we’re the only major party that doesn’t want power

But..

Were the Lib Dems to get into power

So you don’t want power but the only way to get change is if you get into power?

You won’t get the power to change the system if you don’t want power.

Do you want power or do you want to just protest?

Grow a pair, yellow-bellies.

Excellent article.

If this were the message being shouted from the leadership of the Lib Dems you would have real success. Unfortunately, if that is what they are saying, it is being said through some strange acoustic filter because it is not what people are hearing.

Just at the moment, there is a tidal wave of opinion that is anti-government. People are fed up with the big state, fed up with feeling powerless and subject to the control of state/corporatist authority, the corrupt centralists seeking to control every aspect of their lives.

And it is not just on the blogosphere. Every second person you speak to says the same thing.

The last twelve years of increasingly oppressive legislation, the sleaze, the banking crisis- all have contributed to this wave of nausea, and a wave it is. People yearn for more freedom and are desperate to be allowed to take control of their lives again but the Lib Dems seem to have failed to even to notice this wave, far less to try to ride it.

I’m afraid you lost my vote when Chris Huhne backed the decision to ban Geert Wilders. But that’s the reality of the Lib Dem leadership- they don’t seem that different to the alternatives.

@2: ” People are fed up with the big state, fed up with feeling powerless and subject to the control of state/corporatist authority, the corrupt centralists seeking to control every aspect of their lives.”

Much professional commentary and the people I talk with attribute the recent financial crisis and the threatening prospect of another global depression on the scale of the 1930s to insufficient regulation of the banks and other financial intermediaries.

“There must be profound changes in the banking system if a repeat of the current crisis is to be avoided, the Financial Services Authority has said. Lord Turner, head of the City watchdog, said parts of the regulatory system were ‘seriously deficient’.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7843905.stm

“The chairman of the Financial Services Authority has admitted that the regulator was seduced into thinking that the economic boom was unstoppable. Lord Turner told MPs that regulators, governments and executives were led astray by the belief that the good times would continue.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8545048.stm

How come this recent book?

SM Reinhart + Kenneth Rogoff: This Time is Different – Eight Centuries of Financial Folly (Princeton UP, 2009)

How come all these recent reports in the news of arrests on charges of insider dealing?

Re: blanco @ 10.03

You can’t give power to the people if it’s not yours to begin with.

We seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity

Andrew, why do you think that Cameron or Brown – or even Galloway or Daniel Hannan or Nigel Farage – wouldn’t be willing to say that? It strikes me as a classic example of the “warm words” politics that has got us where we are to-day.

@Gwyn

I agree. The Lib Dems need to take power from the Lab/Tories and give it to the people.

But Hickey just said up there: they don’t want power.

Nonsense.

“The Lib Dems need to take power from the Lab/Tories and give it to the people.”

How many metric tonnes – or should it be litres? – of power need to be transferred and what transport medium should be used?

I ask because I’m unclear as to how the civil servants in the cabinet office are expected to interpret such mandates.

6. blanco: There’s a difference between not wanting power and, as Andrew clearly intended to mean, not wanting power illegitimately through the exploitation of unrepresentative politics.

7.Bob: Facetiousness will get you far in life.

Mike, that’s the preamble to the constitution, and quoted on my membership card. It’s basically the fundamental principle on which the rest of the policies are built. Sure, Cameron or Brown might say, it happily, but to have a huge tranch of policies that would acheive it?

No party is perfect, but of those with a chance of making a real change, the Lib Dems come closest to what I want, and this time around there’s a real chance they could make a distinct difference.

Blanco, you’re being obtuse, either deliberately or inadvertently. In order to give power away, you have to have it. We don’t want power, but others have got it, therefore we need to take it from them and give it away. I’m not sure why that’s confusing you.

Gah, forgot to tick the box at the bottom

“We don’t want power, but others have got it, therefore we need to take it from them and give it away”

I’d like to know what LibDems propose doing about market failures – of which the financial crisis is but one manifestation while climate change is arguably another. Would LibDems do nothing about asset-price bubbles or insider trading?

[9] That’s my whole point, Matt. Think – since we’re talking about membership cards – about Labour’s dear old Clause Four, which talked about “the best obtainable system of popular administration and control”. A Tory might say that meant share-owning democracy of the Yankee type. More warm words.

And saying “others might say them but we mean them” misses the entire point – it’s a bit like arguing for belief in God because you fancy the vicar at the local parish church.

Um, Bob? Vince warned about the asset bubble in his first budget response years ago. He pretty much answers your main Q here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rs7gz

And specifically on climate change, the LD policy is clearly to tax environmentally damamging activity, an externality tax being the best possible response to an incidence of market failure, as I’m sure you know.

