Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for 10 years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
Can anybody believe a word of what the perpetually grinning Hazel Blears has to say on communities (Terence Blacker, 11 July)? She announces "initiatives" to bring the structures of local government closer to the voters and individuals.
In Chester she has merged our city council with others in half of our county to form a mega-council. But what commonality is there between towns and cities 20 miles apart? Chester, an old Roman city with a 700-year history of local government, is merged with Ellesmere Port, a town which was the product of the industrial revolution, and with other communities miles away, where some of our people will never have set foot. This isn't shifting power away from the centre to individuals; it is taking power away from local government which we recognise and creating amorphous structures to which no one can relate.
Gordon Smith
Chester
Absolutely spot on. The Government are not proposing 'devolution' or 'empowerment' at all, they are creating convenient economic groupings which have no commonality and make no democratic sense. To paraphrase what Tony Benn says, at one time we believed in managing the economy in the interest of the people. New Labour believes in managing the people in the interest of the economy.
"amorphous structures to which no one can relate" - sound just like most local councils to me. Try asking ornery folk (ie non-politics-anoraks) what an overview and scrutiny committee is or what their council is actually responsible for.
The French do it better, under a regional structure they have big Départements to run things like collecting the bins and beneath them quite small-area town / commune councils to make decisions local people can really relate to. Many of our councils, especially where the two tier system still hangs on (as in Gloucestershire where even the thought of change brings most people out in a nasty rash), are too big to have any really local feel but too small to have any real clout...
Brian... we ask them regularly. We knock every door in the borough every April, and we have roving street surgeries throughout the year.
Sometimes they are confused about what their council is responsible for, but that is because of the Thatcher/New Labour continual centralisation and privatisation agenda.
Ornery people not knowing what Overview and Scrutiny Committees are is a complete irrelevance. Could they tell you what a Parliamentary Select Committee does? If they can't, should we scrap them and do away with a whole system of legislative scrutiny?
On your logic you could scrap the whole EU Parliament, because hardly anyone knows what it does. Now... there's an idea....
John Witherspoon said:
July 18, 2008 3:31 PM | permalink
We trained hard- but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up in teams, we would be re-organised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organising - and a woderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation. Petronius Arbitor AD65.
PS Redditch and Bromsgrove are holding hands!
July 16, 2008 11:21 AM | permalink
"amorphous structures to which no one can relate" - sound just like most local councils to me. Try asking ornery folk (ie non-politics-anoraks) what an overview and scrutiny committee is or what their council is actually responsible for.
The French do it better, under a regional structure they have big Départements to run things like collecting the bins and beneath them quite small-area town / commune councils to make decisions local people can really relate to. Many of our councils, especially where the two tier system still hangs on (as in Gloucestershire where even the thought of change brings most people out in a nasty rash), are too big to have any really local feel but too small to have any real clout...