So your suggestion is a support for the Tory policy of more local accountability and devolution of powers down the tree to the voter..excellent

Yes, VJ, it is. Except it is no more Tory policy than Labour policy. Both have clear policy commitments to bullshit ideas such as "doorstep devolution"... but both have spent decades centralising power.

I don't add any weight at all to vacuous promises, whether they come from David Cameron or Hazel Blears. Just ask yourself who centralised the services Meadowcroft outlines above. Every post war government has shifted the balance away from local towards central control.

The problem with most Tories appears to be they think that either Thatcher was some god-like figure who could do no wrong, or alternatively that history only began in 1997.

Oh great, because local authorities have SUCH a good record when it comes to efficiency and value-for-money when it comes to delivering services.

Honestly, Bob, reality check needed - local authorities are kept away from these things because they are self-centred, incompetent and lack expertise in just about everything.

And most labour supporters on the left of the party think Maggie hides a tail under her skirt and that the world ended in 1979. It is true that every government has in some way or another centralized control, though i would say the Tories of the Thatcher era did most to reverse or at least halt this trend. Unfortunately it is true that the Blair Brown era has been one of serious centralization. Blair as he never truly trusted the parliamentary labour party, and Brown so he could make sure nothing got in the way of his ascension, unchallenged.
Labour had a commitment to centralization until they ditched clause 4. All thats really changed is its not written anywhere. The most interesting aspect of this debate is the way it is divorced form Europe. How anyone can on the one hand be in favor of devolving power down to the electorate and at the same time be a supporter of Europe is beyond me. They are exact opposites

Well, LFaT, nice sloganising, but what do you offer behind the rhetoric? Are you David Cameron in disguise? You put down your evidence of self-centred incompetence during an era of central government dominance of local authorities... and I'll give you the evidence of tremendously well run municipal corporations which created our great cities during an era when central government empowered rather than intefered.

Let me recommend Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England and Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities as your starting point.

vj, I like your sense of humour. Thatcher was a decentraliser! And the Tories are the anti-Europe Party. It's the way you tell 'em!

Thatcher abolished a complete tier of local government, removing regional strategic authorities at the stroke of a pen... just because she didn't like Ken Livingstone. (By the way, wasn't it Labour that gave the people of London a say about whether Livingstone should stay or go?) She took control of the Business Rate away from Councils and gave it to cental government. She introduced rate capping, so that Central Government could determine the levels of local taxation.

Oh... and she gave us the Single European Act, which led on to Major signing the Maastricht Treaty. The two most powerful steps to a Eurofederalist state.

So, answer your own conundrum. How can Thatcher have been the great decentraliser, if she signed up to the Single European Act, which in the words of that Eurofederalist Jacques Delors: "means, in a few words, the commitment of implementing simultaneously the great market without frontiers, more economic and social cohesion, an European research and technology policy, the strengthening of the European Monetary System, the beginning of an European social area and significant actions in environment"

I repeat, without a knowledge of history, you cannot understand the present.

We voted for the Labour Party in the European elections

Bob, there is no present because the world has moved on

VJ you are just commenting. What and who are you in support of because hearing people critisize without actually saying what their politics are is boring

Letters... The day of the conservative were much more agreeable to me when the free trade movement was at its height. What will conservative policy be when they are in power?! There is little guess really. This party of the european far right is just that. Immigration, the standing army, the monarchy and everything to do with the existance of the UK state will be upheld. Not the party of democracy, just minority private property