No Mike, that’s not what I said. I said that those words are the underpinning of all the policies; you can see we mean them in every single policy announced. But, y’know, feel free to misrepresent what I said to make inconsequential analogies.

If you want to find a policy that doesn’t have that as an underpinning, I’ll happily talk it through though.

@13: ” Vince warned about the asset bubble in his first budget response years ago.”

I’ve much respect for Vince Cable but I’m puzzled about how preventing the inflation of asset price bubbles squares with resounding claims about cutting back on the powers of central government and regulatory authorities.

One of the contributing factors to the diminished esteem in which politicians generally are held is the public’s perception of the gap between the high-sounding rhetoric of political parties and what the parties do in government – or what needs to be done by government.

I didn’t vote in the 2005 election. What put me off voting for the LibDems was Charles Kennedy saying in an interview in the BBC Today programme just before the election that not joining the Euro was “a missed opportunity”. That told me he really didn’t understand the issues – our predicament now would be far worse if Britain had joined the Eurozone.

Mat, you can’t have policies to achieve what’s intellectually incoherent in the first place.

I believe that there have to be – for example – trade-offs between liberty and equality. I believe that communist societies in the past and theocracies to-day exhibit some form of “community”. I also believe that the manifestoes of pretty well all the parties standing at the next election – the only obvious exception that comes to mind is the BNP and even they might mouth the words – could claim to be based on the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

If your “fundamental values” could be translated into policy proposals in one and only one way, just as a column of figures has only one correct sum, then Lib Dem policy-making would presumably be a very brief process indeed and one so dull that few party members would wish to engage in it. I doubt that to be the case.

FWIW Bob, I also didn’t vote in the 2005 election, and only rejoined the party after Kennedy stood down in 2006; Huhne, in particular, impressed me with his commitment to actual liberalism and his understanding of economics. Beyond that, details of economic policy aren’t my field; I tend to trust Vince’s team, who’re more qualified than anyone else in Parliament and have proven their general understanding.

Very happy to talk about constitutional and political reform stuff, that is my field.

FFS Mike: “we seek to balance” is saying there have to be trade-offs. That’s why the policy making process is as complex as it is.

‘I’ve much respect for Vince Cable but I’m puzzled about how preventing the inflation of asset price bubbles squares with resounding claims about cutting back on the powers of central government and regulatory authorities.’

There’s a difference between the regulation of financial institutions and the obssessive control over and surveillance of individual’s private lives.

Where do the LibDems stand on the Conservative proposals for more Localism?

IMO that would make local provision of social and health care and bus passes even more of a post-code lottery.

@19: “There’s a difference between the regulation of financial institutions and the obssessive control over and surveillance of individual’s private lives.”

Fair enough but there was no lack of enthusiasm on the part of central government before 1997 for installing CCTV cameras as a means of containing crime. The estimate from years ago of over 4 million CCTV cameras in Britain keeping watch over us in public places puts us easily at the top of a European league table. Perhaps you missed this news item:

“Female swimmers fear nude footage of themselves could be posted on the internet after Tooting Leisure Centre installed CCTV cameras in the ladies’ changing rooms without warning.”
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/whereilive/southlondon/wandsworthnews/4778699.YouTube_fears_for_leisure_centre_changing_room_CCTV/

Civil servants and administrators have to deal with specifics because resounding declarations of intended principles are always open to wide interpretations. I’m always willing to accept that Tony Blair wasn’t short of good intentions . .

[18] And because there have to be trade-offs you can claim the “underpinning” applies to pretty much any policy you care to come up with.

What would convince me that it isn’t a dead parrot would be an example of how the LibDems nearly adopted a policy but drew back when they recalled the underpinning. I feel pretty sure that you don’t know of such a case, though.

Bob; the Tory version of localism is to take powers away from communities and local authorites and create new, directly elected bodies like directly elected police chiefs. Doncaster isn’t that far from here, and the mess the directly elected mayor is making makes me very cautious of such ideas.

I’m in favour of giving power back to communities, through parish and community councils and simply devolving power back to LAs, I’m not in favour of salami slicing services and having police cheifs elected and not scrutinised effectively; much better to give local police authorities real power and responsibilities.

The thing with the “postcode lottery” thing is that, with the current set up, it is a lottery, you have little to no say in the decision making process.

It’s right that different areas, with different needs, should allocate resources differently, but the lottery element comes from those decisions being made without local people having any real say.

Make it clear who’s making the decisions, and make them publish why, and ensure they’re accountable through local authorities to voters, and you have a different position, it ceases to be a lottery.

