How to get growth

National governments are rightly focused on reducing the deficits that are causing massive threats to their economies. But the resulting austerity leaves little scope for schemes to stimulate economic growth. And growth would increase tax revenues, thus helping to eliminate the deficits and reduce debts. So what's to be done?

Socialists believe that more can be spent on stimulating growth, while maintaining spending on public services, by taxing the rich more. Deficit hawks believe less should be spent on public services and on growth schemes, while increasing taxes across the board. Neo-classical liberals also believe in spending less, but that reducing taxes can stimulate growth.

I don't know that any of these views are right. I'm not an economist, and the arguments on all sides fail to convince. But who knows?

However, in the UK I think there's something that might help, whatever your economic view: empowering local engines for growth.

Different parts of the country should be able to take advantage of their own particular local strengths to encourage growth. This requires central government loosening its fevered grip just a little on taxation and expenditure, and letting strong councils take advantage of local conditions.

I want to draw attention to two important aspects of this form of localism: (i) local decision-making about big developments; and (ii) local decision-making about public services.

Local decision-making about big developments

Developments can get stalled at an early stage by emotionally charged battles between enthusiastic proponents of stimulus schemes (house-building, wind farms, engineering projects, and the like) and wary residents fighting damage to their neighbourhoods.

Both sides think the system is weighted against them. The reality is that if local people rather than ministers are the ultimate arbiter of proposals, proposals will have to be designed to unarguably benefit local communities rather than to align with well-meaning but amorphous national policies.

This is not simply a case of transferring decision-making from ministers to councillors. Councillors do need to play an important role in this: referring back proposals that clearly contribute insufficiently; ensuring stakeholders are involved in the discussions; commissioning research comparing alternative options; and proposing conditions such as a local tax, an inspection regime, modified plans or new community facilities. But local electronic plebiscites make the final decision.

Good developments are more likely to succeed quickly under this form of localism, because developers will need to design proposals that make it easy for locals to judge that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. And bad developments will no longer be able to rely on multiple appeals, inattentive councillors, vague planning policies and ministers with nothing to lose in the locality.

At the same time, developers will not be faced with the knee-jerk local opposition that comes from justified scepticism and sense of powerlessness about the planning system. Constructive engagement is more likely.

Local decision-making about public services

A second way in which local engines for growth can be enabled is through liberalising public services.

Rather than the State controlling public services centrally, like some totalitarian regime, councils would be free to pursue their own preferred ways of delivering particular services, whether that's in-house, through contracts with companies, or in conjunction with other organisations or councils. At the same time, power to vary taxes enables those with different ideas about what works to put those ideas to the test.

Those councils that want to stop the cuts get to stop the cuts, but they will need to borrow the money or raise taxes. Those councils that want a balanced budget will be able to cut spending and increase taxes. Those councils that want to reduce taxes get to do that. But more importantly, councils are free to decide on the priorities for schools, hospitals, police, post offices and so on that make sense for local people, taking account of local needs and opportunities.

Through this encouragement of innovation, the country does not put all its eggs in one basket, but is able to pilot different ways of stimulating growth and dealing with debt, within broad but sensible constraints set by central government.

What works in one part of the country does not automatically work elsewhere, but by evaluating the factors affecting success in every part of the country, the Government will see good ideas being taken up across the country, and bad ideas being quietly dropped with no loss of face to central government.

More autonomy allows ideas to be put to the test. Of course it's true that councils might choose to go for the monorail rather than more frequent buses; they might choose to build the casino rather than the theatre; the nuclear power station rather than the wind farm. But councils must be allowed to make mistakes, so long as there is complete transparency and accountability to local voters.

Why won't this happen?

This "localism-plus" means that good developments are more likely to succeed quickly, and that public services can innovate under democratic local control rather than stagnate under monolithic central control. These are strong engines for growth.

I've outlined the key objections to this proposal. But the main reason this kind of thing is unlikely to happen is not because of potential costs, uncertainties or fragmentation; nor even (at a philosophical level) fears of privatisation or of localism. It is that battle-lines are already being drawn for the next election, and that for all but a few liberal-minded politicians, the dream of enforcing one's own prescription for success across the whole country overrides all other considerations.

Acknowledgements

• "N30" [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0] by Flickr user churchofpunk.
• "Piggy bank" [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0] by Flickr user Teresa Gibbison.
• Photo of Sir Stuart Rose [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0] by the CBI.
• "Local government gears" by LonWon. [CC BY-SA 3.0]

The LibDem local election campaign was not LibDem, local or a campaign

NB I wrote this post a month ago, but decided not to publish it before the local elections, to avoid undermining candidates.

What are the LibDems campaigning for in the local elections?

The party website highlights the following key points...

• A £3.5bn tax cut for working people
• Biggest single ever uplift in tax threshold
• 21 million people getting an extra £220 tax cut

Are these three different things or different facets of the same thing? Not sure. Either way, they're not a campaign.

OK, maybe the party website is still trying to promote the Budget rather than looking ahead to the local elections.

So let's turn to Andrew Stunell MP, Communities Minister and Chair of the Liberal Democrats Local Election Campaign Team.

Andrew tells us that the Liberal Democrat local election campaign has already launched. Oh well.

According to Andrew, the big messages are:

1. Your local record of service

"all year round, not just at election time. Lib Dem councillors across the country work hard for local people. We listen to our communities and try to give them a voice in decisions made that affect them. In power we work to protect the services people most value, and to protect the most vulnerable in society."

2. Putting more money back in the pockets of hardworking people

"On the local front, this year every single Lib Dem-run council has frozen their council tax bills... Nationally, from this Friday, Liberal Democrats will deliver another £130 income tax cut to every basic rate taxpayer. That's 25 million people getting a tax cut and 1 million people lifted out of paying Income Tax altogether thanks to us. ... The second year of record rises to Pensions, with pensioners set to benefit from a rise of £5.30 a week this year, on top of the £4.50 rise last year."

3. Making the rich pay

Including increased capital gains tax, an annual banker’s levy, VAT on private jets, caps on tax reliefs and an extra £900m to tackle tax evasion.

