POLITICS: What to do with your vote today
A doctor's mandate
The problem with most "Tory" councillors is that they are not instinctively Tory. Regular readers will know that this is pretty orthodox Lacklandism, but at this time of year, when the swines come chasing my vote, invariably with that classic slogan "Tory Councils Cost You Less" — right up there in the catalogue of disingenuous electioneering with "Because Schleswig-Holstein Cares: Vote National Socialist", but unfortunately one which has been allowed to run for more than a few brief weeks in 1932 — it is a matter of religious fervour. Indeed, on the morning of May 2nd, the gardens of Lackland House will once again play host to their most celebrated annual ritual, held on the first Friday of every May since 1962 (including 2001, when not even the postponement of the previous day's local elections, due to Foot and Mouth, could stop me), as twelve heretical "Tory" council candidates are burned at the stake. Champagne and canapes (Town Hall standard regulation vol-au-vents, naturally) will be served and you are all welcome to join me.
(Incidentally, far from being stopped by circumstances in 2001, I was able to ignite double my usual quota of bovine material, which blended into the atmosphere quite remarkably that noxious spring).
The plaintive squawks, which can be heard as the poor souls clutch their budget books while the flames go up, are invariably similar each year. "We wanted to cut the Council Tax, but the long-term projections of the Head of Finance suggested that it would be more cautious to increase expenditure at this stage" is a common one. I expect the protests to be more poignantly succinct this time. "It's all Prescott's fault!" will be the cry. Well, it takes one high-spending socialist to know another one, of course.
It is interesting to compare the tune being hummed in council chambers today with that of a decade ago. There were a lot more Labour councils in those days, but central Government, at least in its attitude to local authority expenditure, was still of an unmistakeably blue hue. Everything was nicely in place for a good old-fashioned clash of ideology, between a Tory government which aimed to put the lid on council spending, via the tool of Council Tax "capping", and (pre-New) Labour local administrations which hoped to do the opposite.
Thus, when capping compelled those Labour councils to make big cuts, they did so under the loudest protests. "Don't blame us, blame the Government" was the number which topped the municipal charts each year from around Christmas, when the annual budget process began, through February, when it was formalised, to May, when the elections took place. The message was relentless. Most Labour councillors are just as stupid as most Tory ones, but they tend to be far sharper at the political game. Though spending restrictions were very much against their instincts, they knew they were being provided with an opportunity, which they seized with cynical alacrity. Therefore, whilst as many of their pet looney left projects as possible survived the chop, there was always something headline-grabbing — an old folks' home here, a bus concession there — that became the sacrificial lamb to ensure that capping criteria were met while the evil Tory Government took the rap (and none of the credit for keeping down the Council Tax).
Fast forward to the early months of 2003 and we see, on the face of it, the same conditions, a central government from one party squaring up to local administrations from another, encouraging a reprise of that same old song. Funny, come to think of it, how many councillors look like Flanagan and Allen, but I digress; on Thursday, many of us will be asked to vote for Tory candidates so that they can implement spending programmes (and massive Council Tax increases), which, they would have us believe, they would never countenance, if not compelled to do so by central government.
But wait a minute. There is a difference between Labour cries of "don't blame us" then and "Tory" cries of "blame the Government" now. Whether or not they had to wield the knife precisely where they did, in the overriding analysis the Labour councils of the Nineties had no choice: they had to make x pounds' worth of cuts or capping would do the job for them. Without doubt, they really were doing what they did not want to do. All one has to do is examine their previous form. In the immediately preceding years, when the mistaken thinking behind the implementation of the poll tax was that public opinion would pin the blame for big rises upon councils rather than upon the Government, which had brought in the new system in the first place, Labour councils simply rubbed their hands and increased spending massively.
Now the wheel has come full circle and we have Tory councils hoping the public will blame the big rises in local tax upon a Labour Government. Unfortunately for those councils, they too have "previous" and it paints a rather less consistent picture than it once did for their cut-averse Labour predecessors.