But it has to be done well, and we have to bear in mind that the national tabloid press really don’t like any form of localism, as it makes reporting harder, more nuanced and they can’t blame everything on the minister; hence the creation of the “postcode lottery” meme in the first place.

Remove the lottery element, put it under genuine local control.

I would just like to say I am *NOT* a regular contributor here, and didn’t give permission for this to be posted here (though I am giving permission now just to allow what looks like a reasonable discussion to keep going). More at http://andrewhickey.info/2010/03/28/liberal-conspiracy/

@22: “Remove the lottery element, put it under genuine local control”

The sad fact is that electorates tend to be proundly uninterested in local government issues, which is how the Doncaster situation could go on for so long:

“A council at the centre of a police fraud inquiry has been criticised in an independent report for blatant junketing which cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds. District Auditor, Bill Butler, identified ‘serious failings’ in the management of Labour-run Doncaster Council in northern England which led to councillors and officers flying club class around the world, accepting numerous free gifts and using council mobile phones and credit cards for their personal use.” [December 1997]

“The worst local government corruption case since the Poulson scandal of the 1970s ended yesterday with hefty jail terms for a senior Labour councillor and the property developer who bribed him.” [March 2002]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2002/mar/13/uknews

That’s localism inaction.

Btw the Tooting leisure centre with the CCTV in women’s changing rooms mentioned @20 is under the management of Wandsworh Borough Council, a Conservative controlled Becon council.

“The sad fact is that electorates tend to be proundly uninterested in local government issues, which is how the Doncaster situation could go on for so long:”

You assume that the electorate is given anywhere near the level of information required to scrutinise councils properly. Where does your local council get investigated on a regular basis, to the same level that the national government does? Even without the media, how many locals in your area are making the sort of fuss that ORG, No2ID, Taxpayers alliance, and what ever other “lobby” groups there are, are making on a national level?

It’s all well and good saying the electorate is uninterested. People in the UK were largely uninterested in poverty and famine in Africa until there was a major national campaign launched to raise awareness and money for them…but then how could they be interested in something that hadn’t been pointed out in the mainstream?

Bob; my opinion, having looked at a lot of data over the years, is that the electorate tend to ignore local govt issues largely because local govt has little to no power.

Regardless, about 1/3rd of voters do vote in local elections, and they are frequently very contested, with Councillors very careful to watch their backs.

Given LD policy is also to introduce STV for council elections, abolishing safe wards (as many are unfortunately), this’ll be heightened.

If they know that those they vote on have real power, and the electoral system gives them a real say, people are more likely to get involved and actually vote; that’s certainly my experience. Regardless, those that do vote tend to be much more involved and watching what’s going on, so Cllrs in non-safe wards have to watch themselves and do things well.

HAve to excuse me though, got a campaign meeting to go to, Cllrs to elect (including me, for the first time, scary stuff; anyone live in HAlifax want to sign my nomination forms?)

@25: “You assume that the electorate is given anywhere near the level of information required to scrutinise councils properly.”

C’mon. The Audit Commission now produces annual Comprehensive Area Assessments:
http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/localgov/audit/caa/Pages/default.aspx

Besides that, some local papers are very good at reporting on local council issues – I certainly rate my local paper from which I receive daily email news briefs by request.

For all that, turnout at local elections is typically around a third of local electorates. There’s little change from year-to-year in the league table of Local Education Authorities for England and despite there being little correlation between spending on local schools and attainment.

@26: ” is that the electorates tend to ignore local govt issues largely because local govt has little to no power”

Frankly, I think that’s bunkum – and I’ve been an elected member of two councils and a senior official working for a third, besides working as a civil servant in central London.

Local councils have wide discretion in development control, in the priority accorded to highway maintenance and in shaping and maintaining local environments, as well as in the structure and running of local schools.

It’s a complete myth that councils are impotent. It wasn’t lack of statutory powers that created a regime of “blatant junketing” at Doncaster or which led to the installation of a CCTV camera in women’s changing facilities in a Tooting leisure centre.

Btw recall that turnout at the last general election in 2005 was the second lowest since 1918. More voters abstained than the numbers who voted for candidates of the Labour Party, which “won” the election.

“Being an MP is the least respected profession in the country. MPs ranked just below estate agents, government ministers, lawyers and journalists, according to the poll by BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.” [2002]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2014128.stm

That’s the state we’re in – and the scandal of MPs’ expenses has only compounded the public’s low regard for professional politicians of all varieties.

“Public funds totalling £500 million a year are being spent on an army of at least 29,000 professional politicians in the UK, according to new figures.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8605308

That compares with an electorate in Britain of about 44 millions.

