Quote:
Originally Posted by Houseboy
I agree, Jay, that a lot of things are taken out of councilors hands by central government and Europe, this is why we are lumbered with the chaos that is our rubbish collections (my front garden looks like a recycling centre). But why, over the years and all over the country, do we constantly have decisions being made at local level that often is in opposition to what the local population actually want? I can understand if things are being passed by central government that overule local authorities but there are still things that happen that are the result of completely local government decisions.
I would be interested to see how many decisions that are made by councilors, when the votes are cast, are made according to party lines.
I think that for local government to really work to any great degree we must totally ban party politics from it altogether. Party politics has no place in local government. I believe, as I you do Jay, that we would be much better served by independents with no politcal axe to grind. Of course I am not naive enough to think that this will ever happen but it would be good wouldn't it?
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I'm sure 'those in the know' will disagree as they always do but national party politics actually play very little part in the policies that are made at HBC for the most part. Party viewpoints may come out in heated debates but the local Labour group is simply made up of people who are flying that flag, not slavishly adhering to national party rules which tell us how to write policies. Despite our differences, I suspect the same is largely true of the Conservative group.
Local government is a totally different beast from Westminster.