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Originally Posted by Ramrod
Good for her.  
I think councils (and the govt) are far too cavalier about how they tax us (and how they spend our tax money)  |
Unfortunately local politics in the UK is in the main still far too closely connected to the national. The electorate is becoming more sophisticated, but too often local elections are settled on national issues. That means a Labour council administering a solid Labour heartland area - like a major metropolitan council for example - feels little obligation towards its hapless council taxpayers. They'll still vote Labour come polling day, even if it's a monkey wearing the rosette (and sometimes it is
). The same can of course be said for traditional Tory strongholds, such as the English shires.
There are happy exceptions to this; even socialist Liverpool eventually got fed up with its city council being run by militant idiots like Hatton and his cohort and voted Lib Dem, but in the main, I think we get the government we deserve. If we want to force councils to be cannier with our cash, we have to make them understand that we are prepared to vote them down.
And while I'm no fan of PR for Westminster (another topic entirely), I do think forcing PR along the Holyrood model would be very useful in our local councils. In the absence of some of the voters giving up their entrenched Party loyalties, it's probably the only thing that is capable of shaking up some of our more moribund one-party municipalities.