4. The Pupil Premium

An extra £1.25bn, targeted at the most disadvantaged pupils.

5. Encouraging employment

"We’re creating jobs, and supporting young people in the difficult path back into work by driving a record expansion of apprenticeships to over half a million, and the Youth Contract, announced yesterday, designed to get over 400,000 young people earning or learning."

6. Giving power to communities

"... we’re giving real power and control back to local areas, particularly over planning... Planning is set to become a bottom-up community-driven process, not the top-down imposition it’s been for far too long."

What's wrong with that?

(i) It's not a campaign

So this, all of this, is about actions that have already been taken or that are already underway. There's no sense of actually campaigning to do something.

Maybe that's not entirely fair: More of this kind of thing is implicitly the pitch. But it's very implicit.

And, again to be fair, there is an invitation:

"Lib Dems across the country should be getting out on the doorstep and canvassing their communities to see what they want in their local plan. What kind of development do they want to see and where? It’s a huge campaigning opportunity for the party, and is just the kind of 'community politics' we’ve championed for decades."

But asking people on the doorstop what they want is not much use in this election if you're not explicitly proposing to do it. Or proposing anything.

This is not a campaign.


(ii) It's not about local issues

The first message is effectively "Fill in your local stuff here". The rest of the messages are entirely about things the Government has done: the Budget, the Pupil Premium, the Youth Contract, the Localism Act. There's nothing about what councils want to do in relation to social housing, energy efficiency, energy generation, recycling, transport, education, health, fire, police...

To be fair, it's often been remarked that maybe the concept of a "national" local campaign doesn't make sense. The whole point of localism is that different areas need different things, and it shouldn't be up to a central authority to dictate what those things are. Far from being a single national campaign, this is 184 separate local campaigns. In which case, a key point to get across is exactly what it is that makes Liberal Democrat councils distinctive. And that's the third big failing.


(iii) There's no Liberal Democrat narrative

Let's look at the overarching message for these elections: effectively We've done good stuff.

In relation to "your local record of service", I'm unconvinced that Liberal Democrat councillors are automatically harder working or wiser than other councillors; and I'm sure all candidates say they care about protecting the vulnerable. But I do think that giving people "a voice in decisions made that affect them" is a distinctive aspect of Liberal Democrat philosophy.

And nationally, I happen to agree that it is good stuff, although even that is being questioned by respected organisations such the IFS. And let's leave aside for the moment the desperate need for an explicit liberal narrative linking all this good stuff together.

But shouting about good stuff that's happened can trigger people to recall the bad stuff (the voters' cost-benefit calculation). They will be prompted by Labour to remember...

• tuition fees (not just breaking a promise but breaking a promise to end broken promises);
• the new sickness benefit tests and the Welfare Reform Bill (appearing to penalise the vulnerable)
• the Health and Social Care Bill (appearing to muck up the NHS)
• the alleged Granny Tax, Pasty Tax, and Tory tax cuts for the richest

So how does the "campaign" deal with these claims? It doesn't. And, after all, you wouldn't expect politicians to emphasise opponents' talking points. But Tories have a powerful narrative that explains these actions (Cutting a bloated state and encouraging private enterprise). Liberal Democrats at best would be offering a response along the lines of It's not as bad as it would be if we weren't in Government and There are some good things in these measures and The bad things aren't as bad as Labour says. There's no powerful counter-narrative.

As an aside, I'd also question how likely it is that on-the-ground activists will be passionately motivated to celebrate the good stuff, when memories are still raw about...

• the dismal AV campaign (ending chances of electoral reform for a generation);
• the ludicrously poorly thought-out and explained Welfare Reform Bill;
• the universally acknowledged turd-fest that was the passage of the Health and Social Care Bill;
• and now the way in which the leadership seemed cluelessly oblivious to how the Government's surveillance proposals ran completely counter to fundamental Liberal Democrat principles.

(iv) It's counter to the key narrative of the Coalition

More even than not being a campaign, not being about local councils and not having a Liberal Democrat narrative, though, the message being pumped out now by every LibDem politician, activist, website and leaflet is essentially: Unless you're rich, we're giving you more money.

What the arsing hell does this You've never had it so good complacency do to the core justification for being in the Coalition in the first place? The key narrative is that Liberal Democrats accepted the offer of coalition so as to sort out the national economic crisis. Nowhere, NOWHERE, in any of this local messaging is it clearly explained why giving people more money helps this core mission of the Coalition.

I can imagine a number of ways in which this is the case, but I'll be damned if I can find it given equal prominence with all the "putting more money back in the pockets of hardworking people" messages.

So, to sum up...

(i) It's not a campaign.

(ii) It's not about local issues.

(iii) It doesn't have a LibDem narrative.

(iv) It serves to undermine the rationale for LibDems being in government in the first place.

Please feel free to tell me it's actually a brilliant LibDem local election campaign.

Exeter Elections, May 2012 - the results

So, the results are in. Labour has won overall control of Exeter City Council.

The council is now:

• Labour: 24
• Conservative: 11
• Liberal Democrats: 5

Net results

Of the 14 seats being contested, Labour won 10, the Conservatives won 4, the LibDems none.

When those seats were contested in 2008, Labour won 3, the Conservatives 4, the LibDems 6 and the Liberals 1. Two of those LibDem councillors subsequently defected to Labour, and the longstanding Liberal councillor retired.

So overall:

• Labour are up 5 on the status quo (gaining 3 from the LibDems, 2 from the Conservatives)
• the Conservatives are no change overall (gaining one from the LibDems, one from the Liberals, but losing 2 to Labour)
• the LibDems are down 4 (losing 3 to Labour, 1 to the Conservatives)
• the Liberals are down 1

Image: Exeter count by BBC News

Significant vote shares

The best result for the Greens was in St. David's, with 20% of the vote, achieving third place, and pushing the Conservatives into last place. The Greens also pushed the Conservatives into last place in St. David's and St. Thomas.And the Greens pushed the LibDems into last place in Exwick, Newtown, Polsloe, Priory, St. Leonard's and Topsham. Overall, the Greens got 8% of the vote, much the same as in 2011 and 2010, but up from 3% in 2008 when these particular council seats were contested.

