johng
Labour
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Post by johng on Dec 13, 2021 22:09:04 GMT
I am always shocked when people come out with stuff like this because nobody can legitimately believe it is true. The current system breeds lack of accountability and lack of responsiveness. If you asked the average person on the street...
Who's the leader of the local council? / Who chairs the education committee of the local council? / What powers does the chair of that committee have? / What powers do the unelected officers have?
I'd be surprised if one in a hundred could give an answer. Even fewer would be right. Yet, we are expected to believe that the current system is accountable. It's doesn't pass the most basic sniff test. In fact, I think a few too many councillors like the current system due to the lack of accountability.
I would never say directly elected mayors were perfect (and shudder at the thought of calling them governors!), but I do think there are a lot of benefits when it comes to democracy.
Or in other words, something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it. Sounds logic there. One person making decisions is less democratic and accountable than several people being involved, because different voices are being listened to. If we keep going down this road, before long we will have a directly elected executive president. I don't know how to respond to the first part. I didn't make that point and I don't get the sense behind it.
The second part either shows exceptional naivety or, at best, stretches the idea of 'accountable' and 'democratic' beyond the realms of any dictionary definition. Several nameless/ faceless people jointly making a decision is in no way more 'democratic and accountable' than one well-known individual making that decision. I don't think anyone sensible would argue for the sole power in any authority to be a single person North Korea style. Obviously, there would be some legislative counter-balance and smaller-scale local representation like the London Assembly.
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peterl
Green
Congratulations President Trump
Posts: 8,474
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Post by peterl on Dec 13, 2021 22:13:21 GMT
Or in other words, something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it. Sounds logic there. One person making decisions is less democratic and accountable than several people being involved, because different voices are being listened to. If we keep going down this road, before long we will have a directly elected executive president. I don't know how to respond to the first part. I didn't make that point and I don't get the sense behind it. The second part either shows exceptional naivety or, at best, stretches the idea of 'accountable' and 'democratic' beyond the realms of any dictionary definition. Several nameless/ faceless people jointly making a decision is in no way more 'democratic and accountable' than one well-known individual making that decision. I don't think anyone sensible would argue for the sole power in any authority to be a single person North Korea style. Obviously, there would be some legislative counter-balance and smaller-scale local representation like the London Assembly.
Having multiple people making decisions means different geographic areas are represented. It means different political views can be represented. Its means different expertise are brought to the table. It means ideas can be talked about before policies are introduced. It means a discursive process rather than a top-down elective dictatorship. One person in charge is not democracy - a word meaning rule by the people for goodness sake. These proposals are basically autocracy. |
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johng
Labour
Posts: 4,850
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Post by johng on Dec 13, 2021 22:44:46 GMT
Having multiple people making decisions means different geographic areas are represented. It means different political views can be represented. Its means different expertise are brought to the table. It means ideas can be talked about before policies are introduced. It means a discursive process rather than a top-down elective dictatorship. One person in charge is not democracy - a word meaning rule by the people for goodness sake. These proposals are basically autocracy. Don't take this the wrong way, but your exceptional naivety is on display here. Do you actually believe that happens in councils up and down Britain?
For one, councils have very little actual power and are chained by central government and financial constraints. Any change of structure should be aligned with devolution of (real) power to local government and it seems these proposals go some way in that direction.
Today, policies are still top-down. Many from unelected and wholly unaccountable officers and others from political leadership. If you, as a Green, were elected you wouldn't be involved in discussions and wouldn't bring 'expertise' to the table.
Any elected mayor wouldn't operate alone. They would still appoint a cabinet. They would still have advisors. They would still have ideas scrutinised and approved by a council/ assembly. Policies would be put forward to the public in a clear manner and the winner of the election would have a clear mandate to put those policies forward. The public would have a clear idea who to praise and blame. They would be less in the thrall of officers.
If you mean democracy in the sense it was used originally, no country does. It's a totally baseless argument.
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peterl
Green
Congratulations President Trump
Posts: 8,474
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Post by peterl on Dec 13, 2021 23:10:09 GMT
Having multiple people making decisions means different geographic areas are represented. It means different political views can be represented. Its means different expertise are brought to the table. It means ideas can be talked about before policies are introduced. It means a discursive process rather than a top-down elective dictatorship. One person in charge is not democracy - a word meaning rule by the people for goodness sake. These proposals are basically autocracy. Don't take this the wrong way, but your exceptional naivety is on display here. Do you actually believe that happens in councils up and down Britain?
