Sir Keir Starmer kicked off Labour’s local election campaign with a speech in Swindon where he said Labour would have frozen council tax at last year’s level.

And a row about what he said has kicked off the election campaign here in Swindon.

After Sir Keir’s speech the deputy leader of Swindon Borough Council, Conservative councillor Gary Sumner, with the backing of leader David Renard accused him of being “misleading”, pointing out that Labour councillors had supported the administration’s budget, with a 4.99 per cent hike in council tax.

And he said if Labour took the council in May it would have to pass an emergency budget to undo the rise.

That sparked off Swindon Labour leader Jim Robbins who said: “We were pleased to see the Conservatives were taking such a keen interest in Keir Starmer's visit to the town to launch the Labour campaign but it appears the Conservative group have sadly misunderstood, probably on purpose, what Keir was announcing in Swindon.

“He was simply setting out what a Labour government would do, were they in office. We know how bad life currently is for lots of people as they live through the Conservative's cost-of-living crisis and deal with the aftermath of Liz Truss' disastrous budget which led to the huge rise in mortgage rates, and we are keen not to add to the burden on household budgets.

It has been Conservative policy for the last 13 years nationally under their failed austerity programme to slash away at the funding given to local authorities and force them to make up the difference to fund vital local services by constantly forcing up council tax.

“In Swindon, that has meant council tax has risen by 183 per cent since the Tories took control in 2003, as well as some residents carrying the cost of the introduction of parish councils which have their own precept.

“This year in Swindon, the council was faced with making cuts of £25.9m and Labour councillors reluctantly voted through a council tax rise as services would have had to be slashed otherwise.

“In the past twenty years of Conservative control the average council tax bill has gone from £877.14 to £1612.80 with less to show for it.

“When Swindon Labour councillors are running the town, we will relentlessly focus on eliminating wasteful spending from the budget, and manage the departments such as Cllr Sumner's Highway's department in a way that simply doesn't tolerate the overruns and delay costs that he has become famous for.

“We can only assume that Coun Sumner's article was posted online on April 1 as an April's Fool joke."

Coun Sumner responded: “Labour Councillors voted ‘for’ the council tax increase -there is no such thing as a ‘reluctant vote’ - it is yes or no.

“Labour are not in power nationally, so the ‘offer’ to subsidise residents' Council Tax at the cost of another tax on another sector for one year is meaningless.

He added: " Mead Way has been fully open to traffic since November 2021. Legal completion took place In December 2022. Yet still the birthday cakes.

“The Southern Connector Road will complete this summer. Like other projects to which Cllr Robbins refers, they were affected by the pandemic No additional funding was needed as the full cost of the essential new road is covered by grant funding.

“The Conservative Group have successfully brought hundreds of millions of pounds of investment to Swindon in roads and infrastructure which in turn has led to thousands of new jobs and a £1.2 billion pound lift to our economy. The infrastructure was also to support new housing growth and future-proof our road network.

“Swindon residents cannot afford the cost of a Labour administration led by Coun Robbins.”

This correspondence is now closed.