So - is she a marttyr? Or a wilful geriatric anarchist?

[Caligula]

pensioner gets sent to prison for not paying council tax

Lizzie would qualify for council tax benefit, though, b/c neither she nor her husband worked outside the home at all. Working poor, however, usually don't qualify for council tax benefit and get hit w/the full whack.

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The issue isn't pensioners, 5 bedroom houses, etc. It's taxation and ability to pay. And this woman is specifically protesting about the council tax's impact on pensioners, not on any other group who are being hit by this unfair tax.

Some pensioners have the ability to pay for an 18% rise, others don't. Just like everyone else.

Re moving, once you're past about 80, it's very difficult to move. But the Tories attitude always used to be to poor old people, well, they should have saved when they were younger - they should have planned for their old age. Wheareas to old people with an enormous asset, they were very sympathetic about their lack of forward planning.

I know what you mean, though. The general consensus would probably be 'suck it up' if it were a younger person. But that's not always possible.

Moving is hard to do when you're poor full stop.

But I agree, Caligula, I live in a property valued at £180,000. I could never afford to purchase it. But I'm paying the same council tax as a neighbour who can afford to buy that - even several times over if he/she is a landlord as well.

But Caligula, pensioners are disproportionately poor. The value of their pension has plummetted, and that isn't their fault. They also have limited or no options to improve the situation and it will only get worse for them. Why shouldn't she campaign for the group she feels most for and has most knowledge of? Women who have suffered awful births/loss of a child might campaign for better maternity services, should we tell them to shut up or that they should only be allowed to campaign for, say, better mental health provision. I expect Ms Hardy would be very sympathetic to the working poor as well. But that's not her particular protest here. The figures about how old people live are pretty shocking. Of course there are well off pensioners, just as some disabled people are fantastically rich, but the general picture is of poverty and endless decline in living standards.
And as for all this stuff about Thatcher - what on earth has that got to do with this?

True, moving is one of the five most stressful things in life apparantly. But if you're physically frail as well, it is really much harder than when you're younger.

And there is the issue of the memories etc. But lodgers aside, the poor don't get their memories cited as an excuse to introduce the most regressive tax since Richard II.

Sorry last post was answering expat

I don't have a beef with her protesting about the group which concerns her, but I do have a beef with the fact that the media appear to be focussing on the unfairness of the council tax with regards to only one group in society, and only because of the unprecedented tax rises. The actual underlying principle - that the tax is unfair full stop, is simply not being addressed.

I didn't introduce the Thatcher issue, but now that it's in the thread...

Thatcherism isn't remotely relevant to Sylvia Hardy though, is it?
And if other people feel victimised by the tax (and I'm sure they do, for good reason), they have the same 'right' as she has to go to prison over it.

I do have sympathy with the lady. One of the newspaper reports I read said that she had already sold off her car and some furniture and done an equity release scheme on her flat in order to raise money to live on, so whilst she may technically have been able to pay it the reality is that her outgoings do exceed her income.

I'd be more impressed if councils froze council tax for a couple of years now. Round here the council has moved to only collecting bins fortnightly (which must be a saving) but has purchased some very expensive iron gates for the entrance to the local town (no function, just to make it look nice) and have spent two years going round all the country lanes putting kerbs (not pavements)in - totally unnecessary they were fine with grass verges. IMHO the more money they have the more they fritter away

I can't remember at what point Thatcher was introduced.

But I wouldn't say it's completely irrelevant, if what you're discussing is the principle of local taxation. The reason we have the council tax is because it's the nearest thing the Tories could get to the poll tax (which of course is why it's so unfair) and as Thatcher looms large in the history of all this, I'm not entirely surprised she got a mention.

And of course everyone has the "right" to go to prison. But the consequences of prison aren't the same for everyone. Archer and that other crooked Tory whose name escapes me now who found God, haven't been ruined by prison and neither has this woman. But for most people, the consquences of having served a prison sentence are disastrous. I get the feeling that prison for this lady isn't particularly disastrous.

wheni used to know these things i understood that councils applied for highways money from government - so seperate from council tax.

however if they didn't spend it it was reduced the next year - hence fking stupid works like mini roundabouts put in stupid places where a cross road would do.

there is noneed for a mini roundabout with 4 exits imho and really no need for a mini rounabout with 2....think about it for goodness sake.

put a mini roundabout on a dangerous very steep hill - why? it was fine as a junction and many people - no really many people predominantly women in my experience come to e mini roundabout and forget the roundabout rules - its more sodding dangerous.

that was a mini roundabout rant. however i think the funding thing applies.

i live in an area where i can see the council do work which makes it easier to swallow. the streetcleaners come every week just after bin day. the billions of grass verges and common areas are well maintained. and despite the law itself being an ass, i am never short of a police officer.

if i went to prison i would lose my job.

would i then have a record?
harder to get another job.

difficult to work with children and families too i would assume. which kinda fcks me up a lot

I remember years ago being told that if you didn't use up your budget this year, it would be cut next, so you could never save up for long term big expenditure items, you just had to fritter it away on smaller less necessary things.

