Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Well, there is time till the next elections. He can say it, and if he delivers it Labour voters will be happy otherwise they will not. It's not an election year, so we can wait to see if he actually does it..
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Unfortunately the problem with buying votes is that once you've bought them and gotten back into power (bribing pensioners with an increase in fuel benefits, then taxing them to claim it back) you then don't have to do anything until the next election when you start bribing people again.
All parties in power do it, just look at how the council tax subsidies are dished out.
In a "current government" area and you'll get more subsidies and therefore lower council tax than an area under opposition control. Makes the opposition look bad to have to either cut services or increase council tax (capping to stop them doing that also helps make them look bad as it means they're more likely to have to cut services).
Why do you think Scotland got the poll tax first? If it upset people it didn't matter, they weren't tory voters and never would be.