Sound and fury

29 May 09
JUDY HIRST | Amid all the sturm und drang over cleaning up politics, and ahead of the June 4 local and European elections, politicians are competing to demonstrate their power-to-the-people credentials.

Amid all the sturm und drang over cleaning up politics, and ahead of the June 4 local and European elections, politicians are competing to demonstrate their power-to-the-people credentials.

This week, Opposition leader David Cameron promised a ‘massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power’ away from disgraced political elites, towards local communities and ‘the man and woman in the street’. Fixed-term Parliaments and proposals for fewer MPs are also under consideration.

Meanwhile Health Secretary Alan Johnson has called for a referendum on proportional representation, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg says there should be a right to sack MPs, and Justice Secretary Jack Straw is busy convening all-party talks on wide-ranging constitutional reforms. It’s all stirring, populist stuff – but unlikely to set the world to rights in the foreseeable future.

Of more immediate interest, particularly for cash-strapped councils grappling with soaring demand for services, are the new local freedoms being proposed by the Conservatives.

A range of ideas are on offer, including a ‘general power of competence’, allowing local councils ‘to do whatever they like as long as it’s legal’; ‘citizens’ initiatives’ backed by local referendums; and freedom from central government targets and controls so long as spending over £25,000 is published online.

It all sounds like new localist heaven – until you examine the small print. Critically, there are no plans to alter the balance of funding between central and local government, nor to rescind earlier pledges to freeze council tax levels for two years.

Some of the recommendations – as on education – would undermine rather than enhance the power of local authorities. And (see page 7) most of the new freedoms are already available to councils under the wellbeing powers.

In fact, many of the proposals have a back-of-an-envelope, opportunistic feel to them. Other parties can fairly claim to have more radical ideas on funding, and a better track record on devolving power. But Cameron is clearly in tune with the anti-politics, anti-bureaucratic, decentralising zeitgeist. And, as politics gets down to street level, alternative voices will struggle to be heard.

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