YOU wouldn’t expect to win a popularity contest by telling people that their council tax is going up.

Especially when the increase is 90 per cent.

With local elections just four months away, it would appear to be political suicide for any party to suggest such a thing.

And that’s precisely the problem.

We are talking about a rise in the portion of this tax that we pay to Salisbury City Council (Wiltshire will be cooking up a rise of its own as well) from £105 to £199 for the average Band D property.

That’s what the city’s leader, independent councillor Andrew Roberts, proposed on Monday night.

The majority of properties in Salisbury, by the way, are in Band C, with slightly lower charges.

When you think how many services the Guildhall Gang will now be operating for us – ranging from the crematorium and cemeteries to our markets, parks and allotments, loos, litter bins, flower displays, tourist info, Christmas lights, the Bemerton Heath Centre, and historic monuments including the Guildhall itself - it doesn’t look that unreasonable, actually.

Especially when you take into account the lost income from homes transferred to Laverstock & Ford under recent boundary changes.

I suspect that people are fed up with the evasions and manoeuvrings of politicians, from whatever party.

I think they know a rat when they smell one.

And they’ll have a pretty good notion that the city cannot take over a shedload of assets from Wiltshire, which has been quietly allowing them to deteriorate, without a substantial bill popping up sometime. What about treating voters as grown-ups who can be trusted with an unpalatable truth? Now there’s a novel idea. One that Mr Roberts was brave (or foolhardy) enough to put forward.

It was right, he said, that the councillors who took on these assets should decide how to fund them, and face any electoral consequences.

Don’t dilly-dally, he told them, because there’s a “significant risk” that the government will cap tax increases for parishes like Salisbury next year and then the council could go broke.

Set a figure now that will see the city more or less safely through the next four years while you’ve still got the chance.

The trouble is, no party wants to be seen as inflicting immediate financial pain on electors who probably haven’t had a wage rise in ages. ‘Live now, pay later’ seems a more attractive option to them.

Which is why the policy and resources committee roundly rejected Mr Roberts’ budget proposals.

But there’s no time to lose. The full council has a duty to set a balanced budget and agree a tax precept.

So there’s a special meeting at the Guildhall this Monday to sort it out. Should be fun.

anneriddle36@gmail.com