Election time
Time to vote for the people you think will be the best for your community.
There was a story a couple of days back regarding an area (not naming names) Labour led for twenty years, but the consensus was it would switch back to Conservative control. This area had low unemployment, ranked highly in the standards of living and amenities and was overall a nice place to live and work; so why the potential change? Because the populace were fed up with the Labour government and this seemed to be the only way to legitimately voice their disfavour.
Think about it. In this country it seems people are prepared to vote against a council that has created prosperity in their area, just to spite the country's government who have little if anything in common with the 'ordinary' councillors. If this is the only way the people can give voice then I'm sorry but this is not a democracy and until we get the ability to remove officials from office at our pleasure and not theirs it never will be.
Good old Daily Mash
3 comments:
Yep, and wait until Friday when those elected and their parties tell us why we voted for them!
Democracy and proletarisation of local government are not in the interests of councillors; well that's what they think anyway. I think differently, and I believe it will empower the electorate to vote and the councillors will be better workers among the community.
At the moment at least if you want an elected official to shut up just mention this and, as if by magic, silence! :-)
In Liverpool the local governmental issues really are local, as the biggest one is the amount of money the Council has spent on Capital-of-Culture events. In Cambridge, perhaps the biggest is the planned Congestion Charge. The Cambridge Cycling Campaign set up a survey of candidates' views on cycling and the results of that were very revealing. Though the County is mainly responsible for highways, the City and the Districts are consulted, and do have some influence because of planning regulations. I wrote to the most likely-sounding candidate in my ward to tell him why I would be voting for him this morning, which I hope encourages him to do the right thing.
I agree with your point, but I think that local democracy is not quite dead yet.
My original entry had the additional section -
'Of course the trouble is if you do vote for the [insert party] locals because they're going to do a good job locally, then the [insert party] nationals will be crowing about how this is a vindication of their national policies. So who can blame voters using this as a stab at the government'
Which is the same point Tav made.
Dan again you're right - democracy isn't dead perhaps just moribund; I think we need a greater degree of accountability. If, like California, it was possible to get an elected official out before the end of their term I wonder what impact that would have on our political system?
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