“It’s a complete myth that councils are impotent. It wasn’t lack of statutory powers that created a regime of “blatant junketing” at Doncaster or which led to the installation of a CCTV camera in women’s changing facilities in a Tooting leisure centre.”

You seem to be living and dying on an anecdote here.

For some mysterious reason a post I just made in response to @28 has just disappeared. Why is that?

Another try – this is the missing post:

@28: “You seem to be living and dying on an anecdote here.”

If only that were true.

Try this listing of local councils of *all* politicial flavours which lost many millions of local taxpayers’ funds by investing monies in failing Icelandic banks offering amazingly high rates of return to investors:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660741.stm

The sad fact of that matter is that there are too many none-too-bright people running local councils, some grossly overpaid for doing so. It wasn’t lack of statutory powers which impelled those councils to make imprudent investment, more a complete lack of nous on the part of senior politicians and officials when local electorates are often too disinterested to do anything about it.

Nor were those losses a unique example of bad financial management by local councils: try this

“In June 1988 the Audit Commission was tipped off by someone working on the swaps desk of Goldman Sachs that the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham had a massive exposure to interest rate swaps. When the commission contacted the council, the chief executive told them not to worry as ‘everybody knows that interest rates are going to fall’; the treasurer thought the interest rate swaps were a ‘nice little earner’. The controller of the commission, Howard Davies realised that the council had put all of its positions on interest rates going down; he sent a team in to investigate.

“By January 1989 the commission obtained legal opinions from two Queen’s Counsel. Although they did not agree, the commission preferred the opinion which made it ultra vires for councils to engage in interest rate swaps. Moreover interest rates had gone up from 8% to 15%. The auditor and the commission then went to court and had the contracts declared illegal (appeals all the way up to the House of Lords failed); the five banks involved lost millions of pounds. Many other local authorities had been engaging in interest rate swaps in the 1980s, although Hammersmith was unusual in betting all one way.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap

But for the legal decision that the interest swaps were ultra vires, the losses – running to hundreds of millions – would have had to be covered by local taxpayers. Instead, the banks had to pay for the losses.

On the mounting evidence, running local councils amounts to a license to waste taxpayers’ money because councils have much scope to act on their own initiative and because local electorates are too disinterested to care.

At a second attempt, my response to @28 has disappeared again – hardly a good sign of open discussion about why to vote LibDem.

If the Lib Dems believe in democracy and want to fight ignorance, why do they routinely mislead voters with dodgy, cynical “can’t win here” charts on their leaflets? If they want a proportional voting system that would help other parties, why did they use FPTP results to misleadingly dismiss others’ chances in the proportional European elections all over London?

I’d like to know how and why my local LibDem controlled council lost £5.5 millions of local taxpayers’ money by stashing it in failing Icelandic banks offering amazingly high rates of return to investors:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7660741.stm

It surely wasn’t lack of statutory powers which impelled those councils to make all those imprudent investments, more a complete lack of nous on the part of senior politicians and officials.

Bob, re comments not appearing, I’m not an admin so don’t have access to the spam filter, but generally any comment with 2 or more links will get filtered. I’m pretty sure there’s no censorship going on (for the simple reason that the two people who do have access currently are Labour members), but if there’s still a comment missing I’ll get them to look into it.

Re the Icelandic bank fiasco, yes, no defence there, but it wasn’t just LD councils, my local Tory council did it, and LAbour controlled councils did it as well; they were encouraged to do so by the Govt (prop G. Brown (Labour) as they had a high safety rating up until they collapsed.

I won’t even pretend to understand it, but there were statutory rules saying they had to invest the money in high yield accounts, etc.

I’m afraid I’ve now had a bit too much to drink to offer a substantive response to your long comment (dull meeting was very dull, but both my other candidates in the local area have good taste in beer), but here’s a stab:

LAs, generally, have very little real power. Only 25% of their budget is raised through locally controlled taxation, and that’s capped if they want to do anything interesting. Most of their duties are statutorily controlled and with strict limits.

Ergo, most Cllrs are simply managers acting on behalf of Whitehall. I dislike this, and want to return Real power to LAs, which will increase their power and authority.

If your local paper is good at critique, then you’re very lucky; in the 4 different LA areas I’ve lived in the last few years, none of the local papers were particularly good on covering local governance issues, ergo voters, generally, don’t know much about it.

More tomorrow when I’m sober. Possibly.

“Re the Icelandic bank fiasco, yes, no defence there, but it wasn’t just LD councils, my local Tory council did it, and LAbour controlled councils did it as well”

Absolutely. Sadly, there’s much evidence of really bad to merely silly decisions by local councils, which is one reason I don’t believe the problem of disinterest by local electorates is simply because local government has insufficient statutory powers. If anything, many voters have little regard for the competence of both councillors and local officials. And believe me, there are other glaring examples of really bad decisions I could post.