The best result for UKIP was in Whipton Barton, with 17% of the vote. UKIP also achieved third place in Exwick, Pinhoe, and St. Thomas. St. Thomas was rather astonishing in that the Conservatives came last, below both UKIP and the Greens. (Thanks to Cllr Paul Bull for drawing my attention to that remarkable result!) Overall, UKIP got 6% of the vote, which is the highest vote share it has achieved in Exeter.

The LibDems got 14% of the vote overall, about the same as in 2011 and 2010, but down from 27% in 2008 when these particular council seats were contested. The LibDems were unable to poll above a third of the vote in any ward (the highest was 34%, in St. Thomas). The LibDems saw a decrease in share of 14% in St. David's and 13% in Pennsylvania.

The Conservatives received 27% of the vote, down from 32% in 2011, 33% in 2010, and 35% in 2008 when these particular council seats were contested. The largest share was 60% in Topsham. The worst result was 6% in St. Thomas.

Labour achieved 44% of the vote overall, up from 38% in 2011 and 2010, and up from 27% in 2008 when these particular council seats were contested. The largest share was 69% in Newtown. This is an increase in share of 20% from when elections were last held in Newtown, in 2010.

Individual ward results

Alphington: Labour gain from the LibDems, with councillor Vanessa Newcombe losing her seat, and Rob Crew joining the council. Labour benefited from a split in the opposition vote: Lab 37%, LibDem 27%, Con 19%, UKIP 12%, Green 6%. A similar result occurred in Alphington in 2011.

Exwick: Labour hold (Adrian Hannaford won the seat for the LibDems in 2008 but subsequently defected to Labour), with Ollie Pearson joining the council. Labour won with 54% of the vote, so the split between the Conservatives (18%) and UKIP (13%) did not affect the result. UKIP did not stand a candidate in this ward in 2011; the effect of doing so was to take vote share from both Conservatives and LibDems. The turnout was low (28%).

Newtown: Labour hold (Richard Branston), with 69% of the vote. This is an increase of 20% from when elections were last held in Newtown, in 2010. Out of an electorate of almost 4000, just 45 people voted for the LibDem candidate in this ward, the lowest polling of any candidate in these elections.

Pennsylvania: Conservative gain from the Liberal Democrats, by just 21 votes. Jake Donovan joins the council. LibDem Sheila Hobden, who won this ward by 5% in 2008, stood down at this election. However the election in this ward in May 2010 (at the same time as the General Election) had seen a comfortable LibDem majority over the Conservatives, so this result was a slight surprise. The turnout was high for this election (41%) so perhaps there is more going on here.

Pinhoe: Labour gain from the Conservatives, with Simon Bowkett joining the council. The result the last time there was an election in this ward (2010) was very close: Labour won by just 4 votes. This time the majority was 280 votes (13% of the votes cast). UKIP gained 11%, up from 5% in 2010. The turnout was the highest for these elections (43%).

Polsloe: Labour gain from the Conservatives, with councillor James Taghdissian losing his seat, and Rachel Lyons joining the council. This wasn't entirely expected. The Conservatives got 46% in this ward in 2010 and 44% in 2008. The vote of 31% this time shows a larger drop than typical in this election, suggesting there is more going on here.

Priory: Labour hold (Marcel Choules), with 54% of the vote. The Conservatives were second with 20% and the "Your Decision" candidate third on 16%. Labour has won comfortably here in the last three elections.

St. David's: A surprise Labour gain from the LibDems, with councillor Philip Brock losing his seat by just 32 votes, and Sarah Laws joining the council. Labour had not expected to win here and had not campaigned strongly in this ward. Philip Brock is also the Devon County Councillor for the electoral division of St. David's and St. James. The Conservatives were beaten into last place in St. David's by the Greens. The turnout was low (27%), and Labour won with just 34% of the vote: the LibDems got 31%, the Greens 20% and Conservatives 15%. However, the LibDems got 45% here in 2010 and 53% in 2008 when Philip Brock was elected.

St. James: Labour gain from the Liberal Democrats, with Keith Owen joining the council. Keith got 33% when he stood in St. James in 2011, and 45% this time, reflecting movement away from the Coalition parties. The LibDem candidate (who got 30%) also suffered from being new to Exeter and not living or working in the ward. On the other hand, it is likely that that 30% includes a high number of traditional Conservative voters. The turnout was the lowest of these elections (23%).

St. Leonard's: Conservative hold (Norman Shiel). Cllr Paul Bull has pointed out that if UKIP had stood a candidate in this ward this time, St. Leonard's might well have been another Labour gain, despite it being a safe Conservative seat in 2008. The Conservatives got 44%, to Labour's 38%. The Greens got 13%. This ward is the flipside of St. James: it is likely that that 44% includes a high number of traditional LibDem voters.

St. Loye's: Conservative gain from the Liberals, with Andrew Leadbetter joining the city council (he is already Devon County Councillor for the electoral division of St. Loye's and Topsham. Longstanding Liberal councillor Joan Morrish had retired before the election. The Liberals being an anti-EU party, it is likely that a UKIP candidate would have split the Conservative vote, leading to a Labour win. The turnout was low (27%).

St. Thomas: Labour hold. Rob Hannaford won the seat for the LibDems in 2008 but subsequently defected to Labour. He has now held the seat for Labour, with a vote of 47%, to the LibDems' 34%. This election was hard fought, with the LibDems putting out 8 leaflets, and many Labour activists on the ground. The Conservatives came fifth in St. Thomas, beaten by both UKIP and the Greens, suggesting a major squeeze. The LibDem leader won here in 2011 with 40% of the vote, to Labour's 36%.

Topsham: Conservative hold (Margaret Baldwin), with 60% of the vote. The LibDem vote has steadily declined here over the years, as Labour has risen.

