Electoral death

According to the Guardian it is a peculiar feature of British political life that the electorate wants and expects Scandinavian style public services while paying US style taxes, with the corollary that it is electoral death for any party that tries to explain that if you want services, they have to be paid for.

So it will be interesting to see how things pan out here in Surrey, where the conservative leader of the council has announced that, in the absence of an adequate level of central funding, he needs to raise domestic rates by 15% in order to pay the social care bill arising from the increasing numbers of old people who need such care. In order to do this, under the rules brought in by his own party, he has to put the matter to a local referendum, which he proposes to do.

The local Labour leader has reacted with outrage while the local Liberal Democratic leader has not done much better.

While I, still firmly Old Labour, am content to pay more local taxes for such a purpose. It may not be ideal, but at least this is a rich county and we can afford to make up the shortfall of central funds. If common sense cannot prevail in a rich and well educated place like Surrey, what chance of moving the tax or spend debate onto a sensible level in other parts of the country?

PS: if I were a member of the Labor Party, I might return my party card if outrage was the best that they could do. Then what, I wonder, is the view of the crow himself? Or perhaps thought and policy on such a matter is too much like hard work: much easier and more comfortable for him to bang on about easy targets like Trident.