The thing is, you see, unlike those old Labour administrations, today's Tory councils do have the choice either to do the Government's bidding or defy it. Yes, they have to carry out the new spending programmes which Whitehall has dumped on them. That much is true, but beyond it, they can choose to make room in their budgets either by putting up the Council Tax or by cutting expenditure elsewhere. It should be an easy decision, because these people — these "Tory" councillors — have a democratic mandate to cut expenditure. "Conservative councils cost you less", remember! It is not only why they were elected in the first place; it is how they chose to get themselves elected.
Well, it has indeed proved to be an easy decision, but for entirely the wrong reason. In the vast majority of cases, Conservative councillors say they stand for one thing on their election addresses and then demonstrate that they are instinctively the opposite once in power. All their "previous" suggests that, given the choice between serious tax cuts and ever-inflating budgets, most "Tory" councillors do not need John Prescott to bully them down the latter road.
Take Tandridge District Council in Surrey, for example. This impressive institution is led by one Gordon Keymer, CBE (and don't forget the CBE). Who he, you ask? Damned if I know, either, but I see from my notes that he is the nation's "leading Conservative councillor", the Chairman of the Conservative Councillors' Association, with a seat on the Party Board in recognition of this stunning political achievement. More pertinently, it casts him in the role of Government-Blamer-in-Chief.
Last year, Cllr Keymer wrote to The Daily Telegraph to complain that:
Since coming to power in 1997, Labour has placed on local councils a whole raft of regulations and burdens, most notably its concept of "best practice", that place additional costs on everything that local government does. It expects these measures to be implemented, but is failing to provide adequate funding for this process to occur.
By "best practice", one assumes Cllr Keymer means "Best Value", but leaving aside the alarming possibility that "Our Leading Conservative Councillor" cannot correctly name one of the most important pieces of local government legislation to be passed in the last six years, even when firing off a letter to the national press (and I do agree with him, by the way, that Best Value is indeed an insidious development), one wonders what other costs have been piled on poor old Tandridge, without "adequate funding" from Whitehall, only to be borne by the long-suffering Council Taxpayers.
Hmm, Gordon, the list couldn't include the 19% rise in the Councillors' Allowances budget, which you and your colleagues recently awarded yourselves, could it? I can see the blood draining from your face (or I could, if I knew what your face looked like) as you open the letter from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister:
Dear Counseler Keymer,I'm warnin you, right? Give yerself a massif pay rize or I'm gonna flamin send one o them counsel hit squads to sort yerz all out.
Yours e.g.
John Prescott
(I'm Depaty Pry Minster, I am!)
A 19% pay rise! Excuse me while I have another ersatz-Kinnock moment. A Tory Council! A Tory Council awarding itself a 19% pay rise! Oh, calm down, Lackland. If only your surprise were genuine. The fact is that this sort of behaviour has increased, not decreased, with the number of new Tory councils coming to power over the last three or four years (though, needless to say, more officially socialist or liberal councils are no better).
Tandridge went Tory, allegedly, in 2000. The new administration's first budget, the following year, put just under 10% on the Council Tax, despite — and here's the rub — the Government almost doubling the District's Revenue Support Grant from £306,000 to £573,000. No doubt, the budget did have to include new Whitehall-imposed costs, but given the felicitous brace of circumstances — the big increase in RSG and a new Tory administration which, if it had been true to what assuredly would have been a key election pledge (go on, say it with me . . . Con-ser-va-tive-Coun-cils-Cost-You . . .), would have spent the preceding nine months taking a sharp knife to a budget fattened by several years of LibDemmery — should the poor old CT payers really have ended up being stung by another 10% hike?
If this is how "Our Leading Conservative Councillor" thinks a Tory council should be run, then no wonder we have seen the dismal pattern repeated in "Tory" councils up and down the land.
