Anything Political

[DJ360 6,730]

On 8/17/2023 at 4:29 PM, Brew said:

My original statement then seems borne out. Government determines how much (as you say), but councils say where, what and when. The government only steps in when the situation is not only out of control but also illegal.

 

Jim, I've said many times on here that I am unimpressed by NCC.

 

I can't comment on NCCs finances, although I'm not sure that the Trams, for e.g., or more accurately the tram finances are the sole fault of NCC, as I understand the Trams are run by some sort of consortium?

 

From my perpective as an 'ex Pat', the only decent thing NCC run is their bus service, which is better than many, by some margin. Their judgement in other areas,, most obvious being the 1960s destruction of the area around the Castle, the Drury Hill fiasco, the disastrous Castle 'refurb', the ruination of 'Slab' Square etc.. etc.. is extremely suspect.

 

However, I still think it's a bit disingenuous to claim that councils can raise as much as they like, and spend it how they like.  This is clearly not the case, because:

 

1. As we've already agreed, the Govt. retains the right to cap Council Tax rises, and to intervene in Local Govt. financial management, but...

2. Govt can..and does.. severely limit councils financial independence via. a.) MASSIVE reductions in the Direct Grant, and b) continual increases in responsibilities 'dumped' onto councils.

 

See: http://www.haslemerefirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/New-Duties-for-Local-Government-since-2010.pdf

 

And note that not all new duties are 'funded', some funding described as 'not ring fenced'; and of course what 'funded' means , especially compared to whatever funds the 'duty' previously attracted, is anybody's guess.

 

In short, just another facet of the sustained asssault on Public Services and Local Democracy which started with Thatcher and shows no sign of abating.

 

[DJ360 6,730]

On 8/17/2023 at 4:46 PM, philmayfield said:

 

Next May the citizens of Nottingham will have the opportunity to vote their council out. I bet they won't.

 

At the next General Election, the good citizens of Notts. will have the opportunity to vote out 8 Conservative MPs, including the crook Jenrick and hateful Anderson. I bet they won't do that either...

[philmayfield 6,144]

Jenrick isn’t that popular here in Newark. I certainly won’t vote for him next time.

[benjamin1945 16,163]

Well said Col......especially regarding Anderson....so easy to see thru.........

Trouble is who do we replace em with?.......can't vote Labour...don't know what they stand for anymore......and the Independents.......just seem a bunch of 'Crooks''.......

[DJ360 6,730]

Never trust an 'Independent', unless they give very clear info on what the do and don't believe in.  It's often a way for extremists to gain access....

I too am uinhappy with Labour's vagueness and apparent move to the right, but they are still way preferable to the present mix of crooks and incompetents.

[siddha 825]

24 minutes ago, philmayfield said:

Jenrick isn’t that popular here in Newark. I certainly won’t vote for him next time.

Good for you Phil lets hope you have a decent choice of alternatives.

[philmayfield 6,144]

That's the problem. I can't see any viable alternatives.

[Brew 5,421]

It would appear I'm knocking NCC, I'm not, well not more than they deserve, there are worse (Woking), but I use them as an example of what could happen given unrestricted funds by the government.

 

Gov decides how much and as I said it's up to councils where that money goes. Blaming council cuts on the Government is really not on when they have little say in the matter. 

 

Fulham, a Labour controlled council is doing spectacularly well, even to the point they have loaned money to other councils (£500M+), and must be the envy of every council in London

 

Quote: Ruthless financial efficiency allows us to reduce the burden on residents by cutting or freezing council tax and charges for services.

 

I'm sure HMG was unaware and did not approve of a council in the south buying retail property in B'ham (Wickes and B&Q) which is likely to go pear shaped.

 

Consider Woking, with more than £2 Billion debt. How is it going to pay off without cutting services?

 

This is not a dig at politics. The top council is Labour controlled, the worst is a LibDem setup. It's a long-winded way to say blaming government cuts for councils' poor performance and bad decisions is shifting the blame from where it truly belongs.

 

 

[DJ360 6,730]

19 hours ago, Brew said:

Blaming council cuts on the Government is really not on when they have little say in the matter. 

 

I'm amazed you say that Jim.  Of course some councils are better run than others and that's not necessarily determined by the 'colour', but to claim that Central Govt. has 'little say in the matter' is just plain wrong and flies in the face of all evidence.

