COUNCIL tax (not a tax really – it does not take the ability to pay into consideration) is due in April. The wealthy prefer it to increases in Income Tax because they pay a smaller proportion of their income than the pensioners and lower paid.

Taking Band D at Tidenham, someone with an income of £12,000 in paying £1,467.14 spends 12.27 per cent, while someone with an income of £42,000 spends only 3.493 per cent of it. This is unfair. The Conservatives broke the earnings link more than 20 years ago, and Labour have promised to restore the link in 2012 at the earliest. By then more than 3 million pensioners will have died without any benefit, but then Labour have promised this before, so don't hold your breath, and just to make things worse, council tax has always increased faster than pensions.

To fund increased pensions would be difficult given the financial climate, but consider the cost of waste by this Labour government: two wars that few support, the billions spent on botched IT projects, and the £2 billion a year for management consultants, and the increasing massive bail­outs for get-rich bankers, always remembering that it was the Conservatives who de-regulated the banks, and the railways, and public transport etc.

Labour and Conservative governments have ignored the needs of the poorer people in our society, and will continue to do so if you vote for them. – Councillor Roy Birch, Liberal Democrat (Tidenham).