By Willie McRae., submitted by mike92 on Sun, 10/08/2008 - 15:23
As sheriff officers rampage across the Capital in a new campaign of terror and intimidation, targeting the poorest and most vulnerable and bringing back dark memories of the grim Poll Tax years, we hear that the SNP government will not be scrapping the huge Poll Tax debt it helped to create, while concern grows that it is also about to renege on its election promise to replace the Council Tax with a fairer system. Is it time for the Old Brigade of anti-Poll Tax activists to dust off their banners, replace the word ‘Poll’ with ‘Council’, and show the new generation how we wrecked Thatcher’s flagship policy and brought the Tories to their knees? asks Willie McRae.
THIS YEAR MARKS the 20th anniversary of the announcement of Margaret Thatcher’s infamous Poll Tax. Officially dubbed the ‘Community Charge’ it was unleashed upon Scotland a year before its southern neighbours – Scotland had few Tory voters so Thatcher had no qualms about using it as a testing-ground for her vicious policies.
The Poll Tax was a ‘head tax’ with no link to property values. Every adult in a local authority area paid the same amount whether they lived in a 20-bedroom rural mansion or a damp council flat on a run-down estate. Its imposition provoked a fury of popular resistance. There were mass meetings, demos, pickets to prevent poindings, occupations of council chambers and bailiffs’ offices, arrests and trials; and at the base of the protests ran a bedrock campaign of mass non-payment. The tactics were exported south and the following year the Poll Tax Rebellion became an All-British affair.
The tax was Thatcher’s flagship policy. It was wrecked by mass resistance, and Thatcher ultimately brought down. In April 1999 all outstanding Poll Tax arrears in England and Wales were waived under a statute of limitations. But no such statute exists in Scotland, where £400,000,000 of Poll Tax arrears is still owed - and is still being actively collected.
The Scottish National Party played a major part in the non-payment campaign, actively encouraging people not to stump up. Now they are in power in Holyrood. But far from declaring an amnesty for Poll Tax refuseniks the SNP government seems keen to see the debt collected, as this recent piece from BBC Radio 4’s World at One outlines.
*
(Scratchy sound of folksy guitar and male voice, singing to the tune of Marie’s Wedding)
We’ll sing a song o’ tax ‘n’ woe,
(lyric inaudible)
Chancellors collect ‘n’ go,
All tae pay the Poll Tax
There’s nae change in beer ‘n’ fags,
But the NHS it gets the axe,
It’s enough tae raise yer backs,
Tae hae tae pay the Poll Tax!
ANCHOR: Now, the World at One is not generally known as a music programme, but that was us back in 1988 with the performance of a protest song objecting to the introduction of the Poll Tax in Scotland. The fact that it was introduced a year earlier for Scots than it was in England and Wales only exacerbated the resentment. Fifteen years after it was scrapped the BBC has learnt that Scottish councils are still owed hundreds of millions of pounds from people who can’t or won’t pay.
Back then SNP politicians were prominent among the protestors. Now, though, they’re running Scotland’s government, which raises potentially awkward questions about their attitude to those in arrears. Our political correspondent David Thompson reports.
(Fade in. Sound of solitary piper competing with the rumble of heavy traffic. Fades out.)
DAVID THOMPSON: Princes Street in Edinburgh, one of the iconic images of Scotland. The city has often been accused of living in the past, but politically there’s a historic issue which is refusing to go away. In Scotland fury over the Poll Tax was intensified because it was introduced there a year before it came into force in England. And even now it’s still having a significant effect on Scottish political life. An investigation for this programme and the BBC’s Politics Show has found that more than £400,000,000 is still outstanding. Some councils are pursuing that debt hard, and Labour’s Anne Begg, the MP for Aberdeen South, says that it’s causing hardship for many of her constituents. But her anger is aimed at the Scottish National Party:
ANNE BEGG: I still have constituents coming to me who were lulled into a false sense of security during the SNP campaign against the Poll Tax and now have enormous debts that they’re still due to the council. Some councils have been very good at chasing up that debt, but people, years afterwards, are still trying to repay a debt that they really couldn’t afford.
