Tory Localism is Fundamentally Flawed says Jamie Shaw, Wyre Forest Labour
Posted by labourblogger on February 17, 2011
I’ve read the Conservative-led government’s briefing paper on its Localism Bill, through which, it claims, it will de-centralise political power away from Westminster. I can’t say I disagree with all its sentiments. For example, it promotes a Power of General Competence for local authorities. I seconded a motion on this very issue at the Association of District Councils’ annual conference as long ago as 1992. However, the disagreements I have are fundamental. I summarise a couple of them below and will make further comments in my next couple of blogs. In the interests of brevity each comment will include only one example as evidence.
Philosophy
As manifested in its educational policies promoting Free Schools and Academies, the Conservative vision of how society works most effectively is so bad as to be morally objectionable. It maintains that an arrangement of autonomous units, such as its favoured schools, loyal to nothing higher than their own self-interest, competing against each other and co-operating only when it is to their immediate advantage to do so, is the best means of achieving higher standards. This is extreme right-wing dogma, not practised in the educational provision of any other liberal democracy in the entire world. In my view, it is fundamental flaw number one.
The Lesson of History
The Localism Bill promotes the seemingly unexceptional idea of different organisational solutions for different geographical areas. Of course, it is already the case that structures are different in different areas, for example, two-tier Worcestershire and unitary Birmingham. However, this “Localism” proposes to go much further in denying the need for any common coherent structure for the reliable delivery of public services. Councils could have a bewildering mix of joint, opted-out, privatised, balkanised or community group-based services. The model the Conservatives are rejecting is that which began to be established in Britain in the 1830s and has been built upon since, in all other liberal democracies as well as Britain, based on a partnership between central and local government and responsible to an electorate. This is fundamental flaw number two, an impossible-to-manage chaos of disorganisation, based on a rejection of the structures of government of the last one-hundred-and-eighty years.
Jamie Shaw, Wyre Forest Labour
