There is no Alternative - Yes there is!

I have stated in this blog before that the biggest potential employer in the UK is local government. If you truly wish an alternative to the current mess that is British economic and political policy then one of the ways forward is the regeneration of a robust system of local government. No political system can claim to be democratic in the absence of meaningful local government. In his ‘Representative Government’ John Stuart Mill argues that

‘The very object of having a local representation, is in order that those who have any interest in common which they do not share with the general body of their countrymen may manage that joint interest by themselves.’

 A genuine democracy requires a system of limited central government with defined independent centres of power. In the UK prior to Margaret Thatcher, there were two principal independent centres of power, local government and the trades unions. It is not a coincidence that it was these two institutions that Thatcher went to war with first. A genuine democracy requires legitimacy and representation and as wide a dispersal of power as is necessary. The principle of local government is designed to satisfy such requirements as is neatly summed up by Mill. If such local responsibility were to be replaced by centralised administration from London, it is argued that such local individuality of approach would be sacrificed to uniformity, and that the adaptability of local decision-making would give way to rigidity and the centralised imposition of a bureaucratic ‘only one way’ of doing things. As local government enjoys a degree of autonomy from the centre, the power of the state is therefore fragmented and limited. As the political writer John Kingdom notes, the elimination of local government is generally taken as a symptom of totalitarianism. If you add to the continuing elimination of local government in this country, we also suffer from the totalitarian thrust of the 'there is no alternative' argument.

Kingdom notes that local government is found in virtually all developed states as a complement to central government and is generally seen as a sign of a healthy democracy. The diversity of life in a modern state such as Britain requires different approaches to similar problems. For example, consider policing or refuse collection. It is not rocket science to understand that the solutions to both such fundamental requirements of modern life require differing methods of implementation in different locations. Policing and refuse collection in the City of Glasgow will be markedly different in style and implementation from that in Ross and Cromarty. The principles remain the same, but the methodology will differ quite considerably. As a result, direct responsibility for the government of a locality can harness powerful forces on behalf of that community and imaginative and meaningful solutions to local issues.

In carrying out its fundamental functions, local government acts as a powerful and democratic employer in its reaction to the needs of its particular community. As an elected body it is also accountable to that community, in direct contrast to the private firms and agencies that supply such services in modern Britain. We desperately need the reform of our political and economic systems. Here is a way to start, but it will not happen under the present system. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat