Do they think they can take us for mugs – Rant
I am fed up with government and councils demanding I pay twice for services and infrastructure.
The Birmingham garden tax scandal reaches new heights.
I have had my say on that already but it really is a farce.
The city council seems to take a delight in targeting the things its citizens actually prioritise as of value.
Bin collections are one of these.
Birmingham, which is filthy, litter everywhere, is now seeing waste of all kinds dumped across the city.
And it is going to get worse.
What do we pay our council taxes for if it is not the bins?
Labour has already been given the V sign on the issue by the vast majority of Brummies; now expect many of their councillors to get the same treatment at the ballot box.
Next we have proposals by Centro for more toll roads.
Are Centro mad?
Another unelected quango which thinks it can preach to the great unwashed.
We already pay towards our roads as part of local and national taxes. Why should we pay a second time?
Toll roads are massively unpopular in the UK – you just have to look at the boycott of the M6 Toll and how long that has been kept up.
The Centro proposal is that the Government builds new roads and then leases them to operators.
Yet one way or another it is the poor downtrodden motorist, already everyone’s whipping boy, who has to pay at the end of the day.
And pay double.
The state of the roads is already appalling.
Restrictions of one sort or another never stop be it the M6 or the tunnel closures planned for the A38M.
The pot holes on local roads seem to get worse, not better.
Instead of concentrating a hundred per cent on driving, and goodness knows there are enough crazy motorists about these days, I go along, giving 65 per cent of my attention to other vehicles and 35 per cent to avoiding potholes.
You hit some of these things and you don’t half notice it.
I could go on about double payment in education – first through taxes and then, to get the kids into a half decent school, to pay a whacking supplement to secure a house which is in the catchment area.
But don’t let’s go there – that’s less cut and dried.
Centro and Birmingham City Council want to get real.
They are way out of touch with public opinion.