Annie said she had her own troubles with local government too, in our constituency. Its the Town Hall. Theyve just cancelled the Old Peoples Christmas Party.
I was shocked. Why?
Something about new staff overtime agreements. They said it was all your fault. If you gave them the money, theyd have the party.
Thats exactly what I complain about! Its so unfair. Every piece of stupidity and incompetence in every Town hall in Britain is supposedly my fault. And yet I have virtually no control over them. Im going to ask Dorothy to do a think paper on local government for me. Tomorrow!
November 6th
I had a most instructive meeting with Dorothy today. She had plenty to tell me about local government -- apparently shes been thinking about it for months, knowing that Id get around to it sooner or later.
In a nutshell, she began, there is a sort of gentlemans agreement that the officials wont tell how incompetent the politicians are so long as the politicians dont tell how idle the officials are.
Just like here at Number Ten, I thought. I asked Dorothy what, if anything, we could do about it.
Do you really want to know?
I was surprised by the question. Of course I do.
Its a Them and Us situation. The Local Authorities ought to be Us.
I was confused. Did she mean Us the people or Us the government?
In a democracy, Dorothy pointed out quite reasonably, that ought to be the same thing.
All very well in theory, but we all know that it never is. It turned out that she meant Us the people. Local Authorities ought to be running things for Us, they ought to be part of Us but theyre not, theyre running things for Them. For their convenience, for their benefit.
I knew that. Everyone knows that. But what was the answer? Fight them?
No, said Dorothy, turn Them into Us.
I was confused. I asked for an example.
Suppose you want to stop a major government project, she said. What do you do?
Thats easy, I said. Join the Civil Service.
She laughed. No, seriously, if youre an ordinary person?
I cant remember what that was like, I confessed.
She asked me to imagine that I was an ordinary person. That wasnt awfully easy either.
Imagine that you want to stop a road-widening scheme. Or a new airport being built near your house. What do you do?
I couldnt think of anything much. Write to my MP? I suggested hopefully.
She wasnt impressed. And that does the trick?
Of course not, I admitted. After all, I know Id never take much notice of that. But surely thats what ordinary people do, theyre stupid. [Hacker apparently never considered the personal implications of that remark: the cause and effect relationship of a stupid electorate and his own election Ed.]
What Dorothy was driving at was this: what ordinary people do is form a group to fight official plans they dont want. The group represents the local people. The Local Authority, on the other hand, does not represent the local people, only the local political parties!
When the local community really cares about an issue it forms a committee, Dorothy said. It makes individual members of that committee responsible for finding the views of a couple of hundred households each. They go round the streets and talk to people, on the doorsteps and in the supermarket; they drum up support and raise money. Now, how is this committee different from the local council?
Theyre decent sensible people, I said.
What else? she asked.
They know the people they represent, I said.
Thats right, said Dorothy. So they do what the people who voted for them actually want done. And the money they raise isnt like rates, because they spend it on what people actually want it spent on. Why? Because its their money. Local councils overspend because theyre spending other peoples money.
Shes right, of course, for instance, the ordinary people in my neighbourhood at home would love the old folks to have their Christmas party. But the Town Hall would rather spend the money on a new Town Hall, or a fact-finding mission to the Bahamas.
I see what you mean, I said. Abolish the councils and put everything under the control of Central Government. [Hacker had completely missed the point. That would have been Sir Humphreys solution Ed.]
But Dorothys idea was even more radical. The idea is to return power to the ordinary people and take it away from the Town Hall machine. Make local government genuinely accountable. And she produced this months edition of Political Review. In it theres an article by someone called Professor Marriott. His plan is this:
1. Create City Villages little voting districts with approximately 200 households in each district.
2. Create Village Councils each council elected by the two hundred households.
3. Give each Village Council money a thousand pounds a year, taken out of the rates or local taxes, just to spend on their own little area, a couple of streets, a city village.
4. The Chairperson of the Village Council becomes the Borough Councillor this means that there would be five or six hundred councillors to a borough. Just like Parliament.
5. Elect an Executive Council for the Borough this means that every local authority would have a parliament and a cabinet.
It sounded very appealing, though I wasnt too excited about the idea of a parliament electing a cabinet. That would be carrying participation to a ridiculous extreme and would set a very dangerous precedent. Dorothy insisted that it was the answer to local government. The result would be that every councillor would be in door-to-door touch with the people who voted for them.
Shes right. Its brilliant. Who would ever vote for Agnes Moorhouse if they had actually met her? [More people probably Ed.] And the implications are tremendous! This could be like the Great Reform Act of 1832. All of these councils are, in fact, rotten boroughs -- with half a dozen people in local parties deciding who shall go to the Town Hall for four years.
If I bring this off I shall be the Great Reformer. I see it now. Hackers Reform Bill. A place in the history books. I shall present it myself. I immediately had ideas for how to open the debate, which I tried out on Dorothy.
The strength of Britain does not lie in offices and institutions. It lies in the stout hearts and strong wills of the yeomen
She interrupted. Women have the vote too.
And yeowomen That didnt sound right. Yeopeople, yeopersons I rephrased it. The people of our island race. On the broad and wise shoulders
She interrupted me again. Shoulders cant have wisdom.
I pressed on. On their broad shoulders and wise hearts heads, in their strong hearts and wise heads lies destiny. We must trust their simple wisdom. We must give back power to the people. She applauded.
Dorothy, I said humbly. Im proud to be the man who will introduce this new system. What shall we call it?
Democracy, she said. And her blue eyes sparkled.
SIR BERNARD WOOLLEY RECALLS [in conversation with the Editors]:
Whitehall, the most secretive square mile in the world, was paradoxically a sieve. And it was not long before Sir Humphrey Appleby heard that Dorothy Wainwright had recommended Professor Marriotts ideas to the Prime Minister. He asked me in for drinks in his office after work one evening that week.
I too had read Professor Marriotts article but I must confess that, being still slightly green compared with Sir Humphrey, the wider implications of the theory had not quite sunk in. So when he raised the subject I remarked that in my opinion it was about time that we reformed local government.