Tomorrow, most people in Britain will go to the polls to elect their local representatives. Local elections in Britain are a strange thing. There are various different types of government, unitary councils, regional assemblies, and parish and county councils. These disparities have nothing to do with local traditions, they are all quirks of a modern system drawn up by national administrators.
County borders were redrawn in the 1970s, and to give you an idea of how difficult is to understand the new system, I was born in the 1980s and I don't get it. My address puts me in Cheshire but most government services are provided via Manchester. Even though elected officials in Manchester have power over my area, I can only vote in Stockport. Even stranger, though, the point of a unitary council is to have only one level of government, some people under the same council as me can also vote for the Cheshire county council, which is a higher level of government. As if the system were not convoluted enough, instead of electing one local representative, we have three — each serving a four year term (creating a year off).
It is probably a good thing that none of these people have any real power. Most of their spending is mandated by central government and they can only raise one quarter of their own budget. If a council is inefficient, they get more money from the centre. Thus our supposedly local representatives answer to the civil service rather than the voters.
Recently, the mayor of London was suspended by unelected officials for politically incorrect speech. Due to the overall complexity of the system and lack of real power, local elections have become a horrendously expensive opinion poll. Most people don't bother to participate, which politicians naturally blame on lazy voters. Around the time of these elections we are subjected to a barrage of advertising telling us that "politics affects everything" and chastising us for not doing enough. The main parties have even considered making it illegal to not vote.
Article comments
1 - Richard
Lambeth voters should take a look at www.electionmemory.com before voting. You can read and comment on lambeth manifestos and find out about who is standing.
2 - B N Chandler
Dear Mr Adams,
Whist I found most of the Article " Local Elections in Britain: Why Reasonable People Will Vote for Fascists
May 03, 2006"
Well argued, I have to take exception to the first sentence in it - it is untrue to suggest that "Tomorrow most people in Britain will go to the polls to elect their local representatives."
Even at best, less than 50% of those entitled to will be going to the polls. Just now, with the climate of disillusionment over the corruption, ineptitude and dishonesty of politicians as a class - at local and at national levels, I will be surprised if as many as a third bother to indicate a choice among the meagre selection of candidates.
Let's face it, at the last General Election, the Bliar Party received the support of 22% of the electorate, the conservatives 20%, and the LibDems about 11%. The seats in the House of Clowns in no way reflect these percentages. It was the great None of the Above Party that won, and by rights, about half the seats should remain empty to remind the Polits of this!
Bliar acts and thinks as though he won and has majority support, but this just shows how out of touch with reality this dream dancer is.
As you pointed out, local councils have hardly any say anyway, so why should anyone bother?
It is high time we replaced the sham politocracy of elections, parties, and paid so-called "representatives" who in fact only represent the Parties and themselves, with a proper democracy. It would be easy these days to have open debates for everyone on the internet in fora where at the end of a discussion period we all vote and the issue is directly decided, whereupon the Officials are required to do what the People have decided should be done.
B N Chandler
3 - Mark Richard Adams
B N Chandler,
Yes you are right, most people won't bother to vote. I should have said that most people will have an opportunity to vote (i.e. about a quarter will not).
I think that more issues should be decided by referendum and definitely the major issues of the day. However, I fear that scrapping representative democracy altogether would eliminate important checks and balances.
Localising decision making might be a better way of bringing decisions closer to the people without the danger of creating a branch of unaccountable officials.