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It's that time when people try to get motions in through local parties for spring conference, and Oxford East Lib Dems have asked for some suggestions. So, following on from my "Abolish DCLG" petition, and acknowledging that you can't really have proper devolution and localization without freeing up areas like Health, Education and local Policing from central control, here is an expanded version in all its daft draft glory.

Local devolution, autonomy and innovation

A. Conference believes that:

i. a defining principle of a functioning democracy is that government is legitimate only with the consent of the people governed expressed through regular elections,

ii. that in the United Kingdom, the people give their mandate in respect of local governance issues to local councillors,

iii. competition between local government areas and the innovation this will foster is a significant catalyst for strengthening local democracy and improving the working and cost effectiveness of local government,

iv. since the early twentieth century governments at Westminster of all political parties have imposed increasingly more conditions on local government bodies and centralized increasingly more of their powers and functions,

v. in many respects local government now only functions on the sufferance of Whitehall and Westminster politicians, and as such is enslaved by conformity,

vi. but that notwithstanding v) above, Westminster tends to place the blame for problems in local government on the elected local representatives who have so little control over what they are able to do,

vii. that this fundamentally undermines public confidence in and respect for local government and elected local representatives and is an affront to democracy;

B. Conference notes that:

i. the Liberal Democrats have made a strong start in redressing the issues of inappropriate centralization and regulation with our policy of abolishing the Department of Trade and Industry and more recently our pledge to repeal much business and law and order related legislation,

ii. the Liberal Democrats aim to position ourselves as champions of localism and devolution and against overbearing regulation at whatever level of government;

C. Conference resolves that:

the party should extend its policies around freedom from excessive regulation, particularly in respect of functions that are included in the mandate given to local elected representatives, by adopting policy to

i. abolish the Department of Communities and Local Government

ii. slash the powers of the Department for Education and Skills in respect of primary and secondary education for which accountability lies with local government and local school governors,

iii. slash the powers of the Department of Health in respect of management of health facilities and services that need to respond to needs of local people rather than national targets,

iv. slash the powers of the Home Office in respect of management of police forces,

v. localize many social security benefits and pay policies that impose universal entitlements regardless of need and cost of living in different parts of the country

vi. (...insert further clauses for pet Whitehall functions that could be localized here...)

vii. and allow local elected representatives and their communities to devise their own constitutional arrangements, including but not limited to electoral systems and cycles, tax and finance raising powers and mechanisms, and governance structures, including further devolution to other local bodies and co-operation between local government bodies, to be enshrined in a renewal of their individual local government charters independently of Whitehall regulation and interference (and subject primarily to peer review through a strengthened Local Government Association).

Jock Coats, 30th November, 2006

Rush Limbaugh really ought to stay away from stories about other peoples' legitimate drug consumption.

From ConservativeHome - an update on those grassroots surveys of the social policy paper:

Members divided on tax allowance for same sex couples:

"Only 564 members answered this question compared to the 1,417 who answered the questions highlighted earlier today.  The question was added to the survey a number of hours after the survey had gone live - following David Cameron's suggestion on Channel 4 News that any married couples' allowance would also benefit same sex couples who had entered civil partnerships.

"37% of the respondents agreed with David Cameron that any allowance should benefit such same sex couples but 49% did not agree that gay couples should receive the allowance.  A further 10% of this population of 564 disagreed with any tax allowance for married or same sex couples."

Unless, of course, these are the Tories that wanted to have full-blown marriage for same sex couples as well instead of civil partnerships. But somehow, methinks it's the old majors and blue stockings choking on their Cornflakes at the thought of those queers getting the same treatment as married couples.

I wonder if the answers would be any different if, say, the proposed allowance were only available for couples, of any gender, raising children?

Technorati Tags: conservatives, civil partnerships, tories

...it's Parliament that makes the decisions.

I don't know how many times he's used this excuse in his interview with John Sopel so far. Detention without trial, ASBOs, House of Lords reform - "the government puts forward its policies but parliament makes the decision".

On the one hand, at least there is someone in the government that recognizes this basic tenet of the British democratic system, but on the other, we work on a majoritarian system; if government can't persuade its own people who are in that majority, surely it's not parliament to blame, but the government not putting forward policies even their own people can support.

Excuses.

Technorati Tags: house of lords, politics, ASBO, liberty

Would someone give me a job developing ideas for the future. Here's another one I prepared earlier:

It seems that the transmission loss problem is a little less daunting using High Voltage Direct Current - I work out that southern Morocco to London would involve about a 7% transmission loss in a more or less straight line over land. Sounds like it has potential to me.