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WOE, WOE, AND THRICE WOE. KCC Conservatives have started their campaign to pass the buck for next year’s council tax increase on to the Labour Government. Labour Shadow Deputy Leader of KCC and Finance spokesperson Derek Smyth said: “Of course it’s sensible for councils to look at economic trends and plan ahead accordingly. “However, the sudden concern about the economic situation being shown by County Hall’s Conservatives smacks to me of an attempt to find excuses for high council tax in 2009 - which will be the year of the next KCC elections. “I expect they’ll try to put the blame on the Labour Government. But I don’t see how the blame for a global phenomenon can be laid at Labour’s door. The fact of the matter is that the so-called ‘credit crunch’ arose from a lack of confidence in the financial markets worldwide. “We began to see the first signs of this phenomenon with the crisis over bank investments in US sub-prime mortgages. Essentially, greedy money men lent too much to people who could ill afford it. Underlying the credit crunch is a real decline in house prices in the States for the first time since the 1930s. “I don’t really see how any of this can be blamed on our Labour Government. The Conservatives just want to spin this out to try and fool people into voting for them at the next election”. Derek Smyth continued: “Britain has the highest employment rate and the second highest GDP per head of any of the major industrialised countries. “The most recent UN report on investment from foreign companies put Britain as the number one destination for foreign investment for the first time in 30 years, attracting double the foreign investment being made in the United States. “We’re all feeling the squeeze. But the fact is that with a Labour Government, Britain is in a much stronger position than many other countries to cope with the current financial situation.” Labour Shadow Leader of KCC, Mike Eddy, said: “KCC’s Conservative Cabinet are starting to say they’re worried about the impact of the current economic situation on the Council. “They’ll say, of course, that they need to husband their resources to preserve public services. But the Conservatives were starting to cut into Kent’s public services even before the global credit crunch really started to hit Britain. “Remember the price rises for domiciliary social care in the Spring 2007 KCC budget? The Tories proposed them before the sub-prime mortgage crisis had really started to hit home even in the US. At the same time, Carter and his Conservatives felt they could afford to shell out £1.2m revenue on setting up the Kent TV pilot. “The Conservatives are saying that the credit crunch will have a revenue impact on KCC of about £5m this year and £15m next year. To put that in perspective, their two versions of the Turner Contemporary gallery – the one they couldn’t build and the one they might finally get round to opening two years later than they said in Towards 2010 – will cost more than that in total… about £6m for the first abortive gallery and about £17.5m for the one we’ll eventually get, although Paul Carter promised in 2006 that it’d cost no more than £15m. “Next year, before Carter and his Conservative Cabinet start thinking about putting up council tax and cutting public services while hiding behind the credit crunch, they should take a good, hard look at some of their fripperies and waste”.
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