Poverty-denying Labour council leader and hotelier claims he would have increased council tax by 32%

The Eden Hotel, which is owned by Councillor Norman Hampshire

From Edinburgh Live yesterday:

East Lothian Council’s leader has told the First Minister he will need to match the funds a 32 per cent rise in council tax would have brought the local authority after freezing the increase.

Norman Hampshire described Humza Yousaf’s announcement of a council tax freeze as ‘extremely disappointing’ in a letter to him.

East Lothian council leader asks First Minister for millions of pounds to plug council tax hole – Edinburgh Live

It’s difficult to imagine what this rightist Labour politician, hotel proprietor and former or current director of 8 companies, would be planning to spend the extra money on.

We know from this last year that he doesn’t ‘give a‘ about the poor:

A COUNCIL leader is facing backlash after telling new female councillors their questions about what more could be done to help families in poverty were “stupid”.

East Lothian chief Norman Hampshire made his comments as he faced two motions from new SNP opposition councillors calling on officers to look at the cost of providing more free breakfast club places and using public buildings to create warm refuges, to help people cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

The council leader accused his opponents of “headline-grabbing” before branding their motions “stupid little things” and “stupid political points”.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20739871.east-lothian-council-leader-norman-hampshire-says-snp-poverty-questions-stupid/

In 2017:

THE chairman of East Lothian Council’s planning committee has applied to the local authority to transform his Dunbar hotel into a single house. The Eden Hotel dates back to the 1930s and has been owned by Councillor Norman Hampshire – the stand-in leader of East Lothian Council and the chairman of its planning committee – since 1989.

https://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/15709007.planning-committee-chairman-hopes-to-transform-his-hotel-into-a-house/

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the Scottish Labour Party!

3 thoughts on “Poverty-denying Labour council leader and hotelier claims he would have increased council tax by 32%”

  1. The Labour Party in Scotland are worse than the Labour Party in England because they have no thought whatsoever for the Scottish people , at least in England the Labour Party can say that the English people time and time again vote in a Conservative government so following Conservative policies is nothing new but here in Scotland we have not voted for a Conservative government for sixty years so these Labour politicians in Scotland are conservative policies against the wishes of more than 75% of the people in Scotland .

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  2. Independence would give Scotland more funds.

    Westminster Gov borrows and spends 100Billion more. Pro rata 10Billion.
    Westminster raises 731Billion. Spends 1090Billion. Scotland raises 87Billion. Spends 54Billion. Westminster spends the rest 33Billion. Wasting Billions on HS2, Trident, Hickley Point etc. Billions has been lost on Brexit. Funding Covid 270Billion over two years. Scotland did not get 27Billion pro rata.

    UK/Scottish Gov accounts.

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  3. Good try Councillor Hampshire! Despite the opportunity to do so for this year, East Lothian Council opted NOT to utilise its opportunity and undoubted scope (see below) to raise Council Tax more substantially.

    But the Council leader and his Labour colleagues have had a sudden and dramatic change of position. They WERE going to raise CT substantially for NEXT year, if ONLY they had been allowed to do so. Aye right!

    For context, below are some data on East Lothian’s current CT rate taken from recent research conducted by the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TA) into the ‘burden of Council Tax’ across Great Britain.

    Source https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/britains_council_tax_burdens_2023

    Out of 29 local authorities (LAs) in Scotland that are present within the TA’s database:

    – there are 11 LAs with HIGHER Band D Council Tax rates: East Lothian’s rate is £1,436 per annum and for example Midlothian’s Band D rate is £1,515

    
– East Lothian has the SECOND LOWEST Band D CT rate as a percentage of average house prices in the area

    
-there are 17 LAs in Scotland in which the Band D CT rate as a percentage of median annual gross pay is HIGHER than East Lothian.

    And by comparison with Tory-run England and Labour-run Wales, CT Band D rates this year are generally lower in Scotland according to the TA’s analysis. Just as a snapshot:

    ‘Table 4: ten local authorities with the lowest council tax relative to median gross pay’: five are in London and five in Scotland.

    ‘Table 6: highest council tax relative to median gross pay by region: of the the 8 English regions plus Wales and Scotland: the LOWEST CT relative to gross pay of all regions and nations is in Scotland.

    So all in all, Councillor Hampshire and his Labour colleagues had opportunity and plenty of scope to raise CT in East Lothian before now but that would have required LABOUR councillors taking lead responsibility to do so!

    For more on CT comparisons across GB see the TuS blog post on 2 October 2023.

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