Hat-tip to Peter Black for inspiring the title
Here below is some fascinating reading. First, a letter which David Cameron sent to the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council (bearing in mind the PM’s constituency of Witney is in Oxfordshire) and then the reply he got.
Via, it seems, a somewhat incautious researcher or adviser, Mr Cameron reveals an extraordinary ignorance of local government finance, coupled with remarkable arrogance.
Hudspeth's Letter to Cameron
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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16 Comments
This all makes me think of this post from a while back by Nick Tyrone: http://nicktyrone.com/im-worried-the-entire-genuine-political-dialogue-of-the-nation-is-going-to-take-place-within-the-conservative-party-for-the-foreseeable-future/
The exchange of letters just confirms what I have always known. Central Government knows precious little about how Local Government works. In fact most national politicians show nothing but contempt for their colleagues in City and County Halls. What is even worse is that the same feeling about both levels of government runs through alarmingly large swathes of the public as a whole.
For well over 100 years local government, which in the late 19th and early 20th centuries delivered such things as decent housing, basic education, gas and electricity, clean water, sewerage etc. etc. has been a victim of gradual emasculation with more and more powers transferred to Westminster.
Time was when national politicians such as Joseph and Neville Chamberlain, Clement Attlee, Herbert Morrison and, in more recent times, John Major and Eric Pickles, cut their teeth in local government (not that this experience endeared the last gentleman to his former colleagues) before moving on to higher things. Not any more.
We in local government are expected to do national government’s dirty work for them and not just over the past five years. Devolution can’t come soon enough as far as I am concerned. However, for this to be really effective, local government in England needs major structural and financial reform. We could start by getting rid of the remaining county and district councils and replacing them with Unitary Authorities and then doing something about the Council Tax by at least adding a few bands on top of the existing ones. However there is no stomach for real reform in Whitehall. More’s the pity.
The solution is more G4S and more Serco. The state should not be providing services, the outsourcing companies are well liked, efficient and better at providing public services, than the state.
@Stimpson – if you want a job done properly, do it yourself.
By the same token, government (at all levels) should do the things it is responsible for itself.
Do you perform your own plumbing or operate on yourself then?
Stimpson,
The Lincolnshire County Council’s recently concluded contract with Serco has been an unmitigated disaster so far. So much for private good public bad.
I hope you are being ironic, Stimson, when you say that the solution is more Serco. I have just had the Serco experience and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
– Sleeper from Euston to Edinburgh cancelled on 23 October (I missed half the Scottish Lib Dem Conference as a result)
– Sleeper from Edinburgh to London on 1 November also cancelled.
– Bus replacement service with single driver and defective heating took almost ten hours. Arrived chilled and exhausted. No refreshment or blankets provided.
– Contradictory e-mails from company leaving us unsure until the last minute about how we would be accommodated.
– Wrong telephone number on their poster at Euston.
– Staff not briefed on the situation (I had to show one an e-mail I had received so that he could confirm the cancellation to another passenger).
– Indicator board at station showed train running normally even as people were being put on the buses.
The sleeper service to Edinburgh has been disrupted for almost three weeks due to “technical problems” with the rolling stock – that Serco is obliged to keep operational under the franchise. Hundreds of passengers must have been affected by now although the Scottish media is oddly uninterested. And the contingency arrangements are completely inadequate.
The old BR was far from perfect but they were still streets ahead of the service I have had from Serco in the last few weeks.
I have cancelled my future bookings with them.
Stimpson, G4S and Serco are not specialists at anything. So your plumber and surgeon analogy is stunningly poor.
@Stimpson – if plumbing was part of my duties, then yes, I’d do it myself. As it happens it isn’t, so I get a plumber to do it. I’d be extremely angry if he said his role was simply to contract the job out.
If it makes you feel any better, I write my own code (since that’s *my* job), and don’t farm it out to someone else. My experience of development organisations that have tried subcontracting stuff out is that they rapidly find themselves powerless, but still responsible when it all goes Pete Tong.
Pretty much the same situation as when public bodies try to outsource their functions to the private sector.
Don’t feed the troll, guys
Devolution of power to form a federal state is, after the EU, possibly the biggest issue to face us as a nation for many years. Isn’t anybody interested? Or do you just want to nit pick.. No wonder we are at 7% in the opinion polls!
I don’t think this shows ignorance on David Cameron’s part so much as a marked tendency toward s double standards and the electoral self interest.
Glenn 12th Nov ’15 – 10:41am……………..I don’t think this shows ignorance on David Cameron’s part so much as a marked tendency toward s double standards and the electoral self interest……
Coupled with his belief that the letter would achieve the above result without ever seeing the public ‘light of day’….
Sadly, it is impossible to ’embarrass’ such an egoist….His brazen behaviour regarding his public lie over child credits shows that…
I agree with John Marriott.
Expats – I agree with you. Cameron is lazy and just not care about the facts or rights and wrongs on issues. Anything for an easy life and the media continue to give him an easy time as they did in the run in to the election.
Here is the Guardian’s write up of the story.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/david-cameron-letter-cuts-oxfordshire