Whipton Barton: Labour hold (Tony Wardle), with the largest majority of the elections (767 votes). The opposition was split evenly between Conservatives and UKIP, but their combined total would still have failed to beat Labour. Tony's vote share rose from 39% in 2008 to 57% this year.

Turnout

Overall turnout was 33.6%. The highest turnout was in Pinhoe (43.3%), the lowest in St. James (23.3%). The 2011 turnout was 42.6%. The 2010 turnout was 28.4%.

Further analysis

I've blogged my reflections on what these results mean in a subsequent post.

Brief thoughts on Exeter's local election

There are elections for Exeter City Council today (details here).

As someone wrote on Twitter just now, "Over the years many men and women fought hard and gave up their lives so that you can vote. Please honour them today by voting."

If you don't know what hangs on these elections, take a look at this summary of what the parties are proposing. The result is not going to change the world, but it does affect who makes the decisions on your behalf about our city. If you don't vote you can't complain. Simple as that.

My thoughts? Well I'm a member of the Liberal Democrats, so I'm hardly unbiased! But I tend to look for those candidates who are prepared to stand up to protect people from bullies, whether those bullies are councils, companies, polluters, developers, criminals or whatever. I also look for good ideas for making our city an even better place to live in.

All the Exeter parties have a number of good ideas. I like councils in which different parties have to come together and negotiate what to do. It helps to stop the arrogant dominance of one party enforcing its will; to filter out the nutty ideas; and to improve the proposals that get implemented.

So I would be happy for Exeter City Council to stay in minority control. That's unlikely to happen. My prediction is that Labour will gain three seats from the status quo, giving it majority control. I like many of the Labour folks. They're good people. I like their thinking on housing and renewable energy, and they've done many good things while running the council. But they don't have a monopoly on truth. I'd rather they didn't have absolute power.

A number of Exeter issues particularly concern me at the moment. (Some are within the remit of the County Council rather than the City Council, but the City Council has an important role to play in representing residents' views on these issues.)

1. Recycling: The Conservatives describe Exeter's recycling record as "good", while Labour describes its record as "excellent". Yet the latest figures in fact show that Exeter's recycling rate is worse than the national average, and far worse than Devon as a whole. Devon could be the best in the country if it weren't for Exeter. Increasing recycling rates can help generate energy and income, and this issue needs urgent attention, alongside other local energy saving and generation.

2. Traffic: The scheme to route cross-city traffic through residential areas is an expensive mistake. All credit to the St James candidates Ditch Townsend (Liberal Democrat) and Keith Owen (Labour) who have explained their principled opposition to this scheme. But it is now going ahead because of a failure of proper scrutiny by existing city councillors.

3. Democracy: Voting en bloc for planning and other proposals, as Exeter Labour regularly does, is (in my view) a dreadful dereliction of duty. Each councillor should be weighing up the pros and cons for themselves, and explaining the decision to the people they represent.

4. Library spending: At a time when money is tight, and when libraries round the country are under threat, spending £4m revamping Exeter Central Library cannot be justified. I use this library a lot. It's not perfect, and it would be nice to spruce it up, but it's good enough. In my view, a 1000-seater theatre, safer cycling routes or support for the ECFC ground would do far more to enhance the quality of Exeter life and promote economic growth.


But these are my concerns. Decide for yourself.

Acknowledgements

• "Rescue workers in Exeter's blitz" from Exeter Memories.

Some Exeter Lib Dem candidates

The Exeter City Council elections are tomorrow. And, as mentioned previously, the Labour and Conservative candidates provide brief biographies on their respective websites (here and here). So I thought it might be handy to have something similar for Exeter's Liberal Democrat candidates. Here are a few of the candidates.

St James: Ditch Townsend

Despite medical training, Ditch prefers his community development work in Somerset, and enabling individuals and communities to find their own solutions. With parents and grandparents once doctors or teaching in Asia (where he was born), Ditch embraced his 14 years working in Asia and Africa, increasing inclusion of economically and socially marginalised people, particularly those affected by HIV or leprosy. Ditch passionately believes that everyone has potential and should be enabled to authentically participate in society. With family trained or already living in Exeter, resettling here in 2009 proved ideal, with children attending St Peter's school and Exeter College.

Pennsylvania: Nigel Williams

Nigel Williams has lived in Exeter for the last 25 years working both in the city and east Devon as a teacher. He has lived in the Pennsylvania ward for the past 18 years where he has lived with his family. His children have attended the local schools and the local college. Besides teaching Nigel has experience of trade union work as an accredited caseworker and is experienced in representing the views of the individual as well as collective issues with employers. He is a school governor of a church primary school in the city. Nigel would like to represent the Pennsylvania Ward and believes he can represent the community fairly and seek what is best overall for the city.

St David's: Phil Brock

Phil Brock is seeking re-election to St. David's Ward having represented the area since 2000. He moved to Exeter in 1970 and at that time was employed by Royal Mail. In 1979 he became self employed and still remains in the retail trade. He was first elected to the city council in 1994 for St Leonard's ward and during his 18 years of service has served on most committee's within the council. He currently sits on the planning committee and two sub-planning committees and on the Standard Board.
Phil says "It has been a privilege to serve this city for so many years, from the moment I moved here with my wife from North Cornwall we have always felt at ease and at home in Exeter."

Other wards

Alphington - Vanessa Newcombe
Exwick - Alasdair Wood
Newtown - John Ashton
Pinhoe - Christine Fullam
Polsloe - David Lockwood
Priory - Ben Noble
St. Leonard's - Paddy Richmond
St. Loye's - Sally Wilcox
St. Thomas - Graeme Holloway
Topsham - Caroline Nottle
Whipton Barton - Pamela Thickett

Exeter Elections, May 2012 - Accessibility

Mags L Halliday has reviewed the accessibility of the parties' local manifestos, and has kindly allowed me to post a summary her findings here. (For completeness, I've storified the relevant tweets below.)

In ascending order of scores, the results are...

... drumroll ...

