There is one class of people that near-bankrupt Labour Birmingham City Council hate even more than motorists - private landlords. Put simply, the comrades would ban private property rental altogether if they had their way. As they can't do this, they do the next best thing aim to hit their enemies in the pocket.
Just as there are bent Labour Councillors so there are "rogue" landlords. No-one can doubt the misery a minority of these bastards cause, and so there is a case for "clamping-down" on the criminal end of the market.
Lest we forget, however, one of the worst "slum landlords" in Brum is not "private" at all but, er, Labour Birmingham City Council!
What the comrades have done is to force private landlords in 25 of Brum's sh*ttiest wards to pay £700 for a licence to operate (valid for 5 years). The so-called "Selective Licensing Scheme" - which is not exactly "selective" as it targets ALL landlords, good and bad, within the 25 sh*tholes - for the new Labour business tax - which apparently comes into operation this June. The obvious flaw in the Scheme is that all landlords are likely, quite rightly, to simply pass on the tax to their tenants by way of additional rent.
Labour is, of course, primarily funded by the trade unions (one reason Keir "Sir Woodenarse" Starmer is staying silent on the alleged rape of a Labour MP by a senior official of one of his biggest paymasters, the GMB Union.) Brum Labour Council actually says this in its terms and conditions of employment:
"Trade Union Membership - Access to New Starters"
In the opinion of Birmingham City Council, each employee should be a member of a trade union in order that collective bargaining in satisfactory and fully representative of all employees. The Council believes that it should promote the benefits of trade union membership to its new employees".
Local people are then forced to pay part of their Council Tax for the salaries of trade union officials via what is called "facility time". This allows the very same taxpayer-funded union officials to use our money to foment strikes that withdraw services many folk rely on, and even to meddle in industrial disputes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Council. Nice!
When I read newspaper reports about Labour's new Landlord Tax they stated that 130 (yes, one hundred and thirty) staff were to be assigned to "administer" the scheme in the 25 wards. That's an astonishing 5.2 pen-pushers PER WARD! Bureaucracy gone mad and a colossal cost to the City.
It gets worse. Fresh from losing multi-millions on the Commonwealth Games, the BCC website says that this will be 130 "newly-created" jobs for an already bloated and skint Council. And if the 130 are, as above, "encouraged" to join unions that is a massive thank you from Labour to the dinosaur bully boys and girls who fund their Party.
Still, as above, it's the tenants who will end up paying for this crony "sledgehammer to crack a nut" operation. And Brum Leader - let's see the annual figures on how much this Scheme is actually costing folk?
[If any of the new staff are thinking of joining the GMB Union they should heed the words of a 2001 Report which the Union itself commissioned. Leading Counsel investigated the vile organisation and stated that "bullying, misogyny, cronyism and sexual harassment are endemic within the Union". Non-white recruits might also care to note that the QC (now KC) described the top union officials as "white, male and stale" and added, "I am satisfied that the GMB is not a comfortable place to be for many employees and members from Black and minority ethnic groups". Labour Leader Keir Starmer's not bothered about this sort of thing, but maybe you should be before you hand over your money to thuggish unions?]
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