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Politicians should steer clear of the money
IT could have been predicted in the early 1990s that one day a Labour government would be on the run.
Their bete noir can be summed up in one word – money
Labour’s big boys simply swoon at the sight of plenty of dosh!
Once in government Labour pulled up big business leaders to help them run the country.
Inevitably, Labour’s spurned membership drifted away, leaving the party dependent on hand-outs from business people to keep them going.
Thus, we saw Labour running into the buffers this week.
There’s little wrong with business. Business is there to make money.
Politicians should steer clear, as much as possible, and get on with running the country.
But don’t just look at what happens in Westminster.
The same malaise has been fed down to local government.
Thatcher started the ill-starred policy of privatisation, Blair and Brown embraced it, and both Labour in Camden in the 1990s and the Tories and Liberal Democrats in the borough today smugly carry on, blind to all the pitfalls lying ahead.
Anything public is abhorred. Private is welcomed..
So, in the past few months, what has happened?
More and more of our services in Camden for the elderly, the handicapped, the ones who need care more than anyone else, are being surrendered by the Tories and Liberal Democrats into the hands of private companies.
Do we need more revenue?
Of course, so let’s sell of our properties says the coalition that runs the borough.
But we must keep council tax down, say the local politicians.
So, let’s slough off council-run services and let private firms fund them.
But care and affection are words you do not meet in private accounts. Backed up against a wall, a Tory or Lib Dem councillor may agree, but efficiency and cost-cutting will, in the end, win the day with them.
While local government flourishes in most European countries it’s been downhill for our municipal authorities for decades, with more and more power harnessed by Whitehall and, often, sold off to big business.
In a complex modern society standards rise and these can only be paid for by taxes. This cannot be dodged.
Low local taxation means poor services.
By the nature of a profit-and-loss account, sooner or later cuts will have to be made to balance the accounts.
When this happens, quality local services become the fall guys.
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