Johnson plans to cut taxes as polling looms
BORIS Johnson yesterday distanced himself from the unpopular Conservative party, pledging to campaign for lower taxes ahead of Thursday’s mayoral election.
“I am, overall, a tax-cutting Conservative,” the incumbent mayor said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph. “I certainly think London needs to be tax competitive.”
Hinting at disputes with chancellor George Osborne he said: “I don’t mind having a row in Whitehall, I don’t mind how much plaster comes off the ceiling, providing it’s done in a robust and sensible way and London gets the money it needs.”
In his manifesto, Johnson claims to have saved the taxpayer £445 by freezing the mayoral share of council taxes over the past three years.
He added that he would focus on “bearing down” people’s expenses and promoting “freedom, democracy, taxpayer value and building up the sense of neighbourliness and duty towards each other.”
Johnson also claimed that council tax went up by £964 for a person in Band D when Ken Livingstone was Mayor of London from 2000–2008.
“We have cut out all that kind of demented waste,” he said.