In 2004, John Prescott worked hard trying to sell the idea of regional government – for greater “democratic control” and devolution of functions and powers from central government and its regional offices. We were told electorates in the north-east were ready and enthusiastic so a referendum was held in the region in November 2004. This was the outcome:

“People in the North East have voted ‘no’ in a referendum on whether to set up an elected regional assembly.
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott admitted his plans for regional devolution had suffered an ‘emphatic defeat’ on Thursday night.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3984387.stm

In the poll in Wales in 1997 on whether to have a Welsh assembly, only just over 50% voted in favour in the poll held with a turnout of 50%: only a quarter of the electorate in Wales actually voted in favour of a Welsh assembly.

‘IMO that would make local provision of social and health care and bus passes even more of a post-code lottery.’

It is not a lottery if that is what local people choose, or vote for.

It is not a lottery if that is what local people choose, or vote for.

And I think you would find people would be much more interested in local politics if their local politicians actually had power to affect their lives.

And there is always the option of changing your postcode.

[36]

There is always the option of changing your postcode.

Yeah, never mind the loss of friends and other community connections, such as the kids’ schooling or the relationship with your GP, just hitch up that wagon train and head out west.

When Sunny gets back I think I’ll suggest a sticky thread for stupidest comment of the year. You’ll be a contender, never fear.

For all the efforts over decades to stoke up interest in local elections, the fact is that turnout is persistently low.

It’s a complete myth that local government lacks statutory powers. There are extensive local powers in development control, scope to spend money on shaping and maintaining local environments, in providing leisure facilites and in the running of schools.

The problems are rather that too many local authorities are run by none-too-bright people who waste public finance and local electorates are too uninterested to do much about it. Giving more powers to local government will only lead to more silly decisions and waste. When given a choice about a regional assembly in the North East, the local electorate wisely and very decisively voted in down.

Mike @ 37

Yeah, never mind the loss of friends and other community connections, such as the kids’ schooling or the relationship with your GP

A modern economy needs a workforce that is mobile and flexible. I take it you are not.

One of the advantages of having important decisions taken at a more local level is that, if you don’t like them, you have the option to move to an area that operates more as you would like. I do accept that you may have to change your doctor and your children might have to attend a different school but that is something you would have to factor into the overall decision.

At the moment, if you don’t like the consequences of the appaling abuses of power by the government your fellow citizens have voted in, the only option is emigration.

When Sunny gets back I think I’ll suggest a sticky thread for stupidest comment of the year. You’ll be a contender, never fear.

Please don’t report me to Sunny.

He’s well hard…….

Mike, you may wish to spend your entire life in one small town, others, including myself, have moved many many times over the last decade and plan to do so again. There’s nothing wrong with the option of moving location if you don’t like your location, many people do it.

If that was being presented as the only option, then that would be a problem, but it clearly is not.

Mr Cohen, your comment makes little to no sense to me, please clarify?

To all: Andrew doesn’t really want to engage with this thread as it was posted without his knowledge or permission; personally, I think it’s a good article and worth responding to, so that’s why I’m here in the comments more than the author; he’s a personal friend, but we disagree, to an extent, about the utility of engaging here on the site, hence my continued presence.

Bob, I’m swamped, I’ll get back to you, but briefly, there’s a difference between statutory Administrative power in defined areas where there are restrictions (such as Cllrs who express an opinion before a planning meeting aren’t allowed to them vote in the meeting, Cllrs who live near a location aren’t allowed to speak, Cllrs from a different ward aren’t allowed to speak, so if all your Cllrs live in the same part of the ward no one can speak for you), and having real actual strategic power.

Councils have, over the last three decades, been repeatedly neutered so that their traditional autonomy no longer exists. Yes, they have administrative power left, but that power is strictly controlled and monitored.

I favour changing the way Cllrs are elected to make them more responsive, and giving them their heads over local issues. I don’t care if that increases turnout significantly, there will always be those who simply don’t care about local stuff, but I do care that those of us that do get involved locally can make a difference, it’s currently very hard to do so.

[39][40] Maybe this is an age thing. I myself have not moved home in the last twenty years; in the twenty years before that I did so, on average, about every 18 months (including temporary accommodation).

I would nonetheless like an apology from Pagar. The purpose of an economy is to meet the needs of the human beings within it, not, as you seem to believe, the other way around.

Um, no, that’s not what Pagar said; if we accept the purpose of an economic system is to serve our interests, then the best economic system is one in which all our disparate interests can be catered for as efficiently as possible.