For one, councils have very little actual power and are chained by central government and financial constraints. Any change of structure should be aligned with devolution of (real) power to local government and it seems these proposals go some way in that direction.
Today, policies are still top-down. Many from unelected and wholly unaccountable officers and others from political leadership. If you, as a Green, were elected you wouldn't be involved in discussions and wouldn't bring 'expertise' to the table. Any elected mayor wouldn't operate alone. They would still appoint a cabinet. They would still have advisors. They would still have ideas scrutinised and approved by a council/ assembly. Policies would be put forward to the public in a clear manner and the winner of the election would have a clear mandate to put those policies forward. The public would have a clear idea who to praise and blame. They would be less in the thrall of officers. If you mean democracy in the sense it was used originally, no country does. It's a totally baseless argument.
Firstly, this is not devolution. Its a horrible hodge podge of different ideas being badly implemented in a quilt-like fashion across the country - an elected mayor here, a combined authority there, a so-called "devolution deal" over to the side. None of it is devolution, its at best an experiment, at worst a cynical attempt to push the power upwards away from elected councillors. A council can be a democratic structure. There are various things that can prevent this. The cabinet was not a great innovation, though some councils are moving away from this now. Ignorant councillors can be awed by officers, but training and experience can overcome this. What we don't need is one person in a office somewhere deciding everything. We need open discussion, open debate, democracy. |
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johng
Labour
Posts: 4,850
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Post by johng on Dec 14, 2021 0:36:45 GMT
Don't take this the wrong way, but your exceptional naivety is on display here. Do you actually believe that happens in councils up and down Britain?
For one, councils have very little actual power and are chained by central government and financial constraints. Any change of structure should be aligned with devolution of (real) power to local government and it seems these proposals go some way in that direction.
Today, policies are still top-down. Many from unelected and wholly unaccountable officers and others from political leadership. If you, as a Green, were elected you wouldn't be involved in discussions and wouldn't bring 'expertise' to the table. Any elected mayor wouldn't operate alone. They would still appoint a cabinet. They would still have advisors. They would still have ideas scrutinised and approved by a council/ assembly. Policies would be put forward to the public in a clear manner and the winner of the election would have a clear mandate to put those policies forward. The public would have a clear idea who to praise and blame. They would be less in the thrall of officers. If you mean democracy in the sense it was used originally, no country does. It's a totally baseless argument.
Firstly, this is not devolution. Its a horrible hodge podge of different ideas being badly implemented in a quilt-like fashion across the country - an elected mayor here, a combined authority there, a so-called "devolution deal" over to the side. None of it is devolution, its at best an experiment, at worst a cynical attempt to push the power upwards away from elected councillors. A council can be a democratic structure. There are various things that can prevent this. The cabinet was not a great innovation, though some councils are moving away from this now. Ignorant councillors can be awed by officers, but training and experience can overcome this. What we don't need is one person in a office somewhere deciding everything. We need open discussion, open debate, democracy. We have a Conservative government headed by Boris Johnson. It's never going to be anything other than a dog's dinner.
You're right it *can* be a democratic structure, but I think you'll find it seldom is.
And as I said above, the idea that a mayor is 'one person deciding everything' is total nonsense. A mayor does not preclude open discussion and debate and, as again I stated above, enhances democracy.
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peterl
Green
Congratulations President Trump
Posts: 8,474
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Post by peterl on Dec 14, 2021 1:16:22 GMT
Firstly, this is not devolution. Its a horrible hodge podge of different ideas being badly implemented in a quilt-like fashion across the country - an elected mayor here, a combined authority there, a so-called "devolution deal" over to the side. None of it is devolution, its at best an experiment, at worst a cynical attempt to push the power upwards away from elected councillors. A council can be a democratic structure. There are various things that can prevent this. The cabinet was not a great innovation, though some councils are moving away from this now. Ignorant councillors can be awed by officers, but training and experience can overcome this. What we don't need is one person in a office somewhere deciding everything. We need open discussion, open debate, democracy. We have a Conservative government headed by Boris Johnson. It's never going to be anything other than a dog's dinner.
You're right it *can* be a democratic structure, but I think you'll find it seldom is.
And as I said above, the idea that a mayor is 'one person deciding everything' is total nonsense. A mayor does not preclude open discussion and debate and, as again I stated above, enhances democracy.
