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Hands up if you remember Starmer pledging NOT to increase Council Tax?

Keir Starmer and Labour have signed off on Council Tax increases of up to 10% this year, despite their election promise of a freeze:

According to Sky News, local councils will hit over two million people with tax increases of between five and 10%. Windsor and Maidenhead Council even tried to increase theirs by 25%. Luckily this plan was blocked. However, it will still increase by 9%. Bradford council are also increasing their taxes by 10%.

Council tax increases: pants on fire?

This is all after Keir Starmer told the public before the election that:

Not a penny more on your council tax, not a penny more than the bill you paid last year

Either Keir Starmer is really shit at maths, or he’s a bare faced liar trying to take the British public for mugs:

Working-class people are already struggling due to the cost of living crisis. Increasing council tax is only going to make the problem worse for people already living on the breadline:

As if Keir Starmer’s Labour Party would ever put more money into ordinary people’s pockets:

Keir Starmer and a broken system

The only pockets neoliberal Labour care about lining is the billionaire bosses in the City. If it’s a toss up between raising council tax and putting a wealth tax on the rich, it’s pretty obvious what the lying corporate muppets were going to choose:

In an interview with Sky News, Karin Smyth, health and social care minister defended the increases. She also claimed the councils making changes were “particularly desperate”. She also blamed the Conservatives for the dire state they left the country in:

The fact that Labour is making their excuses and blaming the Tories is all well and good – they did cut council funding by 60%. However, Labour could be doing a lot more to rectify it.

Council tax increases: the thin end of the wedge

In a statement delivered to parliament on 3 February 2025, Angela Rayner announced a 6.8% cash terms increase in funding to local councils. This is a great start – but is it really putting right the 60% of funding which the Tories obliterated?

She also stated:

Change will not happen overnight, but this Settlement marks the beginning of the government’s commitment to rebuild and stabilise local government and run services that taxpayers can rely on. In 2026 to 2027, through the first multiyear Settlement in a decade, we will begin introducing an up-to-date assessment of councils’ funding needs and financial resources, allowing local government to plan for the long term and deliver best value for taxpayers’ money.

So obviously, the first port of call is making the tax payer foot the bill. Makes sense:

This is not the first U-turn, or broken promise from this shower of Starmerite shitheads – and it probably won’t be the last. From the winter fuel payments, to yesterdays revelations about GB Energy not actually bringing energy bills down anytime soon, to this. All of these will hit the poorest, the hardest.

Maybe Starmer and his out-of-touch cabinet have the memory of a fish, but we do not.

Feature image via the Canary

By HG

This post was originally published on Canary.