In joint last place, Exeter Conservatives, with a score of -1, for an unreadable PDF that returned an error about font sizes and refused to load an image. [It was fine for me, incidentally; but failing to open for some people clearly means it's not very accessible!]. Mags also notes that the document is "a print PDF hosted online, as the colours, fonts etc are not accessible for the visually impaired".

Also in last place, Exeter LibDems, for lacking local pledges. Their website is "at least fully accessible, but the last local news update was Feb 2011". [There's also a problem with the South West manifesto hosted on the national website, in that it's actually for the North West...]

UKIP also scores -1 for lacking a manifesto specific to Exeter.

In second place, with 0 points, Exeter Labour. It gets 1 point for its manifesto being html rather than PDF, but minus 1 point "for a gray font on a gray background... and the font is also serif and in italics".

And in first place, with an unassailable 1 point, Exeter Greens: "only @exetergreens have local pledges up and easily read by people with disabilities, but they don't have a biog of my candidate"

P.S. Mags warns that she wasn't able to check accessibility with a screen reader. I've sent the links to a blind friend, who has just replied to say that they found the Greens' pdf to be unreadable. So I don't think any of the parties come out of this well!

Exeter Elections, May 2012 - the issues

There are elections for Exeter City Council on 3 May (details here). So what are the main issues between the parties?

The current Exeter City Council

Labour

Exeter has been under Labour control for most of the last 30 years. Currently, Labour holds 19 out of the 40 seats, and so has minority control of the council. This means that it needs the support of councillors from other parties to pass controversial measures.

Labour is clearly pushing hard to gain majority control. It has a strong and increasing doorstep presence in the run-up to the election. Its website is simple but effective and contains full details of all its candidates. On Twitter it is well organised and nicely engaging. It is assisted by Exeter's eloquent MP Ben Bradshaw. And already Labour's leader Ed Miliband and deputy leader Harriet Harman have paid visits to Exeter.

Exeter Labour's priorities include:

• more social housing, using cooperative and mutual models of home ownership
• installing solar panels on council houses
• redeveloping the Bus Station site to include a swimming pool and open spaces
• setting up an Exeter City Council Apprenticeship Scheme
• supporting the Devon Metro initiative
• improving play facilities in the parks

Simon Bowkett, who is standing in Pinhoe for Labour, is keeping a blog of his campaign. Well worth a look.

Conservatives

Meanwhile, Exeter Conservative Party currently has 11 councillors. Their local election manifesto emphasises recycling and refuse collection because these services are "very often all people can physically see for their Council Tax".

Exeter Conservatives' priorities include:

• setting up a ‘cash for recycling’ scheme
• investigating restoring weekly collections in some areas
• cutting the number of city councillors
• scrapping councillor pensions
• merging the council's newsletter with that of Devon County Council
• reducing expectations about social housing and reprioritising the housing list

See also the Exeter Conservatives' website and Twitter. And Jake Donovan is active for Exeter Conservatives on Twitter.

LibDems

Exeter Liberal Democrat Party currently has 9 councillors. It has not issued a citywide manifesto, preferring to emphasise the hard work that individual councillors put into representing local people.

For example in my ward (St James), the most recent leaflet discusses the scheme to re-route traffic from outside the new John Lewis to Blackall Road and York Road. "Labour members of the City Council have ignored the concerns of local residents and have relentlessly pushed through these changes."

Concerns about bins, parking, HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation) and unwelcome planning applications are common.

Meanwhile, the leader of the LibDem group has condemned Labour's excessive borrowing while running Exeter City Council. The party notes that no LibDem-run council in England has raised Council Tax. And LibDem councils are also most likely to be giving the lowest-paid council workers a pay rise.


See also the Exeter LibDems' website, Twitter and "Local elections 2012: delivering for the South West".

Greens

Exeter Green Party has no councillors, despite 8% of the vote in last year's local elections. A proportional voting system would have seen them get one of the 13 seats up for election in 2011. Instead, Labour took 54% of the councillors on 38% of the vote.

Their local election manifesto says that "too often a fixation on economic growth results in the loss of or damage to our valuable green spaces, deterioration in air quality, or the loss of small local businesses pushed out by large corporations".

Green priorities include:

• raising parking charges, to tackle poor air quality and encourage alternatives to the car
• generating more renewable energy and increasing home insulation, to cut costs and increase income
• introducing weekly food waste collections, to increase recycling rates and generate energy and income
• using this additional income to mitigate government cuts to local services
• resisting planning proposals which reduce the quality of life in Exeter
• increasing social housing and compulsory purchase powers on empty homes
• redeveloping the Bus Station site into a new market square for local farmers and businesses

See also the Exeter Green Party website.

UKIP

The UK Independence Party got 4% of the vote in last year's local elections. There is no specific manifesto for Exeter. Instead, their manifesto for the local government elections says that "councillors should put their communities, not party politics, first. Important local issues should be put to binding local referendums"

UKIP priorities include:

• halting all cuts to front-line council services, cutting councillors’ allowances and expenses, limiting numbers of highly paid council employees, and abolishing "non-essential and ‘politically-correct’ services"
• requiring referendums on major planning schemes like supermarkets, wind farms, large housing developments and major transport schemes; with no right of appeal for developers
• introducing elections for county health, education and police boards
• leaving the EU to provide more money for local services
• cutting immigration and withholding all state benefits and free NHS services from immigrants and citizens of other countries
• ending all funding for renewable energy, banning new wind farms, and building new power plants
• building more prisons and increasing prison terms
• reintroducing selection by ability into schools

See also UKIP's national website.

Other candidates

There's only one candidate who is not from the above parties: a candidate standing in Priory Ward.

Incidentally, St Loye's councillor Joan Morrish is standing down this year, at the age of 85, having served the city for 20 years. She is currently the only Liberal on the council, and no member of the Liberal Party is standing this year. The Echo also notes that her husband David Morrish was involved in local politics for 50 years both as a city and county councillor before retiring last year. Even political opponents pay tribute to the sterling public service that Joan and David Morrish have given to their community.

Note

If you represent one of these parties locally, and you would like to clarify or correct anything here, please feel free to comment below. :-)

 

Exeter Elections, May 2012 - the basics

There's an election?!

