We would like to wish all our members, and everybody else in Horsham constituency a Happy New Year in 2011. It is likely to be a good year. Unless you are old. Or looking forward to university. Or fall ill, drive a car, commute by train, lose your job, want to leave home, or buy anything in shops.
Here are a few of the things to look forward to in 2011.
Increased rail fares
The price of regulated fares (like season tickets) rise in January by an average of 6.2% As that is an average, some fares will rise by even more, with a season ticket from Haywards Heath to London going up by 7.69%
Petrol price rises
If the cost of rail fares makes the car seem tempting, think again because January sees an increase in duty at the same time as the VAT rise.
VAT increases
The rise in VAT does not only affect petrol of course, but nearly everything we buy. Before the election last year the Tories produced posters that said Labour intended to increase VAT so vote Tory to avoid that, and the Lib Dems produced posters about the "Tory VAT bombshell" saying that the Tories intended to increase VAT so vote Lib Dem to avoid it, and now we have a Tory-led government which has increased VAT by 2.5% , aided and abetted by their Lib Dem partners.
Ed Miliband says that this is the "wrong tax, wrong time" and that:
Today we start to see the Tory-led agenda move from Downing Street to your street. At midnight VAT goes up, hitting people's living standards, small businesses and jobs. The VAT rise is the most visible example of what we mean when we say the government is going too far and too fast.VAT is a tax which disproportionately affects those on lower incomes as a larger proportion of their income is spent on goods and services which attract VAT.
Horsham district council have to set a budget based on a reduction of its formula grant of more than 18% and that is just in cash terms, not taking inflation into account. Last year the grant from central government was £5.5million, in 2011-12 it will be £4.5million and in 2012-13 it will be £3.9million.
Can £1.6million be taken out of the council's buget over two years without services being affected? We don't think so. David Cameron said that no frontline services would be affected by his cuts and that any minister who came to him with proposals that would cat frontline services would be asked to go back and think again. Was Eric Pickles asked to think again?
As we have pointed out before, the Lib Dem opposition on Horsham council do not even propose an alternative to Tory budgets.
And the rest
Even the governments new Orwellian-sounding Office for Budget Responsibility is predicting slowing economic growth, resulting in higher unemployment - leading to £1.5billion higher welfare and benefits bills. There is a strong probability that interest rates and mortgage rates will rise too affecting homeowners.
Meanwhile, the tax income from companies like Vodafone and individuals like Philip Green that would go a long way to bridging these gaps continues to be uncollected.