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More than 30 Labour council leaders are urging Theresa May to replace council tax with the old rates system.

They want the government to give local authorities back the power to decide how much to charge householders.

Tory cuts to their budgets and council tax caps mean half of all councils have made cuts.

Eleven, nine under Tory control, are struggling.

Greater Manchester’s Salford mayor Paul Dennett said: “The new system has never worked as well as the old.

“We have one of the most centralised systems for local government funding in the western world.”

Tories replaced the rates with the hated poll tax in 1990 – a move that helped bring down then-PM Margaret Thatcher.