Howard bids for grey vote
The Conservatives are bidding to capture the grey vote in the run-up to the general election with a policy of reducing council tax bills for millions of pensioners.
Leader Michael Howard has pledged to help five million pensioners with “significant” cuts to the “stealth tax”.
The Conservatives claim that council tax bills have risen massively under Labour and hit those on fixed incomes the hardest. They claim that the average single pensioner has seen a 40 per cent increase in council tax since 1997.
Mr Howard has taken out adverts in The Sunday Telegraph and The Sunday Express to press his message.
In the advert carrying the “I believe” motif, he says council tax is Tony Blair’s “most punishing stealth tax”.
“I believe that Britain is a great country. Our success is due in large part to the hard work of the older generation, many of whom served Britain so bravely in her greatest hour of need.
“I believe that people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in their old age.
“The older generations may have been airbrushed out of Mr Blair’s Britain, but I will stand up for them.”
On Monday, Mr Howard is expected to promise to raise the value of the state pension and pledge to end means testing for pensioners.
In a speech in Northampton last week, Mr Howard said over one and a half million pensioners – eligible for means tested pensions – declined to claim them as they were excessively “complicated”, “humiliating” and “wrong”.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott told Labour’s spring conference in Gateshead last weekend that the Government would examine council tax levels when the Lyons review into local government finance comes out.
In the meantime, he said, Britain was heading for the lowest council tax increase for a decade and the Government would cap free-spending authorities if necessary
Politically, he added, the Government was neither attracted to the Liberal Democrat’s total local income tax scheme nor “the slash and burn” of public services under the Tories.
The Liberal Democrats say that they would scrap council tax completely, and replace it with a local income tax system.
