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| NEILL |
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| DENT COAD |
The Labour Group have also signalled their concerns about the way the tax hurts those on low incomes.
So why has our near £500,000 a year PR dept missed yet another opportunity to promote the Leader?
Instead, Andrew Neill will be interviewing Emma Dent Coad on today's Daily Politics.
It's time to close down the in house PR dept.
An external PR agency would do a better job for half the £500,000 a year it currently costs us as well as end the fat pensions and expensive establishment costs we currently pay.
A brilliant job by Dent Coad to defend Royal Borough residents - immediately followed up by a politically biased tweet from a council officer. Is that really all our press department can manage?
ReplyDeleteThe tweet was farcical. It was an invitation to email an AOL account with no explanation. Can't think of a better way to farm email addresses. Must give it a try it and then have a word with my Nigerian colleagues.
DeleteIt's now been followed up by an email which, I assume, has just been sent to anyone on one of the Council's mailing list. Which is definitely a better idea as the email at least tries to explain what's going on.
But it's let down by the fact that some of the claims made in the email seem rather dubious. It is claimed that there are 30,000 "asset rich, income poor" in the borough. Has anyone actually checked this claim or has the Council now happily proceeded down the road of "make it up and hope no-one notices"?
I do appreciate that the claim may be the campaign organiser's rather than the Council's, but repeating claims without applying the simplest of sanity check only leads us down the road to general ignorance (if we're not already there).
Three cheers for EDC. A Councillor who is tuned in to local issues and gets off her back side and tries to do the best for her residents,
DeleteHere are the facts, confirmed by senior officers, as I always check:
Delete1, there are 12,400 homes in Band H in K&C
2, while it may be true that 7,000 of these Band H homes have been in the same ownership since 1999, we don't know how many of these are Grosvenors, Cadogons, Windsors, or their parasitic hangers-on and extended families. Some we know are tenants decanted from housing association flats because of 'regeneration'; their homes were NOT valued at 1991 prices and their Council Tax has tripled.
3, just 23 Band H homes receive Council Tax benefit, so the 'dowagers starving in their mansions' fantasy is just precisely that (and some may be the decanted tenants as above)
4, some residents would be willing to pay more to prevent cuts in services, the evidence for this is clearly laid out every year in the Resident Survey
5, a lot of people could pay a lot more, but have teams of 'tax advisors' to help them avoid paying. These should be our main target.
EDC
Dent Coad has forgotten one fact in her ever so well thought out point above. The Mansion Tax has nothing to do with ability to pay: just as the Poll Tax had nothing to do with ability to pay. One cannot get money out of bricks and mortar to pay the Mansion Tax just as those on the dole could not pay 20% towards their poll tax from their dole money.
DeleteIf Labour wants to redistribute wealth why not do it through the only fair mechanism, through Income Tax. I suspect that Dent Coad might agree.
Of course the Labour Group don't have armies of officers behind them, they do all the work, all the admin, all the background research, and all the PR themselves.
ReplyDeleteJust think about that for a minute Nick PB ... no, nothing occurred to you??
Dent-Coade is connected up with K&C residents. She knows what worries them. And she does not need a load of overpaid PR hacks to help her do her job. It is hard to believe that Fitzpatrick has a £500k budget every year and he wastes it on trivia like toads in Holland Park. Time for Paget-Brown to get a grip
DeleteEmma Dent Coad is the best self publicist that I know.
DeleteShades of Cllr Pooter then?
DeleteHow is it that Hornet knew bent toad was on the daily politics? Writing that Brillo will be doing the interview (wrong) . Ah I know - This is a Labour Blog.
ReplyDeleteRather than 'rejoicing' that Cllr Dent Coad championed residents Cllr Palmer you choose to allow your envy to spoil things. How did the Dame know? Andrew was in Tramp the other night and happened to mention to the Dame that he or Jo would be interviewing Cllr Dent Coad.
ReplyDeleteWakey, wakey - Paget-Brown
ReplyDeleteI would like to congratulate the RBK&C PR department for the excellent work they are doing in keeping Cllr Paget Brown out of the media.
ReplyDeleteMaxwell Clifford has a point. £500K is peanuts. It takes skilled PRs to keep K&C's gaffe-prone PRats out of the media's gaze. I'm no Labour supporter but EDC does appear to inhabit the real world and to grasp the issues that matter to residents.
ReplyDeleteThis is a Labour blog. Even the terminally thick and stupid can figure that out
Delete10.24 talking about himself then!
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