 

Tory Govt.s have cut Council budgets since 2010, by at least 26% by various measures and some figures show that the Direct Grant (i.e. the bit the Govt. pays to Councils over and above what they raise via Council Tax) has fallen by an average 38%.  And yet Councils now have more..not fewer, responsibilities imposed on them by Central Govt.

I'm at a loss as to how that represents Central Govt. 'having little say''.

 

Yes.. you can say that Councils can spend their money 'however they choose', but you also must know that that is a false freedom, if there isn't enough money to properly meet all duties and responsibilities? Tory ministers routinely come out with that falshood every time they are challenged over the funding of Councils'  "Ahh, we've given them 'enough'"(whatever the hell that means..).. "It's up to them how they spend it."  Blatant cynicism.

 

The evidence of the damage caused by Govt. attacks on Local Democracy and Public Services is all around you.

Potholes everywhere, Parks and Gardens run down and barely maintained, sports facilities and playing fields sold off. Swimming Pools, Public Libraries etc., closed down. Youth Clubs and other Youth/Child support services all but gone... Trading Standards and Consumer Protection dumped onto Citizen's Advice, the list goes on and on. The damage is undeniable and it is all deliberate. 

 

 

 

 

 

[DJ360 6,730]

19 hours ago, philmayfield said:

That's the problem. I can't see any viable alternatives.

 

I'm tempted to advise either 'hold your nose and vote Labour' or 'any port in a storm'.. because from my perspective the main task for the electorate is to get the current bunch of crooks and incompetents out of power for the forseeable...

 

But.. I'd qualify that to 'any port except an independent', because unless you know them and their thinking VERY well, 'independent' means nothing. You could let some nutter into power and we already have enough of those.

[philmayfield 6,144]

I would never vote for a party of the left.

[DJ360 6,730]

Your choice of course though I'd love to know your reasoning.

 

Would you regard Lib Dems, or Greens as 'of the left'?

 

Is Labour under Starmer 'of the left?'

 

Have the increasingly right wing policies of the Tories improved Britain?

 

They've certainly presided over a widening of the wealth gap.  Only today it's announced that bosses of big Corporations have had huge, pay rises. Yet apparently, pay increases fuel inflation... 

Housing Crisis, NHS crisis, immigration crisis, etc.,etc.

Not a great look for parties of 'the right'...

[Brew 5,421]

8 hours ago, DJ360 said:

Central Govt. has 'little say in the matter' is just plain wrong and flies in the face of all evidence.

 

The evidence I see is many councils do very well, others should be thoroughly ashamed.

Those who bleat about government cuts making them fail in their duties are simply trying to abrogate responsibility for their own incompetence. They will of course have very good reasons for buying a failed solar farm instead of building homes. Should they ever decide to shelve their egos and prestige projects, and do what they are supposed to do then NCC (sorry), for instance would not have a housing shortage. Not I suspect would many others

 

8 hours ago, DJ360 said:

The evidence of the damage caused by Govt. attacks on Local Democracy and Public Services is all around you.

Potholes everywhere, Parks and Gardens run down and barely maintained, sports facilities and playing fields sold off. Swimming Pools, Public Libraries etc., closed down. Youth Clubs and other Youth/Child support services all but gone... Trading Standards and Consumer Protection dumped onto Citizen's Advice, the list goes on and on. The damage is undeniable and it is all deliberate. 

 

 

Trading standards are not dumped on citizens advice, they are council employees.

 

The evidence you say is all around and true enough, evidence the Tories are deliberately crippling councils though, not so much. Nor does such a policy make sense when they rely on people giving them a mandate through the ballot box.

 

Most of those you mention are council responsibilities I grant, and yes they are indeed failing to keep up. But what I don't see in your list is buying retail premises in another part of the country, nor do I see where it's their responsibility to invest in failed Icelandic banks, or electricity supplies, or run up billions of debt, or, or , etc.

 The money they receive is calculated to be sufficient to meet statuary obligations, an arguable point, but we cannot keep going to the well. Councils will, by the end of next year, be over 5 billion pounds in debt.

Both governments have in their time restricted money to councils, should any blame be attached, it's not just the Tories.

