A QUESTIONABLE QUESTIONNAIRE?

CRUMBRIA: 5.03.2026

CRUMBERLAND Council – run by a Labour-daft majority – has this week forced through another 4.99% rise in Council Tax – hitting a hat-trick of hikes in three years – and just short of the 5% rise that required a public referendum.

Close to 139,000 bills will go out soon, and depending on which property band you live in, here’s what you’ll be paying.

To maintain the pretence that the public has a say in this process, late last year, Crumberland Council put out a public consultation on raising the Council Tax.

It was generously made available to the public between 22nd December and 30th January.

(Most would have been distracted by Christmas and New Year rather than farting about online, filling in tedious Council forms.)

And the questions in the Council consultation were heavily loaded in favour of encouraging people to agree to hike Council Tax, as this garbled question demonstrates below:

Q – By law, we must set a balanced budget. Without the proposed 2.99% increase in council tax and 2% adult social care levy, we would need to make deeper cuts to services—at a time when demand for care and support is rising. Do you agree or disagree with the proposal of a 2.99% increase in council tax next year to help maintain essential services – such as children’s services, adult social care, our leisure centres and waste management – provided by Cumberland Council? Without the income generated by this rise, we will have to consider making further savings.

Rather than a FAIR, open-ended consultation question, it sounded suspiciously closer to a JUSTIFICATION for a Council Tax increase.

It told residents that if they didn’t support a Council Tax rise, there would be “deeper cuts to services” -loading the question before the public answered it!

And by naming “Children’s services, Adult social care, Leisure centres and Waste management”, it also helped make opposition to a Council Tax rise sound like opposition to those services.

It’s worth noting here that Councils NEVER give the public a choice in their Council Tax consultation because they never leave any other option on the table.

The Council NEVER suggests making redundancies, cutting senior management, slashing perks, dipping into Council reserves or launching a radical rethink about what the modern local authority should, and more importantly, SHOULD NOT be doing when public finances are tight.

As you can see below, a total of 150 people ended up AGREEING with a Council Tax rise, and 36 people couldn’t make up their minds.

Who are these mysterious people who want to pay more Council Tax every year?

Do you know any, or could they, per chance, work for the Council?

***The answers to Crumberland Council’s question in the questionnaire.***

For years, the pantomime villain at Labour Council budget time in Crumbria used to be Conservative austerity – boo! hiss!

But with the Tories rightly booted out of office 19 months ago and a Labour Government now holding the purse strings, Labour Councils like Crumberland have noticeably dialled down their anti-Government rhetoric!

Step forward, West Crumberland ‘perma-councillor’ Barbara Cannon, the chief Council Tax setter for Labour-run Cumberland Council and a Councillor for about 50 years.

When previously hiking the Council Tax, ‘Babs’ was all too happy to name the “villains”. Tory Government. Cuts. Austerity. Underfunding.

None of that’s directly her fault; she’s just being a politician.

But year after year, her complaints were amplified over and over again in local media like The Times & Starmer, the News & Shrug, and The Crumbling News, who clamoured to fill their failing comics with screaming headlines about austerity.

Now that Number 10 has changed colour to the team that she supports, not only has Councillor Cannon become curiously less bombastic, but juvenile hacks too seem to have lost all interest in finding a political bogey man.

What an astonishing coincidence!

However, be reminded that the Labour Government has told Councils like Crumberland to ASSUME that, in future years, they’ll need to squeeze MORE money out of Council Tax payers from now until 2030 rather than expecting more in Government grants.

Instead of contributing to 50% of its income, Crumberland Council is now budgeting to “assume” that Council Tax will have to make up 59%, due to the fall off in grants.

That’s equivalent to the Council needing an extra, er, £16 million more from Council Tax in Crumberland in the years to come.

So, despite the annual charade of “consulting” the public, rises in your Council Tax bills are a dead certainty to stay.

Councils really don’t give a rat’s arse whether you disagree, mildly disagree, strongly disagree or violently disagree.

Of this, expect your alleged local “newspapers” to tell you precisely nothing.

***

Feb 2024: Cllr Barbara Cannon blames Council Tax rise on “devastating” underfunding of (Tory) Government.

Feb 2026: Cllr Barbara Cannon blames “15 years of Government underfunding.” (Omitting to mention that the Government now underfunding local councils is, er, a Labour one that promised to put “pennies in people’s pockets.”