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ONE OF the saddest political sights I ever saw was a group of Hertfordshire pensioners who travelled to 10 Downing Street to petition the Prime Minister against the closure of their care home in Potters Bar.
It wasn't the image of them on the No 10 doorstep - although heaven knows, in the rain, in their wheelchairs, that was pathetic enough. It was the picture their action painted of Britain as a state where central power has got completely out of control.
Those pensioners' fate should have been a matter for local councillors, not the guy with the nuclear launch codes. Yet the tragic fact was that they were actually in the right place.
They couldn't save their home by voting, or mobilising local support, or putting pressure on the borough which ran it. Even in a matter as small as this, the council was following Whitehall's orders. Their only hope was to beg the indulgence of their democratically elected despot in Downing Street, rather as medieval subjects might once have sought the mercy of the king.
As David Cameron this week offers a "fundamental shift" of power away from the centre, he has certainly spotted the right problem. One reason why we feel so disconnected from our government is that we are disconnected.
Many of the issues which concern us most - police, schools, planning - are essentially local. But though localities may still formally be responsible for what goes on in police stations and staffrooms, real control has shifted to the centre, in a death by 10,000 Whitehall targets.
For more than a decade now, American cities have been showing us what aggressive, proactive policing can do. Why, in all this time, have we never done that in England? Because our police aren't really controlled by the people they serve.
Crime has, admittedly, fallen here, though by less than in New York. Policing has become more effective. But interestingly, people don't seem to believe it because they didn't have any role in shaping it.
And in dozens of other policy areas, central control hasn't worked at all. Ministers just haven't time to focus on all the issues for which they've now made themselves responsible. Holding them democratically accountable is even harder.
Most importantly, almost all the public sector's capacity for initiative and enterprise has been sucked into central government. No one is allowed to try different ways from Gordon Brown's of teaching children, of running trains, or indeed of reviving crisis-ridden businesses. But why not have competing models, and see if they work better?
We're lucky in London. We have some of this already. Ken Livingstone was allowed to try a different way on transport, and it did work better. Boris got rid of a useless police chief, and may just manage to take real control of the Met. Ken's cronies were held accountable for their sleaze.
The London mayoralty, the flagship of English local power, is clearly the model for Cameron. Dave wants our other large cities to have mayors, too. There's much else to love in his detailed package: local referendums so people can force issues onto the agenda, elected police commissioners, axing the quangos that enforce Whitehall's orders.
But the London mayoralty is in some ways a false promise, a flawed model; and its central flaw is repeated in Cameron's localism proposals. That flaw is money. Boris has almost no tax-raising power. He exists almost entirely on handouts from the Treasury, which could cut him off at the knees any time it wanted. In local government as a whole, less than five per cent of what councils spend is raised through locally determined taxation.
Without an independent income, local government can have no real independence. But Cameron has no plans to change this. Indeed, he even proposes to restrict councils' new power to charge a supplementary business rate, requiring it to be put to a referendum of businesses. In London, Crossrail is part-funded by such a rate; the most important infrastructure project for a generation would probably have been vetoed had Cameron's proposal been in force.
A real shift of power has to mean a real shift in taxation: higher local taxes, balanced out by lower national taxes. It would probably also have to mean different local taxes. One reason local government has lost so much of its power is that property taxes - whether council tax or rates - are inherently less fair, and inherently even more politically sensitive, than income taxes. No government would dare give any council complete control over this financial weapon of mass destruction. Other options, such as a local income tax or a tourist tax, should be considered instead.
It has to mean a shift in the way councils are run: more frequent, more proportional elections, so no one party can monopolise power. Real change isn't just about councils, either. For many people, councils or devolved administrations are just as unresponsive, almost as remote, as Whitehall. Devolution in Scotland has not made Scots love their government more. Money and power have to spill right down to civil society, voluntary groups, tenants' associations.
