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Tax freeze or free school meals? You have your say
• A COUNCIL tax freeze or free dinners for primary schoolchildren and a £100 rebate for pensioners? This is the recession-busting choice on offer from the Town Hall (Council tax freeze or free school dinners? It’s your choice, February 13).
In these austere times, what a wonderful proposal for the children and pensioners in Islington.
I can’t imagine any council tax payer objecting to an increase if the additional income is set aside specifically for the purpose intended.
What is annoying is the fact that the Lib Dem councillors don’t have a free vote over the issue. Why not? Hard to accept that they plan to vote against the proposal.
Can’t all the councillors across party lines for once set aside their political differences and vote Yes to the proposal, for the real benefit of Islington residents who need all the financial help they can get.
SUSANNE LAMIDO
N19
• AT a time when everyone needs to tighten their belt, I’m surprised that the Labour group on Islington Council seems happy to do the opposite by promising extra spending on school meals by putting up our council tax.
The poorest children already get free school meals, so their plans do nothing to help those who most need it. What they are doing is giving us a sneak preview of what life would be like if they were running the council. This is the latest in a string of opportunistic promises that result in higher council tax.
If Labour wants to restore Islington’s old “accolade” of having the highest council tax in London, as it had when Labour was in charge, then good luck to it. Dumb luck is what it needs with an approach like that.
At least the Lib Dems on the council understand something pretty fundamental: that the people of Islington simply can’t afford council tax rises at the moment.
KEITH ANGUS
Batchelor Street, N1
• MY preference is for free school meals. At least all primary schoolchildren will have a free meal, which will help people who are working and on low wages. I am a pensioner but as the amount of council tax that will be saved by pensioners is very minimal, it’s much better value to give it to the children.
I understand that this will be coming out of Councillor James Kempton’s £68,500 salary.
ANN KING
Address supplied
• AS a full-time student, I was surprised to read of the Labour Party’s plans to give every primary pupil in the borough free school meals.
Of course, this idea sounds great – until you think about it some more. Those children defined by the government as needing free school meals can indeed already claim them. So who will be the beneficiary of all these free meals? The reality is it will be children who in truth don’t really need them.
Is this really the best use of everyone’s money when council resources are tight? I’m surprised that Labour, of all parties, is proposing a move that is opposed to helping those most in need. Hardly any other council in the country does this – there must be a good reason.
And how much will this cost the local taxpayer? I just don’t believe them when they say they will just cut salaries and communications and, hey presto, you’ve got all the money you need. There must be a limit to how much this can yield.
So council tax will probably go up. But most residents will get nothing in return for this council tax rise because the majority of residents don’t have children of primary school age.
Never has the expression, “There’s no such thing as a free school meal”, been truer than now.
FARHANA HOQUE
N19
• COUNCILLOR John Gilbert is no Robin Hood, more Sheriff of Nottingham.
A council tax freeze only helps the affluent in our society.
KEREN WORKER
Weston Rise, N1.
• I WOULD like the council tax frozen. Such things as free school dinners should be paid for through savings on the proposed expenditure on road schemes such as Essex Road and more road humps.
I planned to live off my savings and a pension. But they have declined because of the current problems with the economy. I will have to start working again. Unlike people in the public sector, I do not have a guaranteed pension for however long I live.
MICHAEL CONSTABLE
Cruden Street, N1
• COUNCILLOR John Gilbert deserves congratulations for getting a grip on the council’s finances.
Yes, in these dark days, a freeze on the council tax is just what hard-pressed residents need. Our incomes are going down and this should be matched by a reduction in council expenditure.
Also, £9.5million savings is a good start, but can he also bring an end to employing non-essential consultants with fat wage packets and even fatter pensions? We need a leaner council.
I hope Cllr Gilbert can really deliver and it’s not just Lib Dem window-dressing?
TIM NEWARK
Islington Tax Payers’ Alliance
• I WOULD prefer to have the council tax frozen. This would benefit everyone in the borough, not just families.
If you can afford to have children, you should be able to afford to feed them. And if poor families already get free school meals, then surely the wealthier families can afford the £1.50 per meal.
TIIA HAATAJA
Address supplied
• AS someone who has recently become unemployed, I’m glad some politicians are thinking about how they can reduce the burden on local people by not increasing council tax.
While the saving may not be huge, it’s the thought that counts. The last thing residents who are struggling need right now is an increase in their council tax bill when all their other bills are going up too.
At times like these, councils should be looking to keep their costs as low as possible and finding efficiencies, not punishing residents with ever-higher bills. I hope all the politicians in Islington will unite around the idea to freeze the council tax.
VAMSI VELAGAPUDI
N5
• LAST Tuesday, for the first time, I attended a council executive meeting. I was curious to see who this councillor was that your paper has been talking about these past few weeks.
I had heard of Andrew Cornwell’s bitter statements about the people he had previously worked with. I was expecting more of him and was very disappointed.
Someone should remind him that he was responsible for the accounts he is criticising now. At one point, he and a Labour councillor made similar allegations. When the chair asked them to explain what they were referring to, they went quiet.
Is this the dirty trick of throwing mud, even if it does not stick, and hoping it will leave a mark? Why are they not standing behind their statements? The only thing this will achieve is to make people not respect politics at all.
Labour leader Councillor Catherine West made contradictory statements. On the one hand, she said Labour backed the Lib Dems on the issue of children in care two years ago and that Labour would have done similar things if they had been in power. But now she did not want the Lib Dems to carry on with this policy. Why? She should put the benefits of the children concerned first, not party politics.
I felt very happy when the executive member for finance said the Lib Dems were freezing council tax. I felt like cheering. Council tax is the biggest item in our list of expenses locally and every little help is appreciated during these difficult times. I am sure many Islington residents will feel the same. Will Labour oppose this freeze?
DR TURHAN OZEN
N7
• CHILDREN who need free school meals already get them. It is ridiculous for the Labour Party to suggest we give them to all schoolchildren.
I speak as a former free-school-meal pupil. Now it seems I’m meant to pay to feed Boris Johnson’s children and others like them from rich families. What nonsense!
BETTY HARRIS
Duncan Terrace, N1
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