It is in each of our best interests to be flexible and try to do the best we can for ourselves and our family, therefore we, and the economy, are best served by a flexible workforce.

I’m 35, I don’t know how old Pagar is, so I’m 15 years into my notional 45 years of working life. I’ve moved several times, the most recently was against my notional economic interests if measured ona blunt money scale, but strongly favoured me on overall utility, as living with Jennie is a lot nicer than living alone.

But to do that, I chose to move across the country, and now have a job that pays significantly less than I would be earning if still in London. I’m much happier though, so the economists say I’m better off anyway.

[42] There you go again, worshipping false gods – in this case “efficiency”.

Not that there’s a cat in hell’s chance of our agreeing but – for the record:

All forms of the exercise of power (by one person over another) are intrinsically morally vicious and may only be excused where the alternative is worse.

Markets and states both represent modes in which power is exercised.

Economic theory over-simplifies to the point at which it is a deplorable guide to economic reality, but an excellent ideological tool for the sustenance and intensification of existing power inequalities.

In addition to intensifying power inequalities markets objectify human activity by promoting transactions at the expense of relationships. For example, remaining in a functional marriage is very difficult: it requires a lot of hard work with no guarantee of success (which is the definition of love, by the way). It is far easier to abandon it for the transactional alternatives of pornography (if male) or women’s “solidarity” (if female) – and every year, more and more of us do just that. (Clearly I could give many other examples, of which the diseases of affluence would be just one.)

Markets and states both represent modes in which power is exercised.

States are.

Markets, by definition, aren’t.

If you think that they do, then you’ve not been reading and of the responses I’ve typed for you over the last three years on this subject.

If a market is fair, free and open, no power is exercised, as it’s all about voluntary exchage, by very definition.

That many of the supposed “markets” that we have aren’t fair, free and open is a failure of the state to step in and break up oligopolistic cartels and big corporate/donor interest.

So if your position in this discussion is going to keep repeating a falsehood (that markets are, or shoudl be, about power), then you’re never going to agree with anything that talks on the subject, as the very definition you’re using is wrong.

If you want to talk about exploitative power within the economic system as being a problem, fine, go ahead, I agree with you. but don’t refer to such power as “the market” or similar, because it’s not the correct word to use.

Mat, I agree with you in respect of the imaginary idealised “market” of the mathematical model fantasized about by late 19th century economists. One of its features, of course, was perfect information on the part of all who engaged in it.

This may give you a clue as to why no State since then, of any political persuasion or none, has created such a marketplace.

Mike @ 41

I am delighted you have seen fit to grant me the opportunity to make a full and frank apology. For the offence I have caused you, I am truly sorry.

Now if you could just remind what the fuck it is I’m apologising for, that would allow me to phrase it much more eloquently.

Bob B,

When given a choice about a regional assembly in the North East, the local electorate wisely and very decisively voted in down.

Wasn’t this more to do with “oh god, another layer of politicians” rather than politicians being seen as lower than estate agents? Although I suppose the latter influences the former.

@47 ukliberty: “Wasn’t this more to do with “oh god, another layer of politicians” rather than politicians being seen as lower than estate agents?”

And wasn’t it a deliberate New Labour failure? Nobody wants (according to some in New Labour) devolved government in England, so we’ll offer a referendum for a crap assembly that will cut the idea off at its knees. There was no attempt to dissolve quangos and to put their responsibilities in the hands of elected members. A pointless talking shop was proffered and the electorate delivered the desired response.

@47: “Wasn’t this more to do with “oh god, another layer of politicians” rather than politicians being seen as lower than estate agents? Although I suppose the latter influences the former.”

Quite so. I haven’t detected much faith in politicians generally, let alone local politicians.

Btw has anyone around here noticed a missing £14 million? If so, I’m sure that the councils in South Yorkshire and the SFO would be pleased to hear about it:

“The South Yorkshire Trading Standards Unit is to close on 31 July over a £14m shortfall in its accounts. The discrepancy came to light after the death of the unit’s general manager in December 2005 and is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/5149450.stm

In the late 1980s, Hammersmith and Fulham borough council in London lost over £100 million in interest swap trades which were ultra vires – beyond its statutory powers to conduct. But for a court case declaring this enterprising bit of speculation beyond the statutory powers of the council, local taxpayers would have had to pay up to cover the losses. Instead, the banks had to pay for the losses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap

@47: “Wasn’t this more to do with “oh god, another layer of politicians” rather than politicians being seen as lower than estate agents? Although I suppose the latter influences the former.”

Quite so. I haven’t detected much faith in politicians generally, let alone local politicians.

