Ken Livingstone has today claimed to be “freezing the Olympic element of the Council tax precept at 38 pence a week for the average London council tax payer.”
The Mayor said he had “given a guarantee to Londoners that they will not have to pay more than 38 pence a week towards the cost of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games.” and claimed that that “Today’s confirmation that there will be no increase in the Olympics section of the council tax demonstrates that the recent scare stories about escalating council tax bills were incorrect.”
However the Mayor’s claims were called into question by Damian Hockney, Leader of the One London Party who said “according to the Memorandum of Understanding between the Mayor and Tessa Jowell, the London council taxpayer is jointly responsible with the lottery to make good any budget overspend on the Olympics. As far as anybody knows, this has not changed.”
Mr Hockney said the Culture Secretary had “repeatedly referred to the wording of this agreement when refusing to give an undertaking to cap Londoners’ council tax liability. The Mayor cannot unilaterally rescind the agreement.”
Hockney says he has challenged the Mayor “to produce the correspondence with the government which will prove his claim. It would indeed be a triumph for Ken if he has pulled off a new agreement with the government.”
“Otherwise his announcement isn’t worth the paper it is written on and is just another con in this sorry exercise in ripping off the London council taxpayer.”
