Green Party Sells out to Blair's Mayor

2.59.49pm GMT Tue 8th Feb 2005

Ken Livingstone and the Green Party have struck a deal over the Council Tax precept rise of at least 5.5%. Graham Tope, the Leader of the London Assembly Liberal Democrat group, said: "The Green Party had the opportunity to tell the Mayor that yet another inflation busting rise in Council Tax was one step too far. Instead, the Green Party has sold themselves and Londoners short by becoming the Mayor's political poodles in City Hall.

"The very few new environmental proposals added into the Mayor's budget could have been done at far less cost to the taxpayers by, for example, scrapping Ken Livingstone's propaganda sheet the 'Londoner'.

"The Mayor has now pushed every type of tax to the limit that he has the power to increase, yet the capital not seeing many of the promised improvements. The Green Party U-turn has made them the ludicrous laughing stock of London."