Btw has anyone around here noticed a missing £14 million? If so, I’m sure that the councils in South Yorkshire and the SFO would be pleased to hear about it:

“The South Yorkshire Trading Standards Unit is to close on 31 July over a £14m shortfall in its accounts. The discrepancy came to light after the death of the unit’s general manager in December 2005 and is being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/5149450.stm

In the late 1980s, Hammersmith and Fulham borough council lost over £100 million in interest swap trades which were ultra vires – beyond its statutory powers to conduct. But for a court cases declaring this enterprising bit of speculation beyond the statutory powers of the council, local taxpayers would have had to pay up to cover the losses. Instead, the banks had to pay for the losses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap

This traditional liberal idea about winning power to give it away isn’t as daft as it sounds. When power is genuinely devolved (and to sort out the administrative role and income raising capacity of local government is not trivial), every party will be forced to change.

The Scottish Nationalists would be somewhat more tempered if they had tax raising powers because they would be forced to address the electoral consequences; they couldn’t blame everything on the English. If your local town hall raised 75% rather than 25% of its income directly from residents, politicians would be more sensitive about expenditure. (Down side: politicians would be scared off from “minority interest projects”; Up side: “minority interest projects” would have to be communicated as “community interest”; liberals see the positive side in people.)

@49 Bob B: “Btw has anyone around here noticed a missing £14 million”

I’d notice it in my bank account. But does not the following quote imply that the organisation that lost the money was a private body acting as a contractor?

BBC quote: “It said it was not possible to sell the unit as a going concern and it would try to redeploy the 24 staff elsewhere.”

Another point about the North East assembly is that there’s no such place. People live in, and identify with, counties. Wedging in another level of politicians, presiding over a “region” was fortunately not popular.

A starting point for any revamp might be “one-in / one-out” policy. Where new bodies are created, existing bodies need to reduce in-line. Maybe if our MPs had a little more to do, they’d get into less trouble.

@51: “But does not the following quote imply that the organisation that lost the money was a private body acting as a contractor? ”

No. The South Yorkshire Trading Standards Unit was a local government unit providing services to all the four district councils in the old metropolitan county of South Yorkshire. Sheffield City Council managed the finances of the unit on behalf of all the participating councils.

In theory, this arrangement made sense as trading standards issues seldom stop conveniently at the boundaries of districts in metropolitan counties – shoppers and businesses often shop and trade across boundaries. Crime too doesn’t stop at district boundaries, which is why the police force operates across the old county boundaries.

Which is of course Bob an argument for bringing such bodies back under the control of larger, accountable, bodies. The abolition of the metropolitan counties in the 80s, alngside the push for unitaries now, is something I have a big problem with (I grew up in Torbay, which is far too small to be a unitary, have lived in Exeter, which is becoming one with similar size problems, and now live in Calderdale, one of the smallest MBCs). I agree with Charlieman:

Nobody wants (according to some in New Labour) devolved government in England, so we’ll offer a referendum for a crap assembly that will cut the idea off at its knees

Exactly; Prescott really wanted it, others, especially Blair, didn’t. So what was proposed in the end really was a white elephant with very little power taken away from Westminster or unelected quangoes.

It’s worth noting that while the NE voted no, London voted yes; somehow that the capital itself has an assembly with similar powers to Wales is forgotten by all the anti-campaigners.

I was involved in the SW convention when it was active in 2001, but although I favour regional/provincial/whatever devolution strongly, I’d have voted against the white elephant Prescott was proposing.

@52 WhatNext?!: “Another point about the North East assembly is that there’s no such place. People live in, and identify with, counties. Wedging in another level of politicians, presiding over a “region” was fortunately not popular.”

Not all counties work either. The folks in Rutland could hardly wait to get out of Leicestershire. In the north west of England, Lancashire identity is strong within communities that have been politically parked in Merseyside and Manchester.

I think that the North East Assembly failed because the ambition and definition were too small. If you define a region by cultural identity, then the North East Assembly would have been a Northern Borders Assembly that incorporated Cumbria. The north east and north west of England have more in common than their souther neighbours.

Exactly; I’d favour passing an act that allows for devolution of X powers to Y size bodies, then letting locals decide if they want those powers.

Deal with “the West Lothian Question” in the way they do in Spain and used to for Northern Ireland; if you’ve got more power locally than other parts of the countries, reduce the number of MPs you’ve got at Westminster.

I’m in Yorkshire, fairly easy to define as a good area, but do you include “Humberside”? I say let that be up to those that live there.

@54: “London voted yes”

I didn’t vote for a London Assembly as proposed in the referendum.