Here's something to consider. A council leader can be removed by the council in a vote of no confidence, a tool which may be useful for a variety of reasons including personal scandals or general incompetence. An elected mayor can not be. If a mayor is elected who turns out to be useless, it could be years before there is the possibility of removing them. That's one pretty major way in which a mayor is less accountable. |
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Post by John Chanin on Dec 14, 2021 7:58:03 GMT
There has always been a strong lobby for directly elected "mayors" (or whatever you want to call them). But it is a lobby dominated almost entirely by senior members of the Conservative and Labour parties, who are centralist to their very core.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Dec 14, 2021 9:35:02 GMT
Indeed, and we see similar situations on the fringes of Nottingham (where Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe are involved) and Leicester (Charnwood and Blaby). Controversial maybe, but I feel there are quite a few ‘pointless’ councils out there (Oadby and Wigston being number one). Understand the issue of taking large suburbs out of a district leaving a sparse, population-poor rural area, but Broxtowe and Gedling as a whole should just be part of Nottingham. And the current situation for Nottingham itself is that it sometimes comes up top of ‘most deprived’ rankings because the boundaries are so tight and there are few affluent areas, but a disproportionate number of commuters come in and use council services/facilities every day. Rushcliffe is a difficult one as adding the whole district would be too rural and not fitting of ‘Nottingham’ and only taking W.Bridgford would leave very little left as said before it also would be too remote to join Newark/Sherwood, if anything those rural parts are closer to Loughborough. In the North, one could argue for Hucknall joining Nottingham but that’s a big chunk of Ashfield too, but there perhaps what’s left of Ashfield could join Mansfield to become… Mashfield? This is one of the issues with treating existing districts as sacrosanct, so it's difficult to split them up even when necessary. Personally, I'd take a slightly more expansive approach and disregard county boundaries where they don't match up to real interactions - so bits of Rushcliffe that are closest to Loughborough may as well be administered from there (or to take the Warwickshire example, Banbury is the local centre for much of South Oxfordshire, whereas Warwick & Leamington is firmly within the orbit of Coventry.) Traditional county boundaries are important for cricket, but that's about it. |
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Post by gerrardwinstanley on Dec 14, 2021 10:26:30 GMT
Controversial maybe, but I feel there are quite a few ‘pointless’ councils out there (Oadby and Wigston being number one). Understand the issue of taking large suburbs out of a district leaving a sparse, population-poor rural area, but Broxtowe and Gedling as a whole should just be part of Nottingham. And the current situation for Nottingham itself is that it sometimes comes up top of ‘most deprived’ rankings because the boundaries are so tight and there are few affluent areas, but a disproportionate number of commuters come in and use council services/facilities every day. Rushcliffe is a difficult one as adding the whole district would be too rural and not fitting of ‘Nottingham’ and only taking W.Bridgford would leave very little left as said before it also would be too remote to join Newark/Sherwood, if anything those rural parts are closer to Loughborough. In the North, one could argue for Hucknall joining Nottingham but that’s a big chunk of Ashfield too, but there perhaps what’s left of Ashfield could join Mansfield to become… Mashfield? This is one of the issues with treating existing districts as sacrosanct, so it's difficult to split them up even when necessary. Personally, I'd take a slightly more expansive approach and disregard county boundaries where they don't match up to real interactions - so bits of Rushcliffe that are closest to Loughborough may as well be administered from there (or to take the Warwickshire example, Banbury is the local centre for much of South Oxfordshire, whereas Warwick & Leamington is firmly within the orbit of Coventry.) Traditional county boundaries are important for cricket, but that's about it. North Oxfordshire* |
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Post by islington on Dec 14, 2021 10:34:14 GMT
Controversial maybe, but I feel there are quite a few ‘pointless’ councils out there (Oadby and Wigston being number one). Understand the issue of taking large suburbs out of a district leaving a sparse, population-poor rural area, but Broxtowe and Gedling as a whole should just be part of Nottingham. And the current situation for Nottingham itself is that it sometimes comes up top of ‘most deprived’ rankings because the boundaries are so tight and there are few affluent areas, but a disproportionate number of commuters come in and use council services/facilities every day. Rushcliffe is a difficult one as adding the whole district would be too rural and not fitting of ‘Nottingham’ and only taking W.Bridgford would leave very little left as said before it also would be too remote to join Newark/Sherwood, if anything those rural parts are closer to Loughborough. In the North, one could argue for Hucknall joining Nottingham but that’s a big chunk of Ashfield too, but there perhaps what’s left of Ashfield could join Mansfield to become… Mashfield? This is one of the issues with treating existing districts as sacrosanct, so it's difficult to split them up even when necessary. Personally, I'd take a slightly more expansive approach and disregard county boundaries where they don't match up to real interactions - so bits of Rushcliffe that are closest to Loughborough may as well be administered from there (or to take the Warwickshire example, Banbury is the local centre for much of South Oxfordshire, whereas Warwick & Leamington is firmly within the orbit of Coventry.) Traditional county boundaries are important for cricket, but that's about it. This is a common misperception.
