So, the public consultation by Cumbria County Council into the level of tax rises to impose this year was as cynical and inept as feared by many correspondents who wrote to this newspaper on the subject.

It was always deeply flawed as an exercise in democracy. After all, the county council is elected to make tough decisions on behalf of voters. If they make the wrong choices, then they answer for their judgements at the ballot box.

Even the most carefully thought-out and well-planned plebiscite would struggle to take account of all the real options.

This one had all the hallmarks of being hasty and poorly thought through.

To pick on one tiny part of the overall budget, as the county did, ignoring education, social services, levels of pay to officers and levels of reimbursements to council members, to name but a few, and to highlight highways maintenance alone, was disingenuous.

The excuse was that the Government had drastically reduced the element of the grant it gives local authorities that pertained to highways. But there were plenty of funds and other areas of expenditure that the council could have reviewed to compensate for this.

The final insult to those voters who decided to swallow their cynicism and take the trouble to return their slips, was to choose an option other than the one wanted by the majority.

The county now says the low tax rise of ten per cent allied to a £5.5 million cut in the highways budget could not be achieved safely. So why on earth was it included in the options in the first place?

The county also says that the vote was not ignored. If there hadn't been such an overwhelming vote for the 10 per cent option, they might have decided to go for 15 per cent instead of the 12 per cent they ended up with. So that's all right, then.

The end result is that council taxpayers, once all the authorities have totted up their bills, will face a double figure overall increase.

The likely combined effect on an average property would be well over £100 extra and take the tax bill well over £1,000.

The Government is partly to blame by cutting grants at the same time as increasing demands. But it is difficult not to conclude that what this country suffers from is over-government.

A good first step to rectifying this would be to strip out one tier. The ill-conceived, discredited Cumbria County Council has once again put itself in the firing line for this fate.

Out of tune

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart must be spinning in his grave. The child genius composer would no doubt be delighted that his music is soothing the fevered brows of pupils during lessons at Kirkbie Kendal School.

But he surely could not comprehend the cultural upheavals that result in anyone believing that his beautiful melodies would be so abhorrent to another section of the community that they would flee rather than listen.

So much for the advance of civilisation.

February 7, 2003 15:30