Monday 11 January 2010

Media release cock-up

It had to happen. All parties have been embarrassed by inexperienced unpaid office volunteers ("interns") making public mistakes. Now Julia Goldsworthy has been caught by allowing a media release about business rates to leave her office unchecked. Guido Fawkes is predictably exultant about the strange figures which presumably result from an incorrect formula being applied to a spreadsheet.

However, he displays his ignorance of local government finance when he rhetorically asks: "Do you really think business rates in Tory controlled Hammersmith and Fulham have increased over 200 times?". The parameters for calculating non-domestic rates are not in councils' hands, as this explanation (from Bedford BC) shows.

None of the above invalidates the criticism both of the business rate system or the 32% increase in real terms under Labour.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There sneeds to be alot more of this stuff going on cus politics is a much more humorous place!