And the conservative group is running the council in the sense that labour has scrambled, obviously over the last few days, to reduce its  tax level to something closer to the tories  and I'm going to stand with my fellow liberal democrats tonight and vote for a higher figure  because, not only because I think that there's sort of things we want to do in our budget, are b are b are better and and would be better done than not done, but because I think there's a fundamental political ethical issue here  and it's one which has been confronting this country for a great many years and which is going to be crucial in the next election.