 

Political bit:

Gordon Brown's famous 'prudence' policy was austerity by another name. It ended after he  set about a massive, £45 Billion investment in public services. It not only broke the Labour governments fiscal policy, it didn't work.

 

 

[Brew 5,421]

4 hours ago, DJ360 said:

Have the increasingly right wing policies of the Tories improved Britain?

 

They've certainly presided over a widening of the wealth gap.  Only today it's announced that bosses of big Corporations have had huge, pay rises. Yet apparently, pay increases fuel inflation... 

Housing Crisis, NHS crisis, immigration crisis, etc.,etc.

Not a great look for parties of 'the right'...

 

Despite all the left wing rhetoric average Brits are enjoying the highest standard of living - ever!

Yes there are problems, many serious but when was there a time when that was not so?

No government will ever achieve a Utopian state.  The more we have, the more we want.

 

That pay fuels inflation is indisputable.

Huge pay rises for bosses though irritating and annoying are an irrelevance in the grand scheme of things.

Total the amount up, double it if you like, it will be a mere fraction of the recent £700 million pay demands from the NHS alone.

 

Then:

Post

Docks

Binmen

Teachers

Rail

Barristers 

Bus...the list goes on...

[Brew 5,421]

Well well well, whoever would have thought it, Prigozhin seems to have fallen out of the sky.

[DJ360 6,730]

Indeed. He continues to be surrounded by mystery and speculation.

 

The film of his aircraft falling vertically in flames certainly doesn't seem to indicate any 'normal' method of crashing, such as engine failure, running out of fuel, pilot error etc..

 

I'm no expert but my money is on either a bomb onboard, or more likely, a missile/drone strike.

 

If that's the case.. it looks like whoever is responsible cared nothing for any 'innocent' passengers on board, or for the safety of any potential victims on the ground.

[Stuart.C 491]

Speculation will continue on this,

 

Was he in the plane?

Was the person in the plane a look-a-like?

Bodies have been found and taken to a morgue, was Prigozhin already in the morgue dead and awaiting a body switch?

 

Is he sat on a tropical beach counting the billions of $ he has and looking forward to the billions due to him in the future?

 

Found this on a U-tube news item,

Apparently the plane "lost" a wing.

 

[DJ360 6,730]

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

The evidence I see is many councils do very well, others should be thoroughly ashamed.

 

I'm not disputing that.

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

Those who bleat about government cuts making them fail in their duties are simply trying to abrogate responsibility for their own incompetence.

 

That is a massive generalisation and like all generalisations, does not apply in all, or even many cases.

 

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

They will of course have very good reasons for buying a failed solar farm instead of building homes. Should they ever decide to shelve their egos and prestige projects, and do what they are supposed to do then NCC (sorry), for instance would not have a housing shortage. Not I suspect would many others

 

I've already said that I can't comment on individual councils or assorted 'abberations', we can all find 'whatabouts' to try to oppose any argument, but those you quote don't alter the fact that Councils have suffered huge funding cuts.

 

With regard to housing, ALL councils have responsibilties to provide housing either from their own stock, or from stock 'transferred' to a 'private registered provider of social housing (PRPSH)'. Are you saying that some councils are wilfully failing to address the housing issue?

What effect do the Govt. actions desrcribed here have?

 

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/13/forty-councils-in-england-built-no-social-housing-for-five-years-due-to-cuts

 

What is much more difficult to 'get behind', is whether there is any requirement on Local Authorities to build, or ensure the building of, more social housing stock. That is most definitely an issue which Central Govt. should be tackling, but is signally failing to do so.

 

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

Trading standards are not dumped on citizens advice, they are council employees.

 

It's rather more opaque than that. I dealt with Trading Standards a couple of years ago and was always directed, via the Council's own website.. to 'Citizen's Advice'. There may well be some remaining Trading Standards 'enforcers' in employment but, from the Chartered Trading Standards Institute's own website: ( https://www.tradingstandards.uk/consumer-help/#Organisations   )

 

Quote

PLEASE NOTE: In many areas of the UK, Trading Standards resources are now increasingly limited as a result of funding cutbacks. So, please respect the time and expertise of the staff you contact – and do what you can to help them help you and other vulnerable members of your local community. Thank you.

