Just 55 days after the disastrous mini-budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn Statement, which confirmed that working people will pay the price of Tory incompetence.
The chaos of recent months has seen three Prime Ministers, four Chancellors and unprecedented economic chaos.
Yet the Autumn Statement is neither the result of the mini-budget nor Putin’s war in Ukraine, but 12 years of Conservative economic failure.
There have been 24 tax rises this Parliament, making the tax burden the highest since World War II.
Living standards will be lower at the end of this Parliament than at the start, with the UK forecast to have the lowest growth in the G7 over the next two years.
PM Rishi Sunak’s model of high tax and low growth results in stagnant wages and broken public services.
Mr Hunt announced that councils can increase council tax by up to 5 per cent a year. But increases in a regressive tax based on out-of-date property values will never be the solution to meeting the long-term financial pressures facing local government.
“Council tax increases place an extra financial burden on households already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis”
The ability to raise council tax is unrelated to need, with more prosperous areas with the least demand for services able to raise the most: a 5 per cent increase raises £85 per household in Richmond upon Thames compared with only £39 in Manchester.
The latest increase will only heighten disparities between councils, worsening regional inequalities (though perhaps this is Rishi Sunak’s aim, given he boasted about his record of removing funding from deprived areas to give to wealthier areas?).
More importantly though, council tax places an extra financial burden on households already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and hits the poorest the hardest.
The Conservatives have slashed funding for councils and are now forcing council tax payers to pick up the bill.
Neither local government nor working people can afford more years of Tory incompetence. We need a fresh start and a government on the side of working people: so instead of yet another Budget, how about we have a General Election instead?