Sun bias in council tax reporting

Media Integrity

The Sun gives the misleading impression that “council tax has doubled” because of Labour’s policies - seven of the ten councils with the biggest rises are Tory.

Page two of yesterday’s Sun ran an article by Deputy Political Editor Graeme Wilson slamming the Labour government for overseeing council tax rises of more than double and up to treble in some areas.

Shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman was only too happy to give a quote:

“The figures show for the first time just how much Gordon Brown has been snatching to feed the economic black hole his polices have created”

The only problem for The Sun and Ms Spelman is their spin hides the truth.

Accompanying the article is a table showing the ten highest rises in council tax over the last decade. These councils are:

1. City of London – N/A
2. Tower Hamlets – Labour
3. South Cambridgeshire – Conservative
4. East Cambridgeshire – Conservative
5. Fenland – Conservative
6. Westminster – Conservative
7. Wandsworth – Conservative
8. Brent – Conservative/Lib Dem
9. Hackney – Labour
10. Torridge – Conservative/IndJust two of those councils are controlled by Labour in contrast to seven of those councils that have Tories either leading them or in the executive. This leaves the myth that the Tories are the party of low council tax truly in tatters.

It also further highlights that The Sun is simply becoming an attack sheet for the Conservative party and has lost all interest whatsoever in honest and impartial reporting, it now has a political agenda that is going to drive virtually every article they are going to write between now and the next election.

No related posts.

8 Responses to “Sun bias in council tax reporting”

  1. David Jones

    Or in other words, the government grant goes to those areas with the greatest needs and the lowest ability to pay – sounds sensible to me.

    Still leaves the question of why Tory-held councils are responsible for the highest RISES given their rhetoric on supposed efficiency savings to be found seemingly at will.

  2. Roger

    The Sun ever had an interest in ‘honest and impartial reporting’?

    The fact is that council tax only covers 25% of LA expenditure (see
    http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/statistics/pdf/1374609.pdf for details).

    Even large changes in council tax rates are thus somewhat marginal.

  3. Chris

    This government has consisently reduced the majority of LA funding – the government grant, whilst giving LAs more and more responsibilities.

    Not sure if you pay council tax but try and get hold of a bill and look at other elements. Where I used to live we would get an broken down council tax including increase – so it highlighted that LA funding was static , but pension liabilities for police were rising in double digits.

Comments are closed.