At one time there were qualifying rules, generally based on birth or residence, about who could play for a particular county club. So in those days the county boundary made a material difference and it was reasonable to regard each club as representing its eponymous county. But those rules were done away with decades ago, so while the clubs are still named after counties this is merely for reasons of history and sentiment - the actual counties themselves are no longer relevant.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Dec 14, 2021 10:44:33 GMT
This is one of the issues with treating existing districts as sacrosanct, so it's difficult to split them up even when necessary. Personally, I'd take a slightly more expansive approach and disregard county boundaries where they don't match up to real interactions - so bits of Rushcliffe that are closest to Loughborough may as well be administered from there (or to take the Warwickshire example, Banbury is the local centre for much of South Oxfordshire, whereas Warwick & Leamington is firmly within the orbit of Coventry.) Traditional county boundaries are important for cricket, but that's about it. North Oxfordshire* You're right that there's an error there, but what I actually meant was South Warwickshire. |
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Post by John Chanin on Dec 14, 2021 11:11:04 GMT
You're right that there's an error there, but what I actually meant was South Warwickshire. Not really. It's on the wrong side of the Cotswolds. Most of the villages in south Warwickshire look to Stratford. |
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jamie
Top Poster
Posts: 7,069
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Post by jamie on Dec 14, 2021 12:21:58 GMT
Can we not have council mergers and unitarisation without the elected mayors/wannabe American governor’s crap?
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Dec 14, 2021 12:23:56 GMT
You're right that there's an error there, but what I actually meant was South Warwickshire. Not really. It's on the wrong side of the Cotswolds. Most of the villages in south Warwickshire look to Stratford. But Stratford is pretty tiny, so for major shops most people will go to Banbury - certainly in the eastern half of the district, where it's an easy drive down the M40. |
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bsjmcr
Non-Aligned
Posts: 1,593
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Post by bsjmcr on Dec 14, 2021 12:32:04 GMT
Indeed, and we see similar situations on the fringes of Nottingham (where Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe are involved) and Leicester (Charnwood and Blaby). Controversial maybe, but I feel there are quite a few ‘pointless’ councils out there (Oadby and Wigston being number one). Understand the issue of taking large suburbs out of a district leaving a sparse, population-poor rural area, but Broxtowe and Gedling as a whole should just be part of Nottingham. And the current situation for Nottingham itself is that it sometimes comes up top of ‘most deprived’ rankings because the boundaries are so tight and there are few affluent areas, but a disproportionate number of commuters come in and use council services/facilities every day. Rushcliffe is a difficult one as adding the whole district would be too rural and not fitting of ‘Nottingham’ and only taking W.Bridgford would leave very little left as said before it also would be too remote to join Newark/Sherwood, if anything those rural parts are closer to Loughborough. In the North, one could argue for Hucknall joining Nottingham but that’s a big chunk of Ashfield too, but there perhaps what’s left of Ashfield could join Mansfield to become… Mashfield? Following on from this I do find it funny when so many MPs, Councillors, the public, etc call for a split of Kirklees into Huddersfield/Dewsbury, when if anything what would be more likely in future would be a merger with (relatively undersized) Calderdale. What that council would be called is anyone’s guess… Four Rivers? Pennines? Western Yorkshire? Huddersfax? Equally laughable was the new Tory MP for Leigh’s call for a split from Wigan… good luck with that. Wigan is big in itself but it is my own borough of Bury that is the relatively odd one in GM, allegedly it was originally meant to be part of Rochdale, or should that be Botchdale. I could envisage Prestwich and Whitefield joining Manchester and the rest joining Bolton if not Rochdale. Middleton ought to also belong to Manchester too. Tameside I guess given it’s relatively odd identity (or lack thereof) could be another candidate for splitting off into others, into Manchester (Denton, Audenshaw), Stockport (Staly/Hyde), and Ashton and Droylsden (and Mossley given it’s wannabe Saddleworth status) into Oldham. |
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Post by John Chanin on Dec 14, 2021 12:35:56 GMT
Not really. It's on the wrong side of the Cotswolds. Most of the villages in south Warwickshire look to Stratford. But Stratford is pretty tiny, so for major shops most people will go to Banbury - certainly in the eastern half of the district, where it's an easy drive down the M40. Still don't think so. For the most part they will go to Leamington, which has better shops than Banbury. |
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Post by swindonlad on Dec 14, 2021 14:31:54 GMT
This is one of the issues with treating existing districts as sacrosanct, so it's difficult to split them up even when necessary. Personally, I'd take a slightly more expansive approach and disregard county boundaries where they don't match up to real interactions - so bits of Rushcliffe that are closest to Loughborough may as well be administered from there (or to take the Warwickshire example, Banbury is the local centre for much of South Oxfordshire, whereas Warwick & Leamington is firmly within the orbit of Coventry.) Traditional county boundaries are important for cricket, but that's about it. This is a common misperception. At one time there were qualifying rules, generally based on birth or residence, about who could play for a particular county club. So in those days the county boundary made a material difference and it was reasonable to regard each club as representing its eponymous county. But those rules were done away with decades ago, so while the clubs are still named after counties this is merely for reasons of history and sentiment - the actual counties themselves are no longer relevant.
