By common consent the Liberal Democrat's Vince Cable speaks wisely in financial matters; what a shame that his knowledge is not replicated amonst his Cornwall colleagues. They believe that:
1. a 2.9% increase in Council tax is too high even though the plans they drew up last year showed an increase of 4.0% for this year;
2. Cornwall Council should not seek to make the best use of the monies it has available and should not consider alternative ways of delivering the services required by the residents of Cornwall;
3. that there are no difficult decisions to take; probably because their solution would be based on spend, spend, spend, so driving Cornwall into far more debt.
I abstained on the Council budget vote yesterday as I believe that action to get the budget reduced has to be the priority without moving away from deliverying those services which mattter. There are costs which should be cut and which, increasingly, are a luxury in today's difficult economic times and bring no significant benefit to most residents.
