Alex McKee

Actually Britannist that was simply a joke, and I have made many many postings longer than a sentence as I am sure you can find out if you visit the other sections.

Yep I am cheeky, but I'm older in spirit and mind than most of my contemporaries. I didn't say that I was 18, someone else did.

Regards,


Alex

Britannist

Sorry Alex - never meant to cause any offence.

I'm sure you are a great person with sound political views. If you are eurosceptic or anti-EU you must be.

I fully agree my latest postings (on the subject of Middlesex) have been rather long - but I feel they have to be as it's a 'big' subject for some of those of us who live in the county.

Paul Birch

It's not tosh. It's the straight truth. Every year when the council budget leaflets come round I work out approximately how much they are spending as a fraction of the general per capita income. I have been doing this for over twenty years. I remember that the figure was about 5% when I first started paying (and that my parents' bills had been rising sharply in the years before), and that it has progressively risen as I stated. The corresponding figure this year was in the region of 12-13%. I have also frequently over that period made cross comparisons with other local councils, especially Liverpool, and seen the same trend. Year by year I also look at the percentage increases in rates/community charge/council tax; except in those years in which the funding regime was radically changed, they have been consistently large. Only in the early eighties, when inflation was very high, did the increases not exceed inflation by around that factor of three. The figures I obtain that way can be reconciled with the information on government expenditure in Almanacs like Whittakers and other sources of economic data. For example, in 1992, local authorities' final consumption was £32,529 million, amounting to 9.33% of GDP at factor cost (source, Macmillan's World Almanac for 1994).

Direct comparison is difficult, because the bases of calculation have changed many times over that period. There is no continuity in organisation, funding or provision of services. Precisely what should count as "local government" is also not well-defined. A considerable part of such expenditure now passes through an utterly confusing mass of quangos, which often change name from month to month. Much of that funding comes in direct grants from central government or the EU via the regional assemblies and does not feature on the local council's accounts at all. I am guessing (though as an active town councillor my guess is an informed one) that this amounts to an additional 2-3% of GDP.

And I haven't.

I am not interested in how you vent your spleen against the GLA, Ken Livingstone, Blair or anyone else. The question is: in what way would the break-up of Greater London INTO phpbb_five administrative areas improve things. Your reams of "argument" seem filled with malice and thoughts of revenge, plus acres of wishful thinking concerning a future Conservative government, none of which interests me in the slightest.

My interest in this thread is in the way local government should be arranged - how it would work best. My experience is that unitary authorities work better than multi-tier authorities, and that towns and cities are most conveniently managed as a whole, not artificially subdivided.

The only good counter-argument I know is that large cities tend to come under the control of "loony-left" councils, which use the more affluent or middle class areas as cash cows. Splitting up the city may save the residents of those areas from being forced to subsidise left-wing profligacy. This was why the Tories broke up city authorities in places like London and Liverpool - where Labour dominated - while introducing the more efficient unitary authorities - which the public generally prefer - in places like the IOW where Labour was weak. However, over the long run, Conservative and Lib Dem councils have proved scarcely less greedy than Labour ones; their spending goes up and up just the same. Partly this is because much of their spending is mandated nationally.

I am not asking why or whether we should get rid of the GLA. I am asking what benefit (if any) there would be to getting rid of Greater London, an administrative area that predates the GLA by almost two generations.

Complaints about the allocation of government grants are endemic. Just about every council across the South has a similar complaint. They have nothing to do with the local administrative arrangements, or even the political makeup of the councils. A broken-up London would have no greater ability to squeeze out higher grants.

Irrelevant. Local government in London is going to cost ~£10b a year however it is divided. Five authorities spending £2b each is no better than one spending £10b.

Every council has been doing the same thing. If London had been split up, the costs and staffing levels would have soared just the same, and breaking it up won't bring them down again. Quite the contrary: any organisational change is used as an excuse to hire more staff and increase expenditure in order to manage that change.

This is far too extreme a claim to be true. I don't know what proportion of people there now consider themselves primarily Londoners, or London residents, but many certainly do, especially since they need not deny the cultural and historic county identities to do so. Of those I know personally, it seems to be a majority.

I might also point out that if it were true, there would then be no need to abolition the administrative area of Greater London in order to preserve the identity of the traditional counties; those can only be at risk to the extent that London's identity is taking over and winning the loyalty of Greater London residents.

By the way, I believe you'll find that Greater London does not at present include any of Hertfordshire. A bit of Middlesex was moved the other way, INTO phpbb_Herts.

