Tuesday, 17 February 2009

Tory Local Government Policy - anti-democratic?

Today's announcement by the Tories of their proposals for local government reform will cause a great deal of concern for those of us who care about local government. Scrapping regional bodies is controversial but hardly anti-democratic and nor can directly elected mayors be considered so either, in fact I'm rather a fan. But holding referendums if Council tax goes over a certain threshold? Surely that is what Council Elections are for, if a Lib Dem Council (for example) puts up Council tax by 10% then the public have the right to use their vote to remove them. I have always believed that referendums are dangerous and should be used as little as possible (if at all), extending them to issues such as Council Tax just makes Local Councillors even weaker and means they hold even less responsibility.

Come on Cameron if you really support Local Democracy restore Councillors responsibilities.

1 comment:

PeterParis said...

I agree with you about referendums! It may be very democratic, but if everything was to be voted by referendums, hardlu anything would ever change!