SURPRISE surprise! The Council Tax is going up by 4.3 per cent according to last week's GUARDIAN When the Tory flagship council of Wandsworth introduced the lowest tax rate in the country our Labour council said if they'd received the same government grant as Wandsworth then the people of Warrington would not have to pay any tax at all.

One would have thought that now a Labour government is in power they would have at least received enough grant to keep the tax at its present level - let alone reduce it. More so now that the Chancellor has received a bonus of £12 billion tax revenues from the self assessment order.

It doesn't say much for the generosity of the Labour Government towards this Labour council. My pension has gone up about £120 per year and about a third of that has gone already in increased council tax and water rates. Say no more.

J. J. WOODS

Howson Road, Orford

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.