The Herald, with many anti-SNP elements, is not monolithic and must follow the money.
So in the last 40 minutes, their Tom Gordon has to tells us:
Humza Yousaf is set to deliver his promise of a Scotland-wide council tax freeze from April after the only two hold-out councils backed down. Labour-led Inverclyde and Tory-Liberal Democrat run Argyll & Bute today both signalled they were ready to revisit their respective rises of 8.2% and 10%.
BBC Scotland, safe on a heap of your licences fee cash, are not going there, so offer this:
May ditch plan? Aye right!
The Express has the story but puts it: Shona Robison financial threats win council tax freeze u-turn as two rebels to accept it
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
A council tax freeze is just the ticket for upper-bourgeoise super-annuated retired profesors with stupidly big houses who are terrified by local democracy.
LikeLike
Have I just been trolled ever so mildly?
Became prof at 63, retired 65 on lowest point of prof social sciences scale.
4 weans, big dug and cat, house in an ‘estate’, surrounded by other underpaid professionals – nurses, teachers, social workers and polis.
Local democracy? Democracy? An unholy Tory/Labour deal to keep out biggest party, SNP.
LikeLike
However they word it, we and many others know that the Tory, Labour and no doubt LibDems councils and coalitions all wanted to raise council tax across Scotland, which they would have used as a massive tool against the ScotGov and the SNP. Too bad.
The page with A and B council ‘may ditch plan’ should have read, A&B council have their hand forced by the SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT, to keep council tax raise at bay in order to support people with the ongoing cost of living crisis caused by EngUKGovs’ austerity and BREXIT.
It’s how they tell it, amazing really, do ‘journalists’ learn how to twist facts, and produce word salad at journalism college, seems so, in particular when it comes to the Scottish government which is run by a Scottish political party, democratically elected, however much the BritNat rags hate that fact!
LikeLike
I agree that as an ad hoc measure the freeze on Council Tax helps people on low incomes.
However, it is a regressive tax and needs to be replaced and/or amended to make it more progressive. A couple of years ago John Swinney added to further higher bands and hypothecated the monies raised directly to schools. Such a change was effected quickly and the number of bands could be increased as far as necessary to ensure that King Chico, pays much more compared to the serfs in estate houses.
Council tax is weakly related to property values – as they were in the 1990s. Property, such as houses and land, is a firm basis on which to base domestic taxes because they cannot be shifted offshore. Provided the valuations match actual values and the beneficial owners can be identified as named people with a main address in Scotland, then such taxes will be more redistributive, reducing the burden on the majority of us and taking a more proportionate amount from the very wealthy. Combined with a land reform act such as a much bolder version of the bill currently at Holyrood, such taxes would raise more revenue and be a disincentive to multiple home ownership and lead to a break up of larger land holdings.
I would give the power to raise such revenues to Councils to implement their local policies. This would be genuine community empowerment.
Of course the media will howl about the crippling taxation and land grabs causing ‘the best people’ to leave the ‘highest taxed part of Britain’.
Alasdair Macdonald
LikeLiked by 1 person
Incresed cost of living more to do with high energy prices than Brexit Blame Putin for that one.
LikeLike
Oh my, still upset over being banned from Stonehaven…
LikeLike
Labour was all set to put up CT and blame the Scottish Government, two councils even tried to turn Michael Gove into a White Knight but they forgot that no matter how close they shadow Tory policies they do not qualify for Tory handouts in an election year.
Our local Edinburgh City Council appears not to be as cash strapped as it claimed to be as it hasn’t implemented about £3 million in ongoing annual savings that could have been made by outsourcing some collections and bringing in compulsory redundancies, a Lib Dem policy that was in last year’s adopted budget.
LikeLiked by 1 person