Central versus Local
Harold Macmillan once said that Archbishop Makarios was too big for Cyprus, so skilled a cleric – cum - politician he was. As a boy I once saw him in Nicosia, and thought this hugely exciting.
I thought about the Macmillan comment last week at a memorial service for John Knight, a remarkably strong and forceful local government figure in Suffolk. He was the founding father of St Edmundsbury Borough Council, recently voted the best in England. He would have been a successful Government Minister had he chosen this route.
On the same day I met with the two district councils in my constituency, councillors and officers. Suffolk is under the spotlight for considerable possible reorganisation in local government, with all the uncertainty that brings. Having seen NHS reorganisations, it is very unclear to me that local government reorganisations ever really improve local services. The hidden costs of change are enormous, and people, in losing the familiar, become further alienated from voting at all.
There are always tensions between central and local government. Giving free bus passes across the country to over 60s is going to be expensive for local authorities who will essentially be picking up the bill for this government initiative. Also at times the relationship between MPs and local councils can be fraught, even if of the same party. MPs tend get local media coverage and local councillors activities are often unnoticed. Sometimes MPs feel that local councillors do not think through the political implications of decisions taken.
Having seen how disastrously the public sector manages reorganisations, and the considerable salaries and pay-offs involved, I dread what lies in store for us. We now have parish, district and county councils, regional assemblies, Westminster and Brussels. No wonder so many people feel alienated from the whole process.