As we all know, Nanny has a particular antipathy (there's a big word for a Monday morning) towards smokers.In fact so incensed is she about the evil habit of smoking that whenever she sees the word, or a derivation of it, she falls into a bulging eyed rage.
That at least is what happened to one hapless resident of my own fair borough of Croydon, who is called Stan Smoker.
Mr Smoker, a 77 year old widower, had the misfortune to underpay his council tax bill. He was then sent 3 letters from our "beloved" and "competent" council, between December and last week, demanding that he pay the shortfall.
How much was this shortfall?
£100?
No
£50?
No
£1?
No
8p...yes 8p!
I know that it is a Monday morning, but the astute amongst you will have noticed that the postage on these three letters cost more that the sum demanded.
Stan is quoted as saying:
"I was very surprised. I thought I'd finished paying my council tax bill in full in December but then I got a letter saying I owed eight pence.
I thought it was a joke at first but then I got two more letters.
I have paid it now but I thought it was a little bit petty to say the least.
Why they couldn't just tack it on the next bill I don't know.
They sent me three letters, all by second-class post.
It doesn't make sense but I doubt I'm the only person this has happened to."
Croydon Council noted that:
"Mr Smoker's council tax benefit was reduced by the sum of eight pence per week from December 5."
Mr Smoker is wrong in one respect, when he says that it doesn't make any sense. It makes perfect sense if you remember three things:
1 This is Croydon council
2 Councils tend to be run by jobsworth's lackeys of Nanny
3 The council tax comes under this man's ultimate control....
The man who is in ultimate control of the Council Tax isn't so hot when it comes to paying his own is he? How many reminders was HE sent??
ReplyDeleteHow much did this charade actually cost the taxpayers of Croydon?
Apart from the postage on the 3 letters( bet they were sent 1st class) there is the salary + perks of the Council Jobsworth employed to send these things out
Ah, but don't also forget that these jobsworths and their ultimate jobsworth debtor "well, I didn't pay my council tax because I forgot" Prescott, are the same people who imprison pensioners in this country for non-payment.
ReplyDeleteNo room in prison for the real crooks and thugs though, too "overcrowded".
No, the 8p will be needed for lazy council workers' comfortable early retirement packages, just at the time when the rest of the population, the ones who do the real work, are told they will have to work on until 70.
In Cornwall, our erstwhile Liberal-Democrat councillors have recently almost doubled their allowances (the leader is, I understand, now getting nearly £32,000 per annum in allowances!!) and they are all now sitting in their ivory towers setting the increases we great unwashed are currently facing for this next year and also deciding which so called services to cut (not that we now have many, 'cos most of them have been cut in previous years).
It is just a scandalous way to run our once great country, but it will come to an end, one day, as either we wholesale chuck out the incompetent politicians and their lackies, or else they bankrupt the nation.