South West: Pensioner power?

Chris Rogers BBC South West Political Editor

Al Capone made headlines for years. He was the sensation of his age and continually eluded justice. Until they got him on income tax.

Albert Venison risked jail

It is always the mundane matters that offer the best prospect of catastrophic downfall.

Perhaps that is why the government is riding the punches of Hutton and sidestepping the pitfalls of Iraq, while quietly trying to defuse the ticking bomb that is the council tax.

This year their concern has been heightened because council tax has itself emerged from the shadows of the annual arcane discussion between councillors and Whitehall and hit the national headlines.

The increases in domestic bills have been unprecedented.

South West pensioners lobbied on Council Tax increases

Pensioners in particular have cut the traditional tether of quiet respectability and found themselves grabbing placards and marching on County Hall, lobbying MPs in Parliament and demonstrating outside the Labour Party Conference.

Devon's pensioners have been in the vanguard and they plan another vigil this weekend as Devon County Council hosts a unique round table discussion on the future of public services and how we pay for them.

Future for Public services?

Dozens of delegates from across the South West peninsula will represent councils, communities, voluntary organisations, trades unions and other public agencies.

From 09.30 in the morning there will be an inside view of the real state of Devon County Council's finances, an academic's idea of the future from Prof Iain Macleod, a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and seminar sessions on different ways of paying for local government.

If that sounds dry, remember the massed pensioners who will be shivering outside the council chamber, demonstrating the human face of this year's 18% increase in council tax.

Many of them will be members of the Devon and Cornwall Pensioners Forum and refusing to pay more than an inflation-based increase.

For such impertinence they are expecting the full majesty of the law to hit their pockets, although none has so far been hauled to court.

Albert Venison, their septuagenarian Chairman, will be one of the few observers allowed in to see the proceedings live. Mr Venison said;

Something radical has to be done. Everyone's worried now about next year.

There are already claims that the average increase will be nearly 12% and who knows what Devon's will be?

The government should limit all increases to inflation only and all the players should be forced to sit down and work out a way to cope, while a new system of finance is agreed.

It is the only way.

The one bright spot for Albert is the promise from Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford to address the conference and then meet the pensioners privately afterwards.

Councillors too will welcome the chance to bend the Minister's ear, even though he has set the rest of his face against one innovation, the Liberal Democrat idea of a local income tax.

Perhaps there are too many echoes of Al Capone.

The conference can be viewed on the internet from Friday 21 November 2003

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