Councils are accountable
Sir: Rod Liddle often entertains us, but his tirade against local government (Liddle Britain, 26 July) was an undoubted masterpiece of missing the point. He is quite entitled to dislike the decisions taken by local councils across the country — and can do something about it. Because what does set Liddle’s local councillors apart is that he is free to vote them out if he doesn’t like what they do. The alternative — unless he would prefer not to have his bin emptied, his street cleaned, his elderly relatives cared for at all — is the faceless Whitehall ‘delivery chain’ of quangos and regulators; and look at its track record of achievement. We are rath er surprised that someone as vocal as Mr Liddle appears not to want to have a voice. We prefer democracy any day.
Sir Simon Milton
Chairman, Local Government Association London SW1
Sir: Good on Rod Liddle for saying the words that politicians dare not speak: ‘All local government should be abolished’. Successive governments have tinkered with the system but it is the system that has to go. Bloated, crass and grossly expensive, local government fails in all that it does. To add insult to injury, no institution does more to desecrate the environment, with its clutter of needless signs, overflowing wheelie bins lining the streets, and parks that bear all the marks of a scorched earth policy.
True to form, it is local government workers who are first to claim above-inflation pay rises. Pickets of workers in yellow jackets stand outside their town halls, with posters exhorting motorists to honk in support. They must be joking.
Dennis Hardy
Via email
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