I am powerless
What a great responsibility, I thought, when I was elected in May.
How sad, I have thought previously about all local elections, that turnout is so low.
But it is no wonder.
Turnout at European elections is similarly low. And this is also for the same reason. Local Councillors are powerless. We have the power of advocacy on behalf of local residents, and we can make 'across-the-top' changes to the structure of the Council, but we cannot — in any way — affect local policy!
Tonight at the Planning and Regulatory committee here in Adur we had a document (see it here) that set out our Core Strategy. But it turns out, when I went through the document this evening with the committee and officers, that most of the things that any self-respecting libertarian or Conservative would want cannot be included (and socialist/facist items cannot be removed) because they are ordained by central government.
You may ask, and I will tomorrow at Policy and Strategy, what the point is of a document that has all its guts as dictate from our nanny-state government. Well, I just put it to you that voting for a local Councillor is only any use in that it is they who negotiate the Council Tax. And you do get lower Council Tax with Conservative Councils.
If a Councillor were thinking about which political party he or she wished to be a member of, the ins and outs at Council have little bearing on that — the money a person pays and their membership they give should be entirely directed at the UK government.
How sad, I have thought previously about all local elections, that turnout is so low.
But it is no wonder.
Turnout at European elections is similarly low. And this is also for the same reason. Local Councillors are powerless. We have the power of advocacy on behalf of local residents, and we can make 'across-the-top' changes to the structure of the Council, but we cannot — in any way — affect local policy!
Tonight at the Planning and Regulatory committee here in Adur we had a document (see it here) that set out our Core Strategy. But it turns out, when I went through the document this evening with the committee and officers, that most of the things that any self-respecting libertarian or Conservative would want cannot be included (and socialist/facist items cannot be removed) because they are ordained by central government.
You may ask, and I will tomorrow at Policy and Strategy, what the point is of a document that has all its guts as dictate from our nanny-state government. Well, I just put it to you that voting for a local Councillor is only any use in that it is they who negotiate the Council Tax. And you do get lower Council Tax with Conservative Councils.
If a Councillor were thinking about which political party he or she wished to be a member of, the ins and outs at Council have little bearing on that — the money a person pays and their membership they give should be entirely directed at the UK government.