 

And from NCC Website:

 

https://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/information-for-business/business-information-and-support/trading-standards/consumer-advice/information-and-guidance/

 

What this represents is part of a long term and deliberate Tory policy to cut local AND national public services, by a cynical process of:

1. De skilling. (which includes setting lower required qualifications)

2. Re-defining the 'problem'.

3.'Dumping' functions onto 'Charities'

4. Privatisation based on private companies making money from a lower Govt budget deliberately designed around a lower grade service 'offer'.   Call it sour grapes if you like but I could elaborate around that with specific reference to Careers Information and Guidance, the destruction of which I witnessed first hand.

 

The above all A.K.A. 'Smoke and Mirrors'.

 

This has been seen in Trading Standards, Housing, Career Guidance/Youth Employment-Services etc., as well as in Civil Service functions such as Probation. Probation used to be a specialism within Social Work, it's now basically an NVQ. Such de-skilling also features strongly in the NHS.

 

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

The evidence you say is all around and true enough, evidence the Tories are deliberately crippling councils though, not so much. Nor does such a policy make sense when they rely on people giving them a mandate through the ballot box.

 

As above. Smoke and mirrors.  Your 'ballot box' argument assumes that 'yer average' voter understands the structure, functions, responsibilities and funding of public services at both national and local level.  All of the evidence implies that they don't.  People bemoaning the pothole situation tend to just blame the nearest identifiable authority. I.E. 'The Council'

and you know as well as me that 'Council Bashing' is and long has been a National Sport in the UK. Tories are expert at both fostering such views, and exploiting them.

 

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

Councils will, by the end of next year, be over 5 billion pounds in debt.

Both governments have in their time restricted money to councils, should any blame be attached, it's not just the Tories.

 

Maybe the case, but the Tories have had 13 years to fix both the problems and the funding mechanisms. At best they have failed, at worst they have succeeded, in fulfilling their unspoken objectives.

And just to put £5billion in perspective..

 

 

Quote

 

Published 3 March 2022

On 21 February, in a statement to the House of Commons on Living with COVID-19, the Prime Minister stated that the NHS Test and Trace Programme: “…cost a further £15.7 billion in this financial year, and £2 billion in January alone at the height of the Omicron wave”.

 

 

On 8/22/2023 at 9:14 PM, Brew said:

Political bit:

Gordon Brown's famous 'prudence' policy was austerity by another name. It ended after he  set about a massive, £45 Billion investment in public services. It not only broke the Labour governments fiscal policy, it didn't work.

 

Or... From: https://journals.openedition.org/osb/1136#tocto1n4

 

Quote

Yet, in his enthusiasm for market forces and deregulated finance – albeit tempered by his Scottish moral sentiments – Gordon Brown does appear to have been blind to the possibilities of a major financial and economic crisis that would shake the neo-liberal global economy which had been progressively put into place since the late 1970s. (Thatcherism.. CJB) Though he did substantially increase spending on public services and raise funding to fight some forms of poverty, he also gave a free hand to finance and international capital.  When the crisis did finally come, it plunged Britain’s public finances into dire straits, from which they will take years, if not decades, to emerge. So far this has not led to a substantial re-ordering of the economy. The beneficiaries of neo-liberalism have scarcely been held to account or seen their economic freedoms curtailed. The long term costs of the Great Recession in Britain look set to fall largely on those not responsible for it, and they may well be socially devastating.

 

So Brown wasn't infallible, but at least his intentions were benign and it has to be (seemingly endlessly) repeated that Brown and New Labout DID NOT CAUSE the World Economic Crisis. Also worth noting that Brown wasn't the only World Leader to fail to predict, or prevent the crisis, and the Right, were still pushing for even less regulation up until the s*** hit the fan. Thatcher's legacy and the wider 'Neo-Liberal, Neo-Con' movement has, if anything, increased in power and influence and still dominates Tory thinking and policy making.

[DJ360 6,730]

1 hour ago, Stuart.C said:

Speculation will continue on this,

 

Was he in the plane?

Was the person in the plane a look-a-like?

Bodies have been found and taken to a morgue, was Prigozhin already in the morgue dead and awaiting a body switch?

 

Is he sat on a tropical beach counting the billions of $ he has and looking forward to the billions due to him in the future?

 

Found this on a U-tube news item,

Apparently the plane "lost" a wing.

