(o)(o) wrote:Many Tory voters will turn, when they realise they themselves have been shafted.
As was said elsewhere; people voted for Conservatives not in the belief that they won't fuck things up, but in the belief it'll take them longer than it would for Labour to have fucked things up.
I agreed with that just a couple of days ago, not so sure that I do now.
“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” - Winston Churchill
I'm sure even the Lib Dem supporters didn't actually entirely believe him at the time either, but it seems that when Nick Clegg was pleading that the Lib Dems were holding back the worst excesses of the Nasty Party, he apparently wasn't lying, judging by what's being unleashed now that the floodgates ain't in place anymore.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
Oh and todays little gem. Since Prince Charles got called out for interfering via his letters to government coming out in the papers courtesy of an FOI request (legally challenged by Clarence house to the bitter end but fortunately to no avail) the Freedom of Information Act needs to go. Or to be less dramatic, include a more substantial government veto to replace the existing one that judges deactivated. An 'I don't want to answer that' clause that will work this time without Judges tiresome interference.
France just overwhelmingly voted for their 'Projet de loi relatif ' (Patriot Act copy) too. I wonder, do they have a club where all the leaders of former Western democracies get together and boast who's got the best police state? A pot running for the first one who pulls it off perhaps?
FFS. I need to write to my MP. Oh wait. She's Tory. Scratch that.
Well that was much ado about nothing. I had my popcorn out ready for grim revelations of blatant royal siding with the Tories or something like that, but all we got was polite points about badly supported troops (which they were saying at the time themselves, all legal/moral problems of the war itself notwithstanding) and picking a side over the badger cull. A conspiracy nut could, of course, point out that he was clearly conscious of the FOI Act and theorise that he set it all up as a decoy whilst plotting darker things under greater secrecy - a theory which does illustrate the flaws of enforced transparency (did you get that, Theresa May?) - but.. yeah, conspiracy nuts.
Doesn't he have as much right as everyone else to lobby them? Though there is always the effect that he has more chance of them actually paying attention and responding, but that goes for anyone famous (Brand for example)
Devolution yay ! Looks like the government will have another go at introducing city mayors. Hopefully they will succeed.
Previous governments have tried but have made the mistake of asking local people, which works about as well as asking them for input on local planning decisions. The benefits are unclear while those who have most to lose find it easy to organise in opposition. In the case of city mayors local councillors often oppose such moves, fearing a loss of power or money, and can organise their local parties for a no campaign. Better to bypass them altogether.
The benefits are significant. First there’s the direct benefit of devolving power, in allowing local solutions to local problems. Mayors can complement councils, focus on different areas which don’t fit into councils geographical areas or time scales, attract new resources and investment. They need not and should not work identically: some will be more successful than others but they can then serve as a model for other both new and existing mayors in how to best use their powers.
Greater devolution within England may be needed to resolve the problems of Scottish devolution, the West Lothian question, by helping build institutions that could form some form of English parliament or parliaments to balance the Scottish one.
And more local leaders with greater power will also help address another problem with our political system, that of the shortage of talented people to lead at a national level. E.g. one of Ed Miliband’s biggest problems is he’s never had a real job in his life, apart from a couple of years as a university lecturer and a political writer for TV he’s been a political operator within the Labour party. No wonder he comes across as geeky and remote. But local politics here is seen as a dead end – it would have been political suicide for him to e.g. become a councillor and learn to deal with real people.
Other countries do this much more. In the US most recent presidents were previously local (state) governors, and it’s still the most reliable route into the office. The current Prime Minister of Italy was until recently mayor of Florence.
The one exception here is London, where the current mayor is many people’s first choice for the next Conservative leader. But we could do with more people and positions like this. In fact the Labour party would probably be in a much better position if David Miliband hadn’t had to go off to the USA to find a job worthy of his talents but had been able to take a position within the UK as a mayor for four or five years.
So, Manchester votes against having an elected Mayor.
And three years later Gideon Osborne turns up, spouts a lot of nonsense about the "northern powerhouse" and says, "Greater Manchester will now elect a mayor with responsibility for transport, housing and economic regeneration". Only the region will get LESS money allocated from central Government funds and have to pay for the price of the election out of its own funds.
As I wrote asking people whether they want a mayor is often a bad idea. The benefits are unclear; the mayor himself or herself can hardly lobby for the post as they have not been elected; existing councils often strongly oppose it, and because they are the political majority can draw on their political machines and supporters to mount a campaign against it.
It’s like planning. Planning is decided by locals, whether local councils, local planning boards or local activists organising against it. The result? The worst housing crisis in Europe. And you want to leave devolution to the same people? No thanks.
I would have thought Labour would have been most for it. Labour do far better in cities and will probably supply more mayors than the Tories, along with independents. The London Mayor was Labour for a while, and probably still would be if the most popular Tory in the country hadn’t decided to run. It could help deal with their deficit of talent problem, where they end up choosing MPs and even leaders with little experience outside the Labour party.
Deckard wrote:Our Bristol mayor has been and is shit tbh, pretty much wound everyone up on transport and parking issues. Its a shame we cant vote the office out.
I haven't noticed it, at all.
Yeah for voting out politicians, but they will not ever allow that, or they'd all be gone in an instant.
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
Deckard wrote:Our Bristol mayor has been and is shit tbh, pretty much wound everyone up on transport and parking issues. Its a shame we cant vote the office out.
I haven't noticed it, at all.
Yeah for voting out politicians, but they will not ever allow that, or they'd all be gone in an instant.
IIRC they have it in California with a significant threshold (can't remember the level) before there's a re-election to avoid constant
rerunning
pogo Tue May 12, 2015 7:20 pm wrote:I am a strong believer in subsidiarity, which just means doing things at the lowest political level that makes sense. We are pretty poor at doing this in the UK, with successive governments concerned most with taking on more powers and centralising, not devolving powers and allowing local authorities, education authorities, heath authorities more autonomy.
The argument for greater subsidiarity is it produces more local experiments, trying out different laws and practices, different strategies to solve problems. Migration is not a problem as when it is clear what works best other localities tend to adopt it, spreading best practices and good ideas. And allow enough autonomy in enough areas and no one locality comes out ahead in all of them.
and then 2 days later
pogo Thu May 14, 2015 4:03 pm wrote:
It’s like planning. Planning is decided by locals, whether local councils, local planning boards or local activists organising against it. The result? The worst housing crisis in Europe. And you want to leave devolution to the same people? No thanks.
"England is funny, but sometimes she scares me"
Tony Wakeford
