The man who stopped paying council tax

“I do believe the councils will collapse this year, and probably the government”

Dear readers — with just an email address, Telegram account, a slippery grasp of the law and an unwavering belief in himself — a man in Tameside says he got seven years’ worth of council tax refunded. Sure, it was council tax he was paying on benefits payments and, okay, it was a little over a grand (“small potatoes considering what the council makes,” one local councillor says), but now, Tim Davies is showing thousands how to do the same. At a time when councils are going bust around the country and raising taxes to recover, are people like Davies and his acolytes going to foil their plans? Jack met him for today’s piece.

But before that, GMP is looking into what happened to the officer filmed dragging a homeless man across St Peter’s Square, and a second potential buyer comes forward to save Rochdale AFC from the brink.