Can't remember what that was in relation to though, but it just sounded mad.

Aloha, I brought up the point about Thatcher and I do think it is relevant because of her age. She was a working woman in the 1980s during Nigel Lawsons's ecomomic miracle that led to a perceived booming economy. People of that era are now retired and quite happily berate the younger generation for not living within their means, not saving for a rainy day, the want it now generation, blah, blah, blah. Well my mother is the same age as that woman. She was a nurse (since the 1960s, only taking 6 weeks off when she had each of her children) and witnessed first hand the the deliberate run down of the NHS under the Tories and the reduction in the value of a nurses's salary. She was also widowed in the early 80's with 5 children but you know what? She did not squander here resources and right now she pays all her bills and does not expect anybody to do it for her. She lives adequately and does not ask for anything.

I really don't understand what a lot of these pensioners who scream poverty did with their resources during their working life that they expect the current taxpayers to shoulder their load.

I had 1.5% payrise this year and my husband 3%. The nursery fees went up by 3.5%, council tax by 8% and plus all the utilities bills increased. Everybody is facing the same thing with respect to the increase in cost of living, not just pensioners and I do not believe they should be given special treatment and neither does my mother, despite being a pensioner herself. It would not surprise me that when this woman departs this planet, she will leave £2million pounds to some sanctuary for abused reptiles.

Really, given that she is a social worker who retired in 1989 due to poor health and lives alone? Where do you think you might have got her millions from?
I was a working woman during the 80s and have to say, I didn't have a Porsche either.
I do wonder why on earth you make these wild assumptions about what Silvia Hardy might say or think, given that she is, apparently, a lifelong campaigner for social justice?
I don't see anywhere that she is asking for special treatment either. She wants an adequate pension for old people and an end to massive rises in council tax. I think over 18% is a massive rise. It's hardly asking for a free cruise.
As for the idea that she is somehow wonderfully priveleged to be able to go to prison, now that does make me laugh. Ooh, I can't wait to be in my seventies, struggling financially, on my own and in poor health because then I'll be able to go to prison. What a treat!

Who said anything about a Porsche? Now that is a wild assumption.

I do not doubt that there are poor pensioners out there and the state should support these people with the appropriate benefits. I just think that there are some who expect other people to pick up the tab for them. I don't know this woman's situation and I concede that I may be being a bit harsh in my assessment but she has worked, she does have a pension, just like my mother, and I just think she should pay her way. What about the families in her area with working parents who are struggling to pay the 18% increase in their council tax bill? Why should they be burdened with subsidising her when they themselves are struggling?

Ultimately, this is all to do with the whole issue of local taxation and this really has to be addressed by the government and opposition parties properly. I will bow out now and attend to my twins.

I think she is trying - and hopefully succeeding - to get this issue addressed. And at considerable personal inconvience, to say the least. I don't think she's asking anyone to 'subsidise' her!
And the government simply will NOT address this issue unless someone makes them do it. And perhaps she will.

God, my spelling is crap today!

I don't think they will address the issue. They're adopting the ostrich technique about it.

They've decided not to go through with the re-evaluation of council tax bands that was going to be due until after the next election. Basically, because they know that if they use the criteria they're using at the moment, loads of people are going to get whacked with increases way above 18%. And it is going to hit masses of people really, really hard. So many people, and so hard, that it's actually not do-able. Which is why they're postponing it. But they haven't yet got a Plan B (I really hope they're working on it).

I have nothing but sympathy for 'poor' pensioners, many of whom I think get a very raw deal just as I have sympathy with poor single people and poor families. I also admire Sylvia Hardy's single-minded determination for her cause and yes, I do think that the system of funding for local government needs reforming but I refuse to accept that pensioners who have large council tax bills because they live in houses that are large and expensive should somehow be treated as a special case, deserving of our sympathy.
Although the gaps between rich and poor pensioners have widened in recent years, pensioners, and particularly those with occupational pensions (such as Sylvie Hardy)on average have done relatively well compared to the population as a whole with their incomes rising faster, on average, than wages.
And Enid/aloha, I'm not bitter about pensioners living in 5 bedroomed houses (I just hate hearing them complain about the large council tax bills that accompany them) but I sure as hell would be if I was trying to bring my kids up in bed and breakfast accomodation or a two-bedroomed flat on the 15th floor of a high-rise as some parents have to.

The question was posed as 'is she a martyr or a wilful geriatric anarchist' as if one was good and the other bad.

Would just like to say am all in favour of wilful geriatric anarchists and am determined to be one myself, one day.

Oh, and she may be raising it as a pensioner, but isn't she generally against huge hikes in council tax as a regressive tax? So she's actually making a stand on behalf of everyone, not just pensioners. More power to her elbow, frankly.