Finally one of Nanny's little helpers has admitted what everyone else has known all along; namely that the "pay as you throw" charge is in fact a tax.
Cue the dramatic music!
Joan Ruddock, Nanny's Environment Minister, admission came after she had spent several minutes explaining to MPs of the Communities and Local Government select committee why pay-as-you-throw charges are not a tax.
Oh dear, if Nanny can't even make up her own mind about this tax...it augurs ill for its effective implementation.
Mind you we should not be too surprised at this dithering and confusion. The hallmark of the Brown "administration" is dithering and confusion; guaranteed to end in disaster.
The new tax will mean that families which fail to recycle enough rubbish will be charged extra by their council for having their bins emptied.
Ruddock said that the point of a rubbish incentive scheme was that those who failed to carry out the 'simple task' of meeting 'norms' for recycling would face charges.
Quote:
"It is definitely not a tax."
Then, as if by magic, said:
"I have just been told that technically
these charges are regarded by the
Treasury as a form of tax.
I think I may have been mistaken."
It's enough to make you weep.
Do we pay these morons?
A number of councils (maybe 14) are going to test this new tax. Unfortunately, Ruddock wouldn't tell the committee which councils which have offered to take part in pay-as-you-throw trials.
Isn't that kind of slimy and dishonest?
What a shower!
It's all very Soviet isn't it?
ReplyDeleteOf course those most likely to have to pay the tax are the larger families who can least afford it, what with food and basic commodity price inflation running away as it is.
I can see this becoming Nu Labour's very own Poll Tax.
No wonder B'liars exhortations for 'Joined Up Thinking' never came to anything.
Kerching!!
ReplyDeleteMmmmm What's the betting it will be tested by Labour run Councils.
It may well be a simple thing to recycle but, if you live in a very small house in a "People's Republic" council area with a fortnightly refuse collection dis-service, where on earth do you store all the bins required especially if you have a food slops bucket and an inquisitive toddler in the house?
I would personally prefer the Spanish system where each road has a large set of bins that are emptied DAILY....it must be cheaper to operate this system as Spanish rates/rip off tax is far lower than our own.
I agree with Grant, it will yet again be those that can least afford it that will be penalised by this tax, yes it is a tax.
I doubt if I shall be affected because there are only two of us living here and we already recycle....not because I buy into the climate change religion, I do it because it makes sense.
I suspect that I shall put a notice on my door to stop the endless supply of free newspapers, pizza leaflets and takeaway menus that come through it and i shall start returning junk mail to the senders'
I don't think Nanny has thought this through at all, I predict a rise in fly tipping and garden bonfires as a means to avoid this extra tax.
Anonymous Tonk said...
ReplyDelete" Mmmmm What's the betting it will be tested by Labour run Councils."
Maybe.
But the private sector and its supporters are not averse to avoiding marketing costs and maximising the returns available from legislation based expenditure and the like.
Hence the recent rush by many international corporations to 'go green'. On the one hand many can probably make more money from the 'carbon credits' they can trade by shutting things down than they do making stuff.
On the other when you can persuade large numbers of stupid politicians that incandescent light bulbs should be replaced in a very short time frame you are, if you make the alternative and more expensive products, creating a windfall profit for yourself. (That could be a double whammy if you have some other technology up your sleeve for a few year's time when people have realised the alleged dangers of the mercury in the new technology. Can the double play include the enforced replacement of all the mercury filled bulbs AND grab extra take from the 'clean up' operation?
One small example of the many that exist.
Any incentive scheme that doesn't give ME money is a rubbish incentive scheme, actually.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a tad, we burned rubbish and put out the residue. Burning was later banned, probably with good reason.
ReplyDeletebut then...
First, recycling of cans and bottles, or metals/glass/plastics. Except not all were recyclable, and we were supposed to know the difference, Then, as encouragement, some areas had "returnable" bottles/cans for beverages. After about three years, sites where the returns could be made dwindled from ubiquitous (all grocery stores) to non-existent. Oh, and recycling industry estimates were that recycling was only efficient up to about 37% recovery after which it becomes more costly.
Back to rubbish. Leaves and grass cuttings were banned from normal bins, must be bagged seperately. After three years of this, rubbish collectors would not pick up the bags (which, BTW, had to be paper - lovely in rain/snow) and we had to deliver them to a dump site ourselves. Then a year later, the dump refused to take them. What to do? My own solution was to just leave the bags out front: they disappeared, possibly by neighborhood activists, I know not where nor how.
For a while, I sometimes saw refuse-collection vehicles with three or four separate bins (and lifting and/or crushing mechanisms) about. They have disappeared, albeit I admit that "recycable" bins are collected one day with "other" collected the next. Still, the different "recyclable" bins are all emptied into the same truck, with only one collection area: bottles, cans, plastics...
I conclude from all this that recycling is largely a "feel-good" matter of appearances, not to be taken all that seriously. But if the government starts monitoring and issuing fines, I may become active at night.
I bet there was all kinds of internal competition among councils (Labour or otherwise) to be among the 14 chosen ones; just think of all that lovely extra revenue they can channel toward increasing employment of even more of Nanny's little helpers (A perfect example of recycling in itself: you tax people for some disapproved activity so that you can raise money with which to pay spies who can then police even more disapproved activities which raises more revenue which you can use to pay even more spies.....and so on, ad nausuem, ad infinitum)
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling the morons are not so daft. I wonder if this has more to do with how the charges will be prosecuted for those who wont pay. If its a local council charge one set of rules apply. Avoiding tax is something else.
ReplyDelete