As voters head to the polls in our local elections, there is one issue that quietly underpins everything else on the ballot paper: tax.

Taxation is the price we pay for security, the armed forces and the rule of law. It funds our schools, our infrastructure and our policing, alongside the National Health Service and a wide-ranging welfare system.

Those services matter. But every pound spent by government is a pound first earned by someone else. That should impose discipline. Too often, it does not.

We have seen repeated examples of waste that would be unacceptable in any business or household. £250 million was lost in the botched nationalisation of South Western Railway. One cannot help but think what that could have achieved if invested in the local economy or infrastructure — including funding a rail-link bus service for Bordon for the next thousand years.

The problem is not just how money is spent, but how it is raised. Poorly designed taxes create uncertainty, discourage investment and, in the end, raise less than promised.

Family farmers and business owners will remember proposals to tax agricultural and business property that undermined the rural economy. It took sustained pressure to force a rethink. The same was true of sharp increases in business rates, which hit local pubs and high streets hard before ministers were pushed to act.

Now we hear talk of a so-called mansion tax. It is a classic example of a policy that sounds simple but quickly unravels. It is expensive to administer, distorts the housing market and reduces asset values, all before delivering any meaningful return to the Treasury.

All of this may feel like national policy, but its consequences are felt locally.

Council tax is the most visible tax most people pay. At a time when household budgets are already under strain, the instinct to simply ask residents to pay more is the wrong one.

There is a clear choice. Conservative councils have, on average, kept increases lower, with some freezing or even reducing bills by focusing on efficiency, cutting waste and living within their means. Others have raised taxes while failing to deliver better services in return.

As Labour redirects central funds away from Surrey and Hampshire, that difference in approach has never mattered more.

This local election is not just about bins, planning or potholes, important though they are. It is about the kind of state we want, even at a local level: one that takes more and spends more, or one that respects taxpayers and focuses on value for money.

Tax will never be popular, nor should it be. A healthy scepticism is the best safeguard against an overmighty state. But when it is kept under control, spent wisely and limited to what is truly necessary, it can fund essential services without placing unnecessary burdens on those who pay for them.

That balance is on the ballot paper.