Yes Wildebube. I expect to be charged more to live where I do. Unfortunately the Council Tax is only 25% of what the local council spend. The other 75% is from central government funds. Here's the catch 22. If the local council becomes more efficient and spend less they cannot reduce the council tax because the government reduces the central funding. So it is in the interest of the council to spend at least as much as last year to secure the top up. They recently sent an old lady to jail for not paying the above inflation portion of the Council Tax. It may not seem like a valid topic to write about here but the creeping burden of taxation and the control freak Big Brother government is killing the morale of the middle classes here in England (sorry "The UK" (it is not PC to say England anymore because apparently it excludes minorities) - look on any on-line ordering system and you won't find England in the list (or Scotland or Wales). The biggest topic of conversation in any gathering of people is the mushrooming of speed cameras that trap you for driving a few miles per hour over the limit. You get a $100 fine (and the insurance companies charge you $60+ per year extra) and if you get 4 of them they take your license away. These cameras are supposed to be for safety but they are usually placed where traffic naturally speeds up such as when going down a hill or going out of a town. They raise huge amounts of money and there can be several in a couple of miles of road. The mood is souring here and look at France! Angry mobs burning buildings and hundreds of cars! Immigration gets a lot of press coverage here but what goes unnoticed is that almost as many people are emigrating mostly to the US, Canada and Australia and those people are the highly educated and skilled workers. Angry oppressed people do not make fun bedfellows!