 

FlightRadar24 is a pretty reliable source of flight info.

 

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/russian-legacy-600-crashes-near-tver/

[Brew 5,421]

4 hours ago, DJ360 said:

Are you saying that some councils are wilfully failing to address the housing issue?

What effect do the Govt. actions desrcribed here have?

 

Quite clearly some are, if they weren't there would be no shortage. As I suggest it's why HMC give them means the to meet statutory obligations and no more. Shortages will not occur unless someone makes a decision about whether to spend the money for its intended purpose or use it elsewhere.

You seem quite willing to ascribe insidious and devious intentions to Tory policies yet unwilling to see deliberate anti-Tory actions by some authorises or even individuals.

 

4 hours ago, DJ360 said:

those you quote don't alter the fact that Councils have suffered huge funding cuts.

Agreed, I've said so at least twice, but how else do you rein in profligate councils?

13yrs and the Tories have nothing to brag about I agree, but they can't do it without goodwill and compliance. We do not live in a society where central government make every decision. 

Councils continually ask for more power, more local control and have been given them in ever increasing ways by the government. The pity is some abuse the powers they're given.

Again, this is not a hip hip hooray for the Tories but more an attempt to uncover where blame for failure lies. Like Brown we can't expect them to see every eventuality, we can only see with hindsight where the pitfalls lie, nor have I ever said I blame him for the '08 crash, after all he did save the world!! 

 

Give your offspring money to buy shoes and they come back with a fashionable haircut, festival tickets, and no shoes - who do you blame, the child, yourself or the barber? and how do you stop them doing it again?

 

Councils who, some illegally, misuse their funding cannot blame it all on HMG. 

 

One (Tory), bankrupt council had an engineer as financial control. I don't know how good he was as an engineer but it's pretty obvious he was no good as a financial director. The council made huge mistakes but were the Government really to blame?

 

5 hours ago, DJ360 said:

ost a further £15.7 billion in this financial year, and £2 billion in January alone at the height of the Omicron wave”.

 

I'm quite lost how this is relevant or even accurate. For less than half that amount we bought two useless aircraft carriers and we're expected to believe we paid that for an app! A miscalculation or misreported would be my guess.

 

5 hours ago, DJ360 said:

It's rather more opaque than that. I dealt with Trading Standards a couple of years ago and was always directed, via the Council's own website.. to 'Citizen's Advice'.

 A somewhat disingenuous interpretation of the link. There was a lady on my course at NTU who worked for TS. One major problem was the constant stream of silly and unwarranted complaints. The Citizens Advice service is used as a first stop in a triage process to separate the wheat from the chaff. It clearly states in your link complaints worth pursuing are forwarded to Trading Standards.

 

 

[Brew 5,421]

Why was Prigozhin that close to Moscow? I thought he was in hiding and unlikely to respond to a call to take tea with Putin...

 

Then again if you wanted to do a Stonehouse and disappear with your ill gotten gains...

[Jill Sparrow 10,307]

After all. Adolf Hitler spent years working as a petrol pump attendant in Arkansas...or was that Elvis Presley? 

[Brew 5,421]

Not Presley, he was working as a bus conductor on the moon and I know that for a fact because I read in Billys Weekly Liar on Skeggy seafront..

 

[DJ360 6,730]

16 hours ago, Brew said:

Quite clearly some are, if they weren't there would be no shortage. As I suggest it's why HMC give them means the to meet statutory obligations and no more.

I reckon it's far more complex than that.  First off you seem convinced that whatever Councils are 'given' is enough to meet their obligations. That is far from proven. There have been numerous arguments about relative levels of funding provided not only related to the 'colour' of the local ruling party, but also in terms of the recognition of varying needs across the country.

 

16 hours ago, Brew said:

Shortages will not occur unless someone makes a decision about whether to spend the money for its intended purpose or use it elsewhere.

 

Again,even if we ignore 'rogue' councils, or single rogue actions, it is not proven that what councils receive from Govt. is 'enough'... and in the face of a minimum of 26% cuts the opposite seems more likely.

 

16 hours ago, Brew said:

You seem quite willing to ascribe insidious and devious intentions to Tory policies yet unwilling to see deliberate anti-Tory actions by some authorises or even individuals.

