Don't Pay UK

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This is a campaign that, according to news reports here, is beginning to gain ground. Many people refusing to pay their energy bills in protest at the huge increases, which are likely to be repeated in October. A camapign of civil disobedience along the lines of the Poll Tax movement.

https://dontpay.uk/

Who thinks it'll work? If enough people do this, I see the energy companies having to back down. The damage wrought by the negative press coverage of, potentially, hundreds of thousand or even millions of people getting cut off would be increadible.
 
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Don't think it'll work. No-one is going to risk having their energy cut off. And there's every possibility that the energy companies will pull every trick to punish those who don't pay.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
Is this a UK initiative, or, Europe wide?. I notice Euro Zone inflation rate is just slightly less than UK (approx 8% vs 9%).
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
If they are hailing the ending of the Poll Tax as an example of what they can achieve, I don’t think I will be signing up. The “victory” simply replaced one tax with another.
 

theclaud

Reading around the chip
If they are hailing the ending of the Poll Tax as an example of what they can achieve, I don’t think I will be signing up. The “victory” simply replaced one tax with another.

As Julian Barnes put it, under the poll tax two street sweepers living in a single room at the most fetid end of the Borough of Westminster would pay the same as a millionaire and his well-salaried wife living at No. 10 Downing Street.

Council Tax is fairer, and Can't Pay Won't Pay brought the poll tax down. So yes, it was a victory.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
As Julian Barnes put it, under the poll tax two street sweepers living in a single room at the most fetid end of the Borough of Westminster would pay the same as a millionaire and his well-salaried wife living at No. 10 Downing Street.

Council Tax is fairer, and Can't Pay Won't Pay brought the poll tax down. So yes, it was a victory.

All it did was return us to the old Rates system, except, with a different name. One unfair tax, not based on ability to pay, replaced by another unfair tax, not based on ability to pay. Some victory that.
 
D

Deleted member 28

Guest
I would imagine fewer people will be willing to risk having gas/electricity cut off than there were facing fines though.

I may be wrong, we'll have to wait and see.
 

qigong chimp

Settler of gobby hash.
Render the rich down for tallow.
 

theclaud

Reading around the chip
All it did was return us to the old Rates system, except, with a different name. One unfair tax, not based on ability to pay, replaced by another unfair tax, not based on ability to pay. Some victory that.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? I said fairer. Without the riots and civil disobedience we'd have neither the rates system nor the Council Tax system, but the so-called Community Charge, which was a zillion times more unfair than both. They also brought down Thatcher :okay:. Yes, the Council Tax system is unfair - mainly because the cap means those in mahoosive mansions in the South East still don't pay anything like enough.
 
All it did was return us to the old Rates system, except, with a different name. One unfair tax, not based on ability to pay, replaced by another unfair tax, not based on ability to pay. Some victory that.

People on low incomes can get a Council Tax Reduction but that only addresses the ability to pay question at the margins.

Council Tax is at least based on actual capital value and not an esoteric notional rent but, like the rates, politicians are sh*t scared of updating the valuations. We're still using valuation from the nineties.

An oddity is that those areas with the highest property values have the lowest Council Tax. It's not efficiency that enables Westminster Council to run a Band D Tax of c£860; it's that fact that £1 on Band produces far more there than in Stockton where Band D is £2120.
 

Salty seadog

Senior Member
People on low incomes can get a Council Tax Reduction but that only addresses the ability to pay question at the margins.

Council Tax is at least based on actual capital value and not an esoteric notional rent but, like the rates, politicians are sh*t scared of updating the valuations. We're still using valuation from the nineties.

An oddity is that those areas with the highest property values have the lowest Council Tax. It's not efficiency that enables Westminster Council to run a Band D Tax of c£860; it's that fact that £1 on Band produces far more there than in Stockton where Band D is £2120.

Rebanding plays no heed to ability to pay. My house may now be 4x its value but my wages have stagnated thanks to a series of government policy and economic conditions. The value in my house is on paper only.
 
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