You'd need to go back to the 14th century to get county boundaries to match cricket counties, that, I suggest would be a tad extreme |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Dec 14, 2021 15:05:39 GMT
But Stratford is pretty tiny, so for major shops most people will go to Banbury - certainly in the eastern half of the district, where it's an easy drive down the M40. Still don't think so. For the most part they will go to Leamington, which has better shops than Banbury. I can tell you from the large amounts of family members I have living in the area that they do indeed go to Banbury. Leamington is a bigger urban centre, but Banbury is still a draw. That said, checking TTWA maps suggests this may be changing - for older age groups Banbury is either its own TTWA or in the same one as Stratford and Warwick, but for younger age groups Banbury is more closely associated with Oxford. |
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Post by bjornhattan on Dec 14, 2021 15:51:17 GMT
Still don't think so. For the most part they will go to Leamington, which has better shops than Banbury. I can tell you from the large amounts of family members I have living in the area that they do indeed go to Banbury. Leamington is a bigger urban centre, but Banbury is still a draw. That said, checking TTWA maps suggests this may be changing - for older age groups Banbury is either its own TTWA or in the same one as Stratford and Warwick, but for younger age groups Banbury is more closely associated with Oxford. Probably understandable - Banbury is a (relatively) cheap place to live compared with Oxford, but the latter has a larger job market, particularly for higher end work. Looking at the various TTWA maps, Banbury is part of Oxford's commuter belt for graduates but not for those without degrees, which would back that up. Though to return to the matter at hand, if anywhere should go into an expanded Banbury-based district, it should be the far west of Northants. Brackley, Middleton Cheney, and Woodford Halse have stronger links with Banbury than they do with Northampton. For example, they're almost always grouped with Banbury for travel to work, and Brackley's main bus links are with Banbury (2 buses per hour) rather than Northampton (2 buses per day). |
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piperdave
SNP
Dalkeith; Midlothian/North & Musselburgh
Posts: 911
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Post by piperdave on Dec 14, 2021 17:43:49 GMT
Controversial maybe, but I feel there are quite a few ‘pointless’ councils out there (Oadby and Wigston being number one). Understand the issue of taking large suburbs out of a district leaving a sparse, population-poor rural area, but Broxtowe and Gedling as a whole should just be part of Nottingham. And the current situation for Nottingham itself is that it sometimes comes up top of ‘most deprived’ rankings because the boundaries are so tight and there are few affluent areas, but a disproportionate number of commuters come in and use council services/facilities every day. Rushcliffe is a difficult one as adding the whole district would be too rural and not fitting of ‘Nottingham’ and only taking W.Bridgford would leave very little left as said before it also would be too remote to join Newark/Sherwood, if anything those rural parts are closer to Loughborough. In the North, one could argue for Hucknall joining Nottingham but that’s a big chunk of Ashfield too, but there perhaps what’s left of Ashfield could join Mansfield to become… Mashfield? Following on from this I do find it funny when so many MPs, Councillors, the public, etc call for a split of Kirklees into Huddersfield/Dewsbury, when if anything what would be more likely in future would be a merger with (relatively undersized) Calderdale. What that council would be called is anyone’s guess… Four Rivers? Pennines? Western Yorkshire? Huddersfax? It's probably the easiest of all. Call it Kirklees. After all, Kirklees Priory after which the council is named is located in Calderdale. |
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