Tax is never the most pleasant of subjects, but just about all of us will have to deal with it in one form or another at sometime in our lives. Sadly, the current U.K. 'New Labour' government while telling the electorate that there will be no tax rises, is increasing taxes willy-nilly by the various back doors available to it! Even though it's easy to find out about this, most of the electorate still don't realise what is actually happening. It's not very difficult for a government to put the voters to sleep over issues they don't want brought up. The most effective ploy is to make it look at first glance as though there's another political party responsible for increased taxes. This is achieved by hitting local governent as hard as possible. Labour want to promote their new 'Unitary Authorities', which they want to take over from the current county and district authorities. Although it's masquerading as local government it is in reality purely a puppet of the national government and totally against what they say they want for the country. They need to be in total control you see, but without the populace knowing about it. This is the way it is achieved, stealthily. Funds are made available each year for the county and district authorities around the country to pay for local services, etc. Any shortfall is paid for by the local residents in the form of a council tax. It is well known that Labour local authorities tax their residents far higher than the Conservative ones. They don't manage money well at all. So all New Labour does is cut the amount of funding to the Conservative councils and transfer it to their own councils. This means that the Labour ones have more money to waste and the Conservative ones have to put up local Council Tax just to cover the loss of revenue to pay the bills. Then New Labour blames these councils for increasing taxes. Simple. Sadly most people don't even know about this or at the very least don't want to know anything about politics. They NEED to be properly informed as to why their council taxes are constantly rising. It is very easy for an elector to go and see the figures which prove this at their local council offices. It's their right to do so too. There are many other ploys pulled by this government to hoodwink the populace and they succeed in doing so. The British electorate trust their leaders far too easily and would rather let things go on the way they are than rock the boat. A sad fact. But, it's time to do something about it. Don't ever vote for this sad lot again. They'll cost your everything you own. In the local council elections next May, vote out New Labour. Let's stop the rot. BEWARE! The Liberal Democrats are as big or even bigger wasters of money than New Labour! Kick them into touch too. Fight for your money and for your rights!