I’m usually the first to moan about the party’s propensity to jump on populist bandwagons. In darker moments I have imagined a press release attacking Galilee’s Labour-controlled council for poor litter collection after the feeding of the five thousand, or poor traffic management at the Sermon on the Mount.
However is there a campaigner alive who can resist a phrase like the “Rain Tax”?
www.dontdrainus.org is a non-partisan campaign site set up to oppose new, deeply unfair surface water charges which may cripple many churches, charities and clubs.
The regulator Ofwat has allowed – or encouraged? – water companies to charge non-profit-making community buildings at the same rates as commercial businesses, often leading to huge increases in bills. As such groups often don’t use a lot of water, or make any profit, this is hardly fair or green taxation.
Without getting into ‘the heavy stuff’, surely a central strand of modern liberalism is that we are more than atomised individuals, but that our common life together is often best mediated by local, voluntary, citizen lead groups rather than the state?
As society begins to warp, stress and strain under the forces of credit cold turkey, what sort of government allows the little guys and girls to pick up the bill? Of course the money for investment in our water infrastructure has to come from somewhere. Of course water companies have big programmes of environmental improvements.
However there are three reasons why for many groups the “Rain Tax” is part of a perfect storm.
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