 

Both Central and Local Govt are subject to an electoral process and are therefore controlled by political entities. I'm not at all sure how you can keep that system and avoid conflict. It's not up to Local Govt. to always bow to the will of Central Govt., or vice versa. I don't have a simple answer to that specific point, BUT

 

Quote

You seem quite willing to ascribe insidious and devious intentions to Tory policies

 

Whether you define them as 'insidious' or 'devious' depends a lot on what you understand to be central to current Tory Party 'ideology'.  All I can say is that their policy intentions do not match their public rhetoric.

 

The Tories are without doubt a 'Neo Liberal' party, by any definition thereof and thus their whole policy thrust is against public service, govt. intervention, collectivism etc. and favours smaller Govt., lower taxation, fewer public services, deregulation, privatisation and the dismantling of the welfare state. It's undeniable. Some Tory figures are more vocal about this than others, but they are all playing the same game.

I couldn't sum it up better than this:

 

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/neoliberalism.asp

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

 

16 hours ago, Brew said:

Agreed, I've said so at least twice, but how else do you rein in profligate councils?

 

First Govt. must define 'profligate'. Then use legislation. This Govt. seems very willing to use legislation to get its way over other things. You must define reponsiblities and duties clearly and if necessary create Legal means to ensure compliance.

I'm not here to defend illegal actions by anyone.

 

16 hours ago, Brew said:

I'm quite lost how this is relevant or even accurate. For less than half that amount we bought two useless aircraft carriers and we're expected to believe we paid that for an app! A miscalculation or misreported would be my guess.

 

A Govt. estimate published by gov.uk And I think there was rather more than just an app, but still in my view a massive example of Tory profligacy when it suits them. And that figure only relates to spending for 2021-2022.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trace-programme-2021-to-2022/nhs-test-and-trace-programme-2021-to-2022

 

I have to go out.  I will return!

 

[Brew 5,421]

25 minutes ago, DJ360 said:

reckon it's far more complex than that.  First off you seem convinced that whatever Councils are 'given' is enough to meet their obligations. That is far from proven.

 I don't think I said it's proven to be sufficient, and quite frankly I doubt council members have a clue how it all works, Most of the interaction between government and councils is carried out by civil servants. HMG have a formula 'the Local Government Finance Settlement' and the 'Review of Local Authorities Relative Needs and Resources' when calculating the grants.

This is not an easy subject and a definitive answer hard to find. The more 'nuances' we count, the complex we make it, the more we lose sight of simple facts.

 

All governments can be somewhat artful with their statements. The money they say is given to councils usually includes money that's ringfenced. This should not be used for other than its intended purpose.  Ringfenced money should not go into the general ledger, as has happened, but taking all that as a total gives a false impression of how much there is to play with. Perhaps the council don't understand that bit.

Reading through the LGA reports is a bit of a minefield. There are as you know two main grants, but there are also around 250 different grants councils can claim. I can agree it's not proven, but nor is it proven to be insufficient,

1 hour ago, DJ360 said:

and in the face of a minimum of 26% cuts the opposite seems more likely

Exactly, it only 'seems' likely, not definitely and we the great unwashed can only try to see through the BS.
The political conflict you say is inevitable under our system only lends itself to finagling by the powers that be blaming each other whilst Joe Soap bears the consequences.

 

2 hours ago, DJ360 said:

All I can say is that their policy intentions do not match their public rhetoric.

True of all politics not just Tories.

 

2 hours ago, DJ360 said:

First Govt. must define 'profligate'. Then use legislation. This Govt. seems very willing to use legislation to get its way over other things. You must define reponsiblities and duties clearly and if necessary create Legal means to ensure compliance.

I'm not here to defend illegal actions by anyone.

 

 

Why would they need to define profligate? Simple Micawber reasoning will tell you that.

 

Council statutory responsibilities are clearly defined, any extended services must come after those are satisfied. 

Build your fancy art galleries and prestige projects if you like - but only after Mrs Jones has her care plan in place,,,

 

2 hours ago, DJ360 said:

Both Central and Local Govt are subject to an electoral process and are therefore controlled by political entities.

 

Which doesn't seem to gel with the fact Councillors take an oath of office to serve the best interests of the people, and impartially carry out the functions, powers, authorities and discretions blah blah blah.

Why would you need to use the Blair solution and create an ever increasing number of new laws?