In Exeter on 3 May we have elections for the City Council. This blogpost is for those who haven't voted in a local election before, or who are new to Exeter.

"Why should I care?"

Well, Exeter has two councils: Devon County Council and Exeter City Council.

Among other things, Devon County Council looks after education, social services, transport, fire and police.

But the May elections are for the City Council, which makes decisions on planning applications, housing, car parks, waste collection, shops, parks, and anything that helps make Exeter an attractive place to live and work.

"Sounds worthy, but voting doesn't change anything"

My cats run the city

Perhaps. Often less than 40% of people vote. Sometimes it's less than a quarter.

If you don't vote, you're letting others choose councillors for you. Do you really want to let obsessives and crackpots choose the decision-makers?!

"OK. What's the choice?"

It depends what ward you are in. There are 18 wards in Exeter, but on 3 May only 14 wards have a councillor to elect:

Alphington, Exwick, Newtown, Pennsylvania, Pinhoe, Polsloe, Priory, St. David's, St. James, St. Leonard's, St. Loye's, St. Thomas, Topsham, and Whipton Barton

It'll be your turn next time Duryard, Cowick, Mincinglake, and Heavitree!

Each ward contains 5000-10,000 people. Each ward has two or three councillors. There are 40 councillors altogether. Only councillor in each ward is up for election on 3 May.

If you're not sure which ward you're in, enter your postcode on the Exeter City Council website, and it will tell you.

(There's also other useful information about your home at that website, such as dates of bin collections and street cleaning, your councillors, your polling station, nearby planning applications, a heat loss map, your council tax band, residents parking zones, your nearest GP and more!)

You can see who's standing to be your councillor in this document (pdf).

"How do I choose who to vote for?"

Most Exeter voters have a choice between candidates associated with the familiar parties from recent General Elections: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green and UKIP...

"Wait. What the hell? What have these political goons got to do with judging planning applications or designing our parks?"

Hmm, yes, some voters find this odd: Why should decisions your councillor makes about the city have much to do with what national politicians are doing? Is there a distinctively Labour way of collecting bins? Is there a philosophically different UKIP way of judging planning applications? Does what Liberal Democrats say about the Syrian crisis have much to do with housing policy in Alphington? How do Conservative attitudes to European integration relate to the number of car parks we should have in Topsham?

Cats are individualists

It's a good point. We could of course have no local parties at all, just independents. And across the country there are indeed many councillors unaffiliated with these national parties. Nothing wrong with that.

But I'd suggest it's generally preferable for us to have a choice of a small number of manifestos offered across the city, than for us to end up with a council full of completely independent individuals with no clear common platform for the future of the city.

That's not to say there shouldn't be independent councillors; but a small number of distinct groupings within a council can be helpful. At the same time, rigid party-based decision-making that leaves no room for independent thought would obviously be wrong.

So parties are probably a good idea, but voters also need to take into account the record and plans of individual candidates.

"Yes. But why these parties?"

True, the parties competing to run councils needn't be the same parties competing to run the country.

Freeeeedooooom!

We could have different groupings: The Populist Party and The Socialist Party, for example; or The Low Council Tax Party, The High Equality Party and The Centre Party; or The Federal UK Party, the Neo-Fascist Party and the Exeter Independence Party.

But there we go. It's the national parties which tend to be most well-known and the best organised. And in our weird British voting system it's hard for new parties to break through.

It might seem at times that the things that national politicians care about - income tax, the NHS, foreign affairs, and so on - don't have an awful lot to do with potholes in Pinhoe, parking in Polsloe, students in St James, speeding in St Leonard's, and so on.

On the other hand, there might in principle be philosophical differences between parties that lead to very different local plans. For example, one could imagine a radically free market approach to council services would differ substantially from an ardent socialist approach. Whether there are significant differences in practice I'm not so sure, but there are clearly broadly distinctive emphases, values and positions between these national parties that might influence different local choices in small ways.

"OK, so I just vote for the same party I'm voting for in the next General Election?"

Sure, some people decide which candidate to vote for entirely on the basis of the national parties.

But choosing your local councillor on the basis of what national politicians are doing is a little like choosing which train to catch on the basis of what you think of your Internet Service Provider.

And if you imagine that the generally hard-working folk who put their heads above the parapet to offer to help their communities as councillors have much to do with slick national politicians, you'd mostly be wrong. Candidates might broadly support the national parties, but disagree strongly with significant aspects. Ask them.

"Yes, but I want to send a message..."

Some people use their vote in local elections to "send a message". Usually the message is that they don't like what the Government is doing. Sometimes the message is to the Opposition that they need to switch tack. Sometimes the message is that all the main parties are useless.

It's tempting.

Exeter expects...

But I would suggest this is a bad way to select a councillor.

National politicians can see the opinion polls. They can read the papers, internet comments, the emails, the petitions. They can hear the vox pops, the focus groups, the booing on Question Time. They're acutely aware every day when people are unhappy with their performance. They don't need some kind of ballot box semaphore to receive a message.

The councillor you vote for will be representing your neighbourhood in all the decisions directly affecting your city. National politicians don't get "punished" if you vote for another party at the local election. The only person getting punished is yourself, because you're not focusing on selecting the councillor who best represents you.

If you want to punish national politicians who aren't doing what you want, just don't vote for them at the general election.

"Yeah, but they're all the same. Incompetent. Spineless. Meddling. Just in it for the expenses."

Devil councillor

Really?

That's not my experience.

And it has to be asked: If the decisions are so easy to get right and the expenses so lucrative, why don't you put yourself up for election?

Because I can imagine many more lucrative ways of spending my time than reading reams of council papers, sitting in a whole load of interminable meetings, and getting abuse from the Exeter Express and Echo letter pages, all for quite measly sums of money.

Let's see you put yourself on the line then.

"Oooh. Touched a nerve, eh?"

Sorry. Got a bit carried away there!

But the basic point is that we need more people willing to stand as councillors. A cross-section of society. Bright, thoughtful, hard-working, caring, conscientious people. We don't encourage people by hurling abuse and assuming the worst possible motives.

