It can’t be easy being the Chancellor when the Office for Budget Responsibility states that British households are about to suffer “the biggest fall in living standards since records began”.
But the truth is he sowed the seeds of the cost-of-living crisis himself in the autumn, when he decided to raise the UK’s tax burden to the highest it has been in 70 years.
Families face £24 billion in tax rises this year, at a time when millions are being pushed into fuel poverty.
For every £6 Rishi Sunak has taken in tax since becoming Chancellor, he returned just £1 in the Spring Statement. And forcing councils to put up council tax yet again certainly doesn’t help.
Will the cost-of-living crisis be a deciding factor in the local elections this year? It will be a hard-fought contest.
“Council tax is neither a fair method of taxing people nor a fair way of funding councils”
Labour will point to the fact that the average council tax bill for households living in Labour areas is £322 lower than those received by households living in Conservative-controlled council areas.
Many Conservatives, including the Prime Minister, will insist that Conservative councils ‘cost you less’, despite a lack evidence.
But the truth is that council tax, whether set by a Labour, Conservative, or Liberal Democrat council, is neither a fair method of taxing people nor a fair way of funding councils.
Taxing a household based on how much their house was worth 30 years ago is patently absurd, but so is a model of social care funding that sees the poorest areas with the most need receiving the least local funding.
The fact that local councils generally get the blame for council tax bills, even though fire and police also set a big chunk of it, just compounds the unfairness.
Even if we can’t agree which party genuinely offers the best value for local taxpayers (and the answer to this question is, of course, Labour), perhaps at least we can all agree that council tax reform is long overdue.