Bin plans rubbished

Apparently the plan to tax how much we throw away and not recycle has been thrown out after a late intervention from Number 10. I wonder why, David Miliband as Environment Secretary was very keen.

Could it be that Gordon Brown heard from the 5 Citizen Juries (which have incidentally cost over £400,000 of taxpayers money so far) that the plan was unpopular? I would actually be in favour of the plan if it could be guaranteed that council tax was reduced by the same amount as the average 'rubbish tax', but I wonder if people are now suspicious that the tax would be used as another stealth tax designed to push up local council revenue.

It's interesting to note that one of GB's first plans was to set up the citizen juries, which sound to me like glorified focus groups and should probably be funded by the Labour Party itself. Is this the new direction? The new vision? Wasn't Tony Blair's first term decided by the opinions of focus groups?

How times change.

Squiffy.