"OK. They're not all the same. Party A is useless. Party B works for you all year round. Party C politicians are just in it for their pals. Party D is always lying..."

Hmm... Yes, having said that councillors are not all the same, I wouldn't want to imply the truth of these kinds of generalisations, often bandied around in leaflets and on doorsteps.

I find it difficult to believe, for the main parties anyway, that one party's candidates are innately more untrustworthy than another's. Or automatically more useless. Or generally more hard-working, just by virtue of membership of a particular party.

Cat fight!

There are good councillors and bad councillors. And all varieties in-between. And I'm not sure any one party has a monopoly on either virtue or sin. These things vary depending on the place, and over time. And people can get better or worse.

So I don't think there are easy truisms here.

"Indigo Party can't win here..."

Beware the dodgy bar charts!

As I noted earlier, we have a slightly crazy voting system, which means that you can't just vote for the candidate you most want: you also have to take into account how others might vote.

Let's say past experience suggests the fight is basically between Candidate A and Candidate B. You like Candidate E, who (sadly) isn't going to attract many votes. Do you vote for who you want, or do you vote for whoever is better out of Candidates A and B? Tough choice.

"OK. Enough of the 'Local Elections 101'. What are the issues for 3 May?"

To be continued in the next blog post...!

Acknowledgements

• "Surprise!" by Michelle Tribe (Flickr user greencolander) [CC BY 2.0]
• "Crazy cat woman" by Flickr user Threthny [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]
• "Beach cats in Malaga" by Flickr user Thera T [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]
• "Freedom" based on "Flags" by Flickr user Joe Shlabotnik [CC BY 2.0]
• "Exeter expects..." and "Devil councillor" by Lon Won [CC BY-SA 3.0]
• "Cat fight" by LLewleyn Williams a.k.a. SCUD (Flickr user privatenobby) [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

A damning critique of the Liberal Democrat local election campaign

... is not to be found here. I've decided the minuscule chance of my critical post being used to improve the campaign is outweighed by the small chance of damage.

And I don't want to risk damage, given the great people I know who are putting themselves up for election.

I will post the critique after the May elections.

Instead, I would encourage Liberal Democrat candidates to get as clear as you can with your electorate on some basic questions:

1. What are you campaigning for? Or against?

2. What is it that makes Liberal Democrat councils distinctively Liberal Democrat?

3. The Coalition is "putting more money back in the pockets of hardworking people". How is this helping tackle the deficit?

Lon Won's Evil Liberal Masterplan

Tackling the problem of the deficit is causing much misery. And regardless of the Chancellor's apparent optimism in last week's Budget about unemployment and growth, the signs are that things are likely to get much worse before they get better.

I believe there's a liberal idea that might help.

What's grinding your gears?

The basic idea is to give local government more autonomy to decide what services it wishes to provide, what mechanisms will provide them, and what taxes will fund them. These powers would then be balanced by a right for local voters to use petitions to trigger binding local referenda.

Note: Some of what's envisaged is already possible, and a shift in power from central government to local authorities is the major theme of the Localism Act 2011. But to keep the discussion simple I'm just going to focus here on the principles rather than these details, because I think that even after the Act we might be left with a mixture of different types of localism that are inadequately accountable to citizens. Note also that I'm mostly talking about England here. Similar considerations might apply to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, but drawing the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive into this blogpost would complicate the points being made about the balance between "central" and "local" government.

More costs, more uncertainty, more chaos?

It's not a glamorous idea, and at first glance it sounds like one of those "It'll cost lots of money; the gains are uncertain; and chaos is guaranteed" type of ideas. At times it's almost as if we revel in such ideas in this country.

But actually there needn't be any costs at all: councils could choose to do just the same as they do now. Or they could make different choices about services to provide.

This might mean losing economies of scale from doing some things nationally (e.g. in relation to roads, health, income tax, or benefits); so councils would need to convince voters about the financial implications of proposals. Perhaps there might be efficiencies from cooperation between councils that want to do similar things. Or perhaps a council might choose to award a contract to a local firm in order to save jobs that would otherwise incur redundancy and unemployment costs. Or perhaps a council might take a chance on a new technology or method in a way that central government couldn't.

It might be sensible for councils to jointly fund some kind of contract advisory service, to help councils build on proven contracts. It would also be very sensible to pay for a longitudinal research study following the progress of a range of these local government innovations. But it would be up to individual councils to choose to invest in such things.

It's true that the gains are uncertain; but at a time when national economic stagnation looks like the most optimistic future for the next few years, liberalising state services encourages the opening up of new possibilities. Rather than so many of us whining about "The Government" is doing or not doing, councils could actually put new ideas to the test.

It's also true that there might be a little bit more chaos than we're used to, but surely such liberalisation is better than the monolithic control freakery that has taken root in our state since the Second World War? And liberalisation isn't all or nothing: it's possible to have a bit more localism without the country necessarily descending into some kind of Yugoslavian-style civil catastrophe.

No, the more profound objections to this proposal are not to do with costs, uncertainty or chaos. These objections appear once the rationale for the proposal is made clear.

Rationale
What's good for London isn't necessarily good for the Lake District. Giving councils greater power over what they do for a locality enables them to weigh up the pros and cons of what has been done nationally, to innovate, to test, to refine, and to be judged by the voters on their success.

Pleasant land
and satanic mills

1. Empowering local engines for growth: It's clear that economic growth is needed to avoid worsening economic misery. The UK Government is focused on stopping the deficit increasing, but different parts of the country should be able to take advantage of their own particular local strengths to encourage growth. More autonomous decision-making enables this.

2. Enabling different local priorities: Councils focus on the problems that particularly matter in their area. Everybody everywhere wants to fight crime, help the sick, educate the next generation, and so on; but maybe Devon wants to put more resources into helping the elderly, Southwark into tackling knife crime. Priorities differ. More autonomy allows for more flexibility over rebalancing of resources, in the light of local knowledge about what needs attention over time. Devolution of certain powers to Wales and Scotland has been a great success, and no-one wants to return to the previous over-centralised system. Local people should be able to decide on their priorities for schools, hospitals, police, post offices and so on, within a freer national framework.

