He has announced in the Accrington Observer that he will step down at the next election for ‘personal reasons’ rather than his expenses that came to light last week.

Mr Pope had a 5,587 majority over the Conservatives in the 2005 general election and the European election results for Hyndburn were as follows: Conservatives 6037 Labour 5020 UKIP 3906 BNP 2731 Lib 1285

Currently no Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate is in place.

]]> http://www.andrewbarrett.org.uk/2009/06/11/labour-mp-greg-pope-to-step-down-at-next-election/feed/ 0 http://www.andrewbarrett.org.uk/2008/05/04/hyndburn-council-tax-most-expensive-or-not/ http://www.andrewbarrett.org.uk/2008/05/04/hyndburn-council-tax-most-expensive-or-not/#comments Sun, 04 May 2008 15:27:37 +0000 Andrew Barrett http://ajcb.co.uk/2008/05/04/hyndburn-council-tax-most-expensive-or-not/ Labour leaflets and Councillor Graham Jones have been banging the drum calling Hyndburn the ‘most expensive council in the country’. I delved into the claims, as I dislike unnecessary taxation. The main argument is based on a January 2007 article in the Telegraph that quotes Hyndburn council tax of being 8.1% of peoples income, the highest in the list.

I looked into the figures and as you can see from the link, it is based on peoples average income (£17,842) and the Band D rate of council tax (£1,439). At first glance it appears our council tax is excessively high in comparison with others.

It then dawned on me that they had compared it with band D housing and I thought, not many people actually have houses in band D. I looked at the figures and they confirmed it, 72% of people in Hyndburn live in band A and B properties, while 7% live in band D. Therefore you cannot compare expensive band D council tax with the average wage, because the average wage is low as the majority of people live in band A and B properties.

It is quite wrong to use the ‘most expensive council’ phrase as it completely misrepresents reality. I do believe it’s wrong to try and take the electorate for a ride simply because politicians know they won’t look any further than the headlines.

Whether the Labour group put it in the leaflets on purpose, or whether they simply don’t understand the figures, I suppose we’ll never know. Whichever one is the case I think it can only be a good thing that the Conservatives increased their majority on the council, because I don’t want a council that A) Misleads the citizens or B) have no idea what they’re doing.