On reflection, more observers are starting to appreciate that the London assembly has far too few powers to effectively hold the London mayor to account. Try this out:

“Increasing mayoral powers, however likely they are to generate more efficient solutions, must be accompanied by a stronger mechanism for monitoring and control of those powers. The Assembly has proved to be less than effective in calling the Mayor to account. Were this state of affairs to continue, the loss of local democratic links implied by many of the proposed changes (in the Government’s consultative paper and this response) would be highly undesirable. Great powers must go hand in hand with continuing and effective accountability.”

From: The Greater London Authority: The Government’s proposals for additional powers and responsibilities for the Mayor and Assembly (2006)

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSELondon/docs/GLAConsultation2006.doc

See too this on the pitfalls in switching over from Ken Lingstone to Boris Johnson:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23485290-ringing-the-changes-at-city-hall.do

The London Assembly can pass motions of no confidence in the Mayor and his/her officials and it can reject proposed budgets but not particular budget lines, as I understand it.

As reported, there are only 13 elected executive mayors in Britain. The huge majority of local authorities have (very sensibly IMO) rejected the idea.

This is the best piece on the London Assembly that I’ve come across so far:
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/about/CI/CP/Our_Society_Today/Spotlights_2006/london.aspx

It’s particularly illuminating on why the powers of the Assembly are too restricted to hold the Mayor effectively to account.

[57] Like Bob, I voted “no” in the referendum of 1998. I wanted the GLC back.

It is perhaps worth recalling why Blair didn’t. He is supposed to have been persuaded into the Mayoral model by Simon Jenkins, believing that he could persuade his party to reject Livingstone – which was his priority for London government after doing something to appease his rank-and-file (I suspect his personal preference would have been to leave the whole thing till a second or even hird term).

The problem with restoring the GLC was the way Councils select their leaders. In 1981 Andrew McIntosh was the Labour Group leader going into the election. He had the confidence of his Group, but not of the Party in London as a whole, which wanted Livingstone. It turned out that the new majority Labour group did too: McIntosh claimed that this was somehow undemocratic. (Whether it would have been democratic if they’d waited a year and then turfed him out he never said.)

Blair of course never suspected that Livingstone would bolt the party, stand as an independent in 2000 and win.

The GLA powers will surely be strengthened by a second-term Cameron government (if we get there) just as soon as they decide the Mayoralty is out of the Tories’ reach.

@59: “Blair of course never suspected that Livingstone would bolt the party, stand as an independent in 2000 and win. ”

Mike – Blair was engaged in one of his (daft) political manoeuvres. He wanted (and needed) to move Frank Dobson from his cabinet position as health secretary (where he was an embarrassment) without causing a political rumpus so he sold Dobson the notion of standing as mayor for London.

Whether Londoners mostly saw through that or just wouldn’t put up with Dobson – who comes from Yorkshire – is uncertain but for whatever reason too many Londoners just weren’t going to have Dobson as Mayor and Livingstone was the best available choice on the left.

Also, London has a deep historical tradition of being radical. London was for Parliament against the King in the events leading to the civil war and for William against James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Perhaps even more to the point, in 1774 the City of London elected John Wilkes as Lord Mayor of London in times when the Lord Mayor had significant executive functions and when Wilkes could be guaranteed to annoy the political establishment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes

John Wilkes was an incredible character – a libertine, an instinctive libertarian, a wit and a natural maverick. Inadvertently, he contributed much to securing freedoms we value today, such as publication of the proceeding of Parliament and, crucially, a judiciary that is independent of the executive functions of government. Examples of Wilkes’s spontaneous wit still survive in collections of quotations.

[60] All of which is my cure for re-telling my favourite styory from 18th century politics.

When Charles James Fox was elected for Westminster, the King complained that he was represented in Parliament by a godless radical…

@59 re the “West Lothian” question.

The issue surely is whether there is an appetite locally for devolution of powers? It’s one thing to be a proud Geordie, but in England the sense of regional identity is, in my view, NOT the same as in Bavaria, Catalonia or Scotland.

I think the idea of reducing representation at Westminster for areas which have parliaments or assemblies such as Scotland, Wales or N. Ireland is sensible. Alternatively Scottish MP’s could be banned from voting on matters which only affected England.

Would you however be ready however to have (say) a Labour government for the UK, but a Tory government for England? How would that even work?

Yorkshire is probably one of few English regions which might “work” like some of the states in Germany, or regions in Spain.. but I don’t see how the current constitutional settlement in the UK could cope with the centrifugal forces involved. As an expat Scot, I’ve always thought that devolution will in the end lead to independence, and a large part of the responsibilty for that lies at the door of the centralising Unionists in both the Tory and Labour parties, who thought they could ride rough shod over a self identifying national “community” which didn’t vote for policies that were subsequently forced down their throats.