3. Taking account of different local conditions: Let's stop pretending that conditions are the same everywhere. Why should teachers in Toxteth get paid the same as teachers in Tatterford? The ability to attract staff with the appropriate skill set, the cost of living, the demands made and so on are quite different. We know that housing benefits, disability support, water costs, VAT receipts, fuel costs, and the like differ depending on local conditions; so why not put councils in charge of how to raise and allocate local resources?

Petitions don't have to be signed using quills

4. Fostering postcode democracy: Much is made of a "postcode lottery". What about postcode democracy? It is mad for Westminster and Whitehall to be trying to micro-manage great cities like Birmingham and Manchester, and counties like Kent and Yorkshire. Meanwhile, the lines of local accountability for organizations such as Academy Schools, Foundation Hospitals, Serco, Virgin, May Gurney and so on sometimes seem unclear. It should be the people's locally elected representatives who call such organizations to account in relation to local work, and there should be mechanisms for action to be taken. Simpler lines of accountability lead to better control of costs. Local referenda are also an important brake on potentially disastrous plans that councils might choose to implement between elections.

5. Winning local buy-in for developments: Planning processes are often seen as Byzantine, and weighted in favour of developers, who get multiple bites of the cherry, who only need to obtain approval once (even when circumstances change or have been misrepresented), and who can get away with tokenistic contributions to the community. More autonomy would allow councils to set conditions on developments, such as a proportion of receipts, a tax on subsequent sales, or inspections. There might be referenda to choose between (say) a wind array on the horizon, a nuclear power station on the beach, or imported energy.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Teletubby turbines

6. Tackling climate change: Following on from the previous point, climate change is a critical issue for this proposal. Obviously many kinds of concerted initiatives to deal with climate change need to take place at national and international level; but many aspects of energy generation, energy efficiency, mitigation and adaptation need considered decision-making at local level. Citizens need to be able to experience both the benefits and costs of their decisions locally, or we will continue blithely down the path towards environmental calamity.

7. Enabling innovation and piloting: Liberalising local government does not necessitate either Thatcherite union-bashing corporatism on the one hand, or profligate PC jobsworth totalitarianism on the other. Councils would be free to pursue their own preferred ways of delivering particular services, whether that's in-house, contracts with companies, or in conjunction with other organisations. Freedom to innovate is motivating. It is disgraceful that poorly thought-out legislation such as the Health and Social Care Act get imposed nationwide with proper rounds of piloting and evaluation. More autonomy allows ideas to be put to the test. Of course it's true that councils might choose to go for the monorail rather than more frequent buses; they might choose to build the casino rather than the theatre; the nuclear power station rather than the wind farm. But councils must be allowed to make mistakes, so long as there is complete transparency and accountability to local voters.

Key objections

1. Privatisation: The furore over the HSC Act suggests that "privatisation" is a powerful concern of the public. This is slightly odd as many GPs have always been self-employed on the whole, with contractual arrangements with the NHS; i.e. they're not employees of the NHS. And the recent re-opening of health service delivery to non-profit and charitable organisations is also perhaps not widely appreciated.

Not George Obsorne

Nevertheless, the arguably emotive label "privatisation" points to a number of very reasonable worries, of which the possibility of fees for previously free services is just one. Another worry is that because private companies need to make a profit, they either provide a worse service (to cut costs), or they overcharge compared with an entirely state-run service, or they make savings in relation to employees (e.g. paying them less, providing worse conditions, failing to fund training, reducing job security, cutting pensions, and so on). A third worry is that such companies are less accountable and less transparent in how they operate. Finally, some people see such companies as less caring, less generous and less honestly motivated than state-run services.

Response: These worries in relation to privatisation are legitimate. However, the right to trigger referenda should reassure citizens that they can veto the possibility of fees for previously free services, and that organisations affecting local people cannot get away with bad behaviour. Moreover, if they wish, voters can choose councils that have nothing to do with private companies at all.


2. Lack of belief in localism: As I've argued previously, localism is a hard sell for a variety of reasons, resulting in scepticism about its value and a lack of engagement by the public in local government. I've also noted that there are at least three types of localism, so the disadvantages of one type are sometimes seen as applying to others. In addition, the "postcode lottery" slogan resonates with many people: differences in practices always lead to unfairness, it is objected.

see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Response: The widespread lack of belief in localism is admittedly challenging. Under this proposal, the shift in powers from central government to councils means that voters have more to lose, so this should help to increase awareness of council powers and to increase the motivation to engage. But I'm not sure the perceptions of local politicians would necessarily improve.


3. It's more complicated than that: Some will say that much of what's proposed is already happening; that the Localism Act 2011 is providing the rest (including a "general power of competence" for local authorities); and anyway this proposal says nothing about how to resolve existing problems with complex relationships between councils, citizens, companies, and central government.

Response: Fine. I'd like to hear more about that. More importantly, I'd like more people thinking about whether the balance in power between central and local government is about right or whether it could be usefully adjusted.

Evil Liberal Masterplan

Autonomous localism needs a change in mind-set from "What's the Government doing about it?" to "What can we do about it?" This could be parodied as JFK-lite, or Cameron's "Big Society", or "just more" community politics. But it's actually very liberal: increasing freedom for local citizens. Of course that freedom could be used to limit the size of the state or to address social issues; to enhance civil liberties or to increase law-and-order; to get more private sector involvement or to run all services in-house; to cooperate with other councils or to compete.

So it's a liberal proposal that could be used to do things that you very much don't like. If you don't trust the voters in your area to vote against these things locally, the alternative is that you continue to rely on voters in other parts of the country to vote against such things nationally. So, I think attitudes to this proposal might very well be influenced by what you think the next UK government is likely to do and by what you think of people in your area.

Acknowledgements

1. "Local government gears" by LonWon. [CC BY-SA 3.0]
2. "English ceremonial counