Your pal the Skipper has railed before against plans at the Blue Kremlin to make the very poorest people in Cornwall pay council tax.

Well Tuesday was D-Day, and to my great surprise, councillors decided to... not decide anything in particular.

So while we enjoy this brief reprieve, it may be useful to walk those in power down memory lane. Two decades ago, proposals very similar to those currently being bandied about sparked mass violent protest and the downfall of a Prime Minister.

Back then people called it the Poll Tax and the government of the day called it a “community charge”. But its underlying premise - taxing the poor more and the rich less, is just as unfair and counter intuative now as it was back then.

Never mind the fact that collecting cash from people who have none is difficult to say the least. 

Now, it is no doubt very cheeky of the government to push the housing benefit responsibility onto local councils and then stand back and let them take the flak, but for Cornwall Council to pick up the baton and plan to victimise those least able to take the punishment is surely not the way forward.

We all know Cornwall is jammed to the rafters with second homes, so to my mind the simple, and as yet unmentioned, way to fill the funding hole is to ramp up their council tax to pay for it.

It may even help bring some life back to those areas that have long been cleared of any semblance of it outside holiday season.