DEMOS

I wonder if David Cameron has prompted an interesting debate this morning – not about council tax and local referendums, but about the politics of power. The question for the Right and the Left (pdf), is whether it is localism or marketisation of services that is best at giving people real power over their own lives.

Cameron insisted repeatedly this morning on the today programme that councils should be given more say over local affairs, returning power from Whitehall to the people. But the bloggers over at the Spectator aren’t so sure. ‘As Thatcher found, councils hoard power. Devolving power can only be done when central power is passed direct to the people: town halls hoard power and can’t be trusted as intermediaries’, writes Fraser Nelson. Tony Blair agreed, simultaneously putting more restrictions on local authorities and bypassing them where possible.

I’d say there’s a similar debate coming over the hill about academies. The Tories are accusing the government of watering down proposals, whilst the government cites localism as the basis for giving councils more powers to decide whether new academies can and should be opened in their area.

‘it is crucial that commissioning should be recognised as an intrinsically political activity and as such needs to be part of the public and democratically accountable public sector. Taken in its widest sense, it is how places are shaped and made. Hence – over time – local authorities should become the commissioners of all public services for their area’.

But we’ll see which wins out – the local town hall, or the hidden hand, with the rules agreed at the centre.