I think the question is not whether there is a rise in Council Tax next year but how much.

The crisis in education at senior and middle management level derives from inadequate funding and inadequate control by the Labour group.

Education funding may have increased in the borough (Coun Brown, Letters, November 28) but so too have costs.

As a recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown, the Government is spending less money on public services as a proportion of national income than any government since 1945.

Partly this is due to Labour carrying on with Conservative policies, but we should ask why this has been so?

Primarily it is because there is an underlying European issue. Although UK ministers spend their lives pretending that they are making decisions, in fact they are merely doing what Brussels tells them.

That is why the UK used the £22 billion mobile phone windfall to reduce the national debt rather than giving us more policemen or better pensions or better defences.

Although Britain is not in economic and monetary union we are obliged under Article 104c(2) of the Maastricht Treaty to conduct our public spending, not to suit ourselves, but to make the UK ready to join E&MU and the single currency.

Michael Morton

Swindon Branch Chairman

UK Independence Party

Bruce Street, Swindon