That the EU chooses to recognise one of the administrative divisions of the UK (predating our entry to the EEC) as a "region" in no way proves that it is an inappropriate one. The EU isn't always wrong!

What I said was: "The onus is on those who want to overturn an existing arrangement. London has already voted for the GLA and Mayor ... it's ... a done deal. Even if you prefer to deny Londoners a referendum and instead leave it up to an authoritarian Conservative government, you will still have to persuade the Tory elite that the proposed change is in their political interest."

You seem quite unwilling to face facts, preferring your wild fantasies about what a Conservative government would do. But it will not do those things unless the Tory elite is convinced that making those changes would be in their interest. This is highly unlikely. The upper reaches of the Conservative Party are highly pro-EU; they will not withdraw from the EU or defy its authority. Under the treaties and the acquis communitaire Westminster cannot abolish the regional assemblies, of which the GLA happens to be one; so by the time the Conservatives get back INTO phpbb_government (if they do) the most they could accomplish within the EU is to fiddle with the details; even there they are more likely to plump for enhancing the power of the regions over the lower tiers than vice versa.

The region is Greater London. The GLA is an assembly. They are not the same.

The case is quite simple: as signatory to the EU treaties we have no choice but to retain them. Probably we could replace the current GLA with an unelected assembly, but I see no benefit there.

Quite apart from the EU, the case for a great city to be under one unitary authority (not necessarily the GLA) is strong - for convenience, efficiency and accountability. Most people, especially those who have had the misfortune to live under divided administrations (such as the Liverpool taxi-drivers who have to charge over the odds for journeys INTO phpbb_the boroughs because they're not allowed to pick up return fares there), will find that rather obvious. If you nevertheless expect to persuade people that divided administration is better you will need correspondingly strong arguments on the other side. Whining about Ken Livingstone just won't cut it. Insulting the people who ask why they should support your notions, and do not find your vituperations and blatant Tory propaganda remotely convincing, won't win you the debate either.

Regional authorities are already in operation across the whole of the UK, and have been for some years. Every year they get more power and more money to spend. The only significant choice the British government has (short of pulling out of the EU, which the Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative Parties will not even consider) is in whether or not they are elective. There is not the slightest chance that the London boroughs could "move to self-government" - they will remain subordinate to their regional authority whatever they say.

Only if Britain leaves the EU (which the quisling Conservatives will never do) is there any point in the debate on the best arrangements for local government. Whether Greater London should then be retained as an administrative entity, or split up, is a question that should be decided on its objective merits, not on personalities or anti-EU reaction. I believe current UKIP policy implies that the question would have to be settled by referendum; it would not fall under our blanket opposition to the unelected assemblies and phoney regions but rather under our commitment to local referenda.

Richard

There is way too much to read on this post and frankly I havn't got the time!

I think we all agree that this is a very complex issue. There seems to be two main issues, 1. geographical boundaries and 2. council boundaries.

To me, geographical boundaries should be kept constant and historical. It's our link to the past.

Council boundaries are different and more complex. As populations move and grow the old County Council stucture doesn't work everywhere anymore. The problem with all the changes that has happened is that they are not consistant so it's all very puzzled. A complete review and simplification needs to be done, but this is no easy task.

Strike

Even minor alterations, such as changes on the Derbyshire-Cheshire border made by Heath must be reversed. The ludicrous division between 'West' and 'East' Sussex must go.

Top stuff Britainist. Most people in Sussex identify themselves as Sussex people including me.

Yours truly

Proud Sussex Boy Charles

Britannist

In reply to Strike who posted to this thread at 6.36 pm on 11.8.2005:

Welcome to the forum Charles and thanks for using your very first posting to support my call for the division of Sussex (i.e. ‘east’ and ‘west’ Sussex) to end.

I know Sussex extremely well and have visited nearly every one of the great county’s coastal and inland towns.

I’m in touch by e-mail with a former colleague who lives on the Sussex coast and follow Sussex news and county events closely.

Roger Gough

Go to the intro section Chas, let's hear about you. Welcome

arden forester

For all you Sussex Boys and Girls! :wink:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/chalcraft/sussexby.htm

Trefoil

I certainly do. I refuse to write some awful bureaucratic creation like 'West Midlands' on an address. If the place in question is small and I'm unsure which county it lies in, I'll check on a pre-'74 atlas. Petty, no doubt, but that's me.