Above all, local power also demands a new political culture. The public needs to accept that central government cannot be the first call to fix every problem, and that levels of service will vary from place to place. They vary now, of course - but instead of a postcode lottery run by officialdom, local voters would choose what service there should be.
All this will be difficult. It's easy to see why the Tories have decided not to jump these fences. Opposition leaders proclaiming their belief in local democracy are a bit like Miss World contestants proclaiming their deep interest in English literature. Once they win, they forget they ever said it.
But I think Cameron is sincere and the best argument for change is that the status quo simply doesn't work. So let us by all means have local referendums, elected police chiefs and the rest but let us also take the first steps towards tax independence for local government, starting with the Mayor.
Reader views (7)
This is another comment from the EU, where England is trounced into becoming 12 Regional Assemblies and the political stature of the country is changing. This has all been hidden from public view from the incessant comments of using 'Britain' in every publication by this ultra caring Government.
So bringing forth a Mayor as linchpin of local Government would complete the hidden strategy. Oh! vote for the Mayor and all the Personnel are employed by the European Union.
Will find that this is already set up, for instance Guildford is the base for SEERA South East England Regional Assembly. All local government services are in the process of being changed over now, probably the reason why 700,000 extra civil servants have been employed since 1997.
- William, Haywards Heath UK
Has Helmetless Gilligan fallen off his bike recently given the normal way he was able to speak about Ken?
The fact is Ken Livingston knew that as Mayor he would have limited revenue raising powers as he therefore developed Congestion Charging and then the Low Emission Zone as a way to raise extra revenue for transport.
Since his election Boris has already commited himself to remove the revenue from the Western Extension of the C-Charge and has recently put off the next stage of the LEZ without any other alternative new scheme. He has decided to go down the route of increasing public transport fares in a city which already has the highest fares in Europe.
The real reason for the present position is the way the Thatcher government stole the revenue raised in London via Business Rates and then distributed this to the largly unpopulated Tory shires.
Somehow I cant see Boris Johnson and David Cameron returning revenue from business rates to London. If this was done we could afford several Crossrail schemes and be able to make the whole rail network step free in about 10 years.
As for Mayors in other countries, well in the States they rais revenue via local sales taxes (e.g VAT) which in this country is controlled and received by central government.
As for Cameron's talk about local votes we have the recent decision in Manchester to reject a C-Charge with a loss of billions of transport investment to show how voting on individual issues wont deliver what is needed
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
ya ya great idea and elect boffons like johnston around the country
- Mat, london
But i think Cameron is sincere.That alone means it is best to disregard the rest of Gilligan,s guff.
- Colin, barking essex
Local Affairs for Local People. Elect the Chief Constable as well.
- Albert Hall, hove england
The problem of course is wider and deeper. The majority of what any level of government does in the UK has to be sanctioned by EU rules and directives. Those who call for more local autonomy should remember what happened during the tv debate in Switzerland over possibly applying for EU membership. The subject came up of the local autonomy they truly do enjoy through local referenda (right down to setting their own tax rates). A hapless EU official when challenged directly ruled out every recent referenda as 'impossible' and said that this sort of thing must be stopped as it was unfair, undemocratic and could not fit in with the EU model, and that local government was there to act as 'champions' for its citizens. ie like the relatively powerless situation we now have here where they can just bleat and get a para in the press. So calling for more local power sounds great but without an understanding of where the power has gone, it is nearly pointless calling for it. The so-called powers of the Mayor are in fact delegated powers from central government (and most of that is directed by EU Directive) - even the Congestion Charge was only permitted through EU laws and the EU is now mulling new orders to make London change the basis upon which it is operated. So when you hear the Mayor "calling for" changes to it in three years time, whoever that Mayor might be, rest assured these are changes that the EU is ordering. What price "local government"?
- Damian Hockney, london, UK
In all other English-speaking nations, every town and city has an elected Mayor. Why is it so hard for England to follow precedent widely and successfully established?
- Kiwi Expat, London, UK
