This is the ground over which, apparently, both New Labour and the Conservatives are fighting. Yesterday, David Miliband – dubbed ‘Brains’ by Alastair Campbell when he was Blair’s head of policy at Number 10, and allegedly a contender for the top spot himself – announced in a speech to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations that politicians had to confront the ‘sense of powerlessness’ in the electorate. The answer, according to Miliband, was ‘double devolution’: the handing of power not only to town halls, but also to individuals and community groups. This would bring about ‘a different form of accountability: direct to the citizen, rather than via the state’.
This is nothing new. The Conservatives vigorously took up Edmund Burke’s notion of the ‘little platoons’ more twenty years ago, and in the nineties attempts were made to reinvigorate policy through such schemes as grant-maintained schools, albeit with limited effect. Last year a group of Tories published a booklet called Direct Democracy which set out an agenda for the rolling back of the state and the empowering of local groups through the devolution of power in such areas as crime and policing, education and healthcare. This was itself building upon a series of thoughts that were initiated by the thinktank Policy Exchange in a booklet entitled Big Bang Localism.
To this can be added the fact that in France, Germany and the Scandinavian countries government powers are far more localised than they are here. In France, for example, there is an elected representative for every 116 electors. Britain's ratio is 1: 2,605. In Switzerland direct democracy is considered the logical extension of representative democracy and a step closer to the ideal of a political process in which the people directly rule themselves. Through a variety of mechanisms the people are given the right to participate in the decision-making process, passing laws, vetoing laws and withdrawing support from their representative at any time.
Back in Britain, David Cameron has taken up the standard for the Conservatives, especially with regard to the voluntary sector and community groups. Whether or not he will put his money where his mouth is yet to be seen. As for Miliband, he has, to be fair to him, been discussing the idea of reinvigorating local democracy for some time. But as a government New Labour has far more do to show that it isn’t just stringing together lists of abstract nouns like stakeholder, convener, forum, partnerships and so on. For now, a few examples – law enforcement, taxation and education – reveal the egregious hypocrisy of talking about giving away power while actually taking more.
Policing. Charles Clarke’s proposals for the regionalisation of police forces is in diametrical opposition to the localist approach which seeks to have locally-elected county sheriffs and a reduction of centralised and politicised controls such as quotas. But then the whole legal apparatus in this country betrays a centralist agenda. Take the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which seeks to reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws. There was a good call to arms about this in The Times yesterday. Add to this the regulatory burdens on the voluntary sector, as well as the Red Tape Economy and the growth of the new Labour quangocracy, and the picture starts to look grim.
Taxation. The government has leaked that it will reject the current Lyons inquiry on local finance if, like Turner on pensions, it fails to do what the Treasury wants. This is, as Simon Jenkins points out in the Guardian today, super-centralism. Yet council taxes must be set for next year. Whenever they are set, pensioners protest and vicars go to jail. Ministers duly behave as if council tax was their responsibility, and issue dire threats against rogue councils. This year Miliband's department has already threatened to cap 20 councils and sent out 11 letters demanding cuts. This is a violation not only of the spirit of his speech but also of Labour's 1997 manifesto commitment to end rate-capping and localise business rates.
Education. This perhaps offers the supreme case of policy making a mockery of rhetoric, as Matthew d’Ancona shows in the Daily Telegraph today. The original purpose of the White Paper was to create all schools in the image of trust schools – local institutions free from the power either of central government or the town councils. Parents, businesses, charities and community groups would take control. The Conservatives supported the plans because they implied less central government micromanagement. They weren’t going to change the world, but Blair’s designs would’ve been a move in the right direction. Even those timorous steps have been blocked by the municipal socialists on the labour backbenches.
Until Miliband can do something about the centrifugal vortex that draws all powers into government, his best rhetoric will be nothing more than hot air.
Comments (1)
This is just typical of the current Government's propensity to try and control the population by legislating for the tiniest detail, while spouting fine words to communities and libertarians that indicate something totally contrary to policy. It seems to be their modus operandi that wherever there is something to legislate against, they do it by insisting that it is for the benefit of us all and that anyone who opposes them isn't taking things seriously (e.g. national security, freedom of speech, diversity and equality).
Where have all the "small government" plans gone? It's clear that, despite Miliband's intention to get us debating how much the state should interfere, all he wants to do is generate a new round of nanny-state intervention, insisting that devolution be done, yet centralising more and more power.
If the last 27 years have taught us anything, it is that Governments who retain power for along periods legislate too much and run out of new and innovative policies, instead trying to control us through legislation rather than social convention.
Gone are the days when a Government had to carefully select its legislative program because it could not be guaranteed a second term in office. Whatever the flaws of genuine multi-party politics, the one thing they do provide is accountability and the ability for voters to quickly turf out a Government that overstays its welcome and interferes too much.
What's sad now is that it could be 2010 before we can evict New Labour, and that the alternatives are neither liberal nor conservative, but centrist and Daily Mail-friendly.
Vive la revolution? Perhaps not, but a viable, clearly differentiated alternative would present the voter with actual options, not just the "best of a bad bunch".
Posted by Dave Harris | February 22, 2006 5:13 PM
Posted on February 22, 2006 17:13