses to get around.

The money for the council tax cuts won’t come from fare-rises, which come from another pot with other holes in it. But they will come from cuts to other public services used just as much as the buses by those who can’t afford anymore.

Boris tells us this is the most fundamental illustration of what a Tory does in power. Perhaps we should take note of what that is then; a series of policies whereby the wealthy pay less and the poor pay more. Osborne proposed similar cuts in council tax at the Conservative Conference today. If Johnson’s example is anything to go by, they’ll come from public services whose users just can’t afford that. Which first, I wonder?