And no wonder that the few who bother to turn out to vote on 1st May (or, more to the point, the many who do not, as well) will be giving a very hearty raspberry to the idea that this year's further big Council Tax rises are all the fault of the Government. They know as well as any of my star pupils that the smokescreen makes life so much easier for all those "Tory" administrations who have, at best, just wasted yet another year letting things tick over, instead of summoning up the energy (and, perhaps, the courage) to do the job they were elected to do. These people are just minding the shop, until the more political beasts from the other parties, the ones who really are prepared to sit up all night in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms to fulfil their mandate, one day take over again. It's a crying shame.
Why is it like this? It's time to go back to the tenet of Lacklandite orthodoxy with which I began. Most "Tory" councillors are not instinctively Tory and, yes, there is a fairly obvious reason. Instinctive Tories recoil at the idea of big government, sticking its nose into people's lives. Local government takes these unattractive traits into the micro-commanding depths. With a few honourable exceptions, standing for the council appeals most to those busybodies who enjoy informing their fellow human beings that planning rule 43a, subsection 8c, prohibits the use of uPVC on their side porch. Such people are not Tories. I've said it before and I'll say it again: local government is not the antidote to big government; it is big government with knobs on (pun retrospectively intended).
When, therefore, shortly before the local election campaign began, a leaked bulletin from Theresa May to Conservative Associations revealed that the Party was struggling more than ever to field sufficient candidates in many areas (I nearly wrote "adequate candidates", but that battle was given up years ago), it should have come as no surprise to instinctive Tories. We have looked on despairingly at our Associations' annual operation, "Codename: How About Mrs. Jones?" This invariably runs along the following lines:
"We need someone for Lower Buttock and St. Michael Ward""How about Mrs. Jones? She is very nice and she came with her friend to our Bring And Buy Sale once"
(The following two lines of dialogue are optional and therefore presented in parentheses)
("Is she Tory?")
("I'm not sure, but she always wears nice hats")
"Let's ask her, then."
No, the shortfall should have come as no surprise to instinctive Tories, but we are talking here about the current Party Chairman. Whilst the first part of her leaked bulletin provoked no more than a knowing chuckle from me, the conclusion had me throwing my hands up in horror. The Chairman of the Party, the (oh-oh, here it comes again - wouldn't life have been so much simpler for Dr. Banner if smouldering rage had turned him not into the Hulk, but merely into the Incredible Kinnock?) Chairman of the PARTY, offered to write personally to persuade "Conservative-supporting Independents to stand for us."
Nothing could demonstrate more clearly a failure to understand why so many so-called "Conservative" councillors are nothing of the sort and why so many so-called "Conservative" councils have done so little that is truly Conservative in the last few years. But Mrs. May is a former Tory councillor of recent vintage and that, dear reader, is where we came in.
Dr Lackland's Concise Guide to voting in the English local elections: I would never advise anyone to vote Labour, even in the many two-way council contests with "Tory" candidates where that will be the less left-wing option, and I would rather pick apples from dawn to dusk in Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart's orchard than suggest that anyone should vote Lib Dem. In fact, one encounters the occasional LG member who is genuinely Tory and who, being such a rare martyr to the cause, tends to be on their council to do very nobly Conservative things indeed (propose its abolition, for example). For these few giants, I would willingly be at the polling station at 7am to cast my vote, but I should never be so presumptuous as to point them out to ERO readers, who are quite capable of discerning such virtue unaided. When it comes to voting for the rest of the lumpen mass which passes for local Tory elected representation (for whom no truer word will be spoken than when "Con" appears next to their name in the results in the local rag on Friday), I can only advise readers to spend Thursday doing their normal routine, crack open a bottle in the evening, put their feet up (I believe "Eastenders" goes out that night) and sigh contentedly, safe in the knowledge that, having done their bit for small government, for true local democracy and for Conservatism, they are, whatever the boneheads at Cchange say, part of a very large majority indeed.
Dr Noel Lackland is ERO's local government correspondent, and campaigns for residents to be formally warned whenever a councillor moves into their neighbourhood.
Noel Lackland, May 1, 2003 02:35 PM