The last consultation meeting on Birmingham City Council's plans for its Council Tax benefit scheme took place on Thursday in the city centre.
As at previous consultation meetings there was enormous anger at the proposal to make people on income support and Job Seekers Allowance pay an average of £5 a week council tax. It was pointed out that with cuts in other benefits such as housing benefit, and general reductions in benefits as part of the…
Interesting post from Birmingham Against The Cuts who are doing an excellent job reporting the reaction to the despicable plan of the government to cut council tax benefit to some of the most vulnerable and poorest rate-payers. Unsurprisingly, the mood at the ‘consultation’ meetings to the cut has been unrelentingly hostile.
The newish Bimingham Labour council may think they are ‘democratising’ the issue by having the consultation exercise but I’m not clear how you can use the c-word when it seems that the real decision, by the LP councillors to accept this cut, has already been made. It’s like offering a prisoner about to be executed a choice between the electric chair or the lethal injection. Not much of a choice, really.
I’ve said this before but I think it bears repeating. It simply isn’t good enough for local Labour parties to blame Conservative government for this cut. In the first instance, there is no guarantee that any incoming Labour administration would reverse it, and secondly there is the option of defying the government. Radical, potentially dangerous, and not the traditional behaviour of councillors not accustomed to rocking the boat, but necessary. To me this is a rubicon-crossing issue and councillors should act accordingly.
