Douglas Carswell's Blog

A good reason to cheer Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg's announcement that the government will allow local councils to keep, not simply collect, business rates is excellent.  In due course, town halls will then be able to set their own local rate. Even better.

Here is something for us localists to really cheer.

Only a couple of weeks ago, Daniel Hannan and I wrote an article in the Telegraph about the way various vested interests are frustrating proposals to disperse power and democratise control.  Few road blocks to reform are more powerful than the Treasury, which currently controls 93 percent of all UK tax revenue.

We urged David Cameron to return to this issue and "breathe new life into the localism agenda"

Today the Deputy Prime Minister promises to give local government control over business rates, which is just one of a number of ways revenue raising powers might be localised (here is another).

Re-establishing a link between how folk vote, and what rates of tax they then pay in return for local services, is the most important part of localist manifesto.  Without it, so much localism is lip service localism. 

Once people get the taxes and services that they vote for, not only will voter turnout in local elections increase, but with more local innovation, we might even start to see better public policy.

Incidentally, restoring the link between how people vote and the taxes they pay, might also allow candidates to stand office in local elections promising lower taxes in certain towns and cities where the centre right, as a force in local politics, has been extinct for a generation ....

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