DAVID THOMPSON: SNP party policy is for an amnesty for those who either couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the Poll Tax. Alex Neil, one of its best-known MSPs, explained why:
ALEX NEIL: We’ve argued for an amnesty for two reasons. Number one, many of the people who got into trouble with the Poll Tax arrears were people who, quite frankly, couldn’t afford to pay it in the first place, and this is a reflection of the inherent unfairness of the Poll Tax. And the second reason is a practical reason. The cost of chasing much of this debt, these arrears, far exceeds the revenue it will get.
DAVID THOMPSON: But while an amnesty may be party policy, the SNP government appears to have distanced itself from the idea. A spokesman for the administration said that nothing had changed since the Nationalists took over from Labour, but collection of Poll Tax debts remains an issue for individual councils. Anne Begg believes that now they’re in power the SNP should put up or shut up:
ANNE BEGG: Now they’re in government I think they’ve got a responsibility to either write off the debt, because it was something they encouraged people to do; if they’re going to write it off, then obviously local authorities have to be recompensed for the loss that they’re going to find. Or they’re going to have to encourage local authorities, who are very hard-strapped for cash at the moment, to recover that debt.
DAVID THOMPSON: But Alex Neil does have one solution for the problem of the missing Poll Tax millions:
ALEX NEIL: When you think of the billions that have been written off in terms of the cost of setting up and then abolishing the Poll Tax, the outstanding arrears actually pale into insignificance in terms of the billions that were wasted by the Tories at that particular time. So if anybody’s due to pick up the tab, then Westminster’s due to pick up the tab.
DAVID THOMPSON: That, however, isn’t good enough for Graham Morris, finance spokesman for COSLA, the Scottish Convention of Scottish Local Authorities:
GRAHAM MORRIS: Well, pursuing that, eh, line of logic, it was also the Conservative government that eventually abolished the Poll Tax and introduced the Council Tax, and it’s the case that there are people in arrears with Council Tax. I don’t think anyone’s seriously suggesting that we should go cap in hand to Westminster to make up the deficit there. No, I think it’s important to be kind of consistent on this. At the end of the day it’s the Holyrood government that’s responsible for local taxation and the buck stops with them.
DAVID THOMPSON: Incidentally, £400,000,000 is also roughly the amount of money the SNP is demanding from Westminster to help meet the costs of its favoured way of financing local government, the Local Income Tax. They’re unlikely to get it. In Scotland, fifteen years after the Poll Tax, how you pay for local services is still a political battlefield. [END] (Broadcast on Radio 4 on 1 August 2008)
It is also an economic battlefield. As the cost of living soars and millions face a winter of having to choose between heating and eating, the exorbitant Council Tax that the SNP promised to scrap is becoming more and more of a burden as people struggle to make ends meet. Despite this the City of Edinburgh Council has unleashed a brutal campaign against those they have branded ‘Can Pay, Won’t Pay’ but who are in fact among the city’s poorest and most vulnerable. This is the first in a series of articles examining recent events as the SNP government reneges on promise after promise as the recession bites, and local councils desperately try to refill their emptying coffers at the expense of the poor.
Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty are organising resistance to the recent attacks by sheriff officers and the Council. Contact ECAP c/o Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE), 17 W. Montgomery Place, Edinburgh EH7 5HA. tel 0131 557 6242
ECAP and Edinburgh Claimants hold drop-in advice and solidarity sessions on debt, benefits and other problems, at ACE every tuesday 1-4pm.
More info at www.edinburghclaimants.org
Info on ACE at www.autonomous.org.uk
Re: Can't Pay? Then DON'T Pay!
The SNP are suffering under budgetary constraints imposed by westminster. To attack the SNP is ridiculous. Don't play the New Labour/Tory game.