Simon Jenkins makes a powerful case for local democracy (Our towns and cities will never flourish if ‘local’ is a dirty word, Journal, 2 August) but it is no use expecting any central government, Conservative or Labour, willingly to hand key financial powers back to local government. No one with four aces asks for a new hand.
The high point of local government was 1948 when the big cities such as my own, Leeds, were responsible for gas, electricity, local transport, water, local hospitals, most social security, further education, some higher education, all schools, ambulances, police and the fire service. Over the following 70 years these have all been salami-sliced by every government. None are now locally administered. They have got away with it because local politicians have been unwilling to oppose national governments of their own party. Unless there is a cross-party “trade union” of all local authorities, central government will continue to divide and rule.
The huge puzzle of the austerity years, whose effects are vividly set out by Jenkins, is why local authorities still continue to do the government’s dirty work when the deeply damaging cuts in vital services are the responsibility of central government.
If all the major cities together refused to implement further economies and invited the government to send in commissioners to make the cuts, the whole system would collapse and we would have an opportunity to make the unanswerable case for local democracy.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
• How right Simon Jenkins is. I was a Cambridgeshire councillor in the 1980s when Thatcher started the attack on local government.
The problem in the UK is that parliament passes legislation and the government tries to implement policies that have not been properly costed and for which funding (and hence tax) has not been identified, resulting in local government having responsibilities greater than its fiscal powers.
It is evident that the country would prefer a national education service with some local input, say one day a week, so that schools could reflect their local culture and develop learning in local areas of expertise (aeronautics in Derby, diesel engineering in Peterborough). Central government would fund four days and local government one day – a clear split of responsibility and funding.
And if adult social care were incorporated into the NHS and nationally funded this would reduce the level of funding to be raised locally to a manageable amounts.
Brian Keegan
Peterborough
• Simon Jenkins is absolutely right. We are put to shame by the towns and cities on the continent. It is always assumed here that we would rather have low council taxes rather than good services. Our centralised political system does not allow localism to flourish as it does in Germany, for instance. The federal system there ensures that each area has the opportunity to flourish. Without proper devolution to the regions of the UK, this will never happen here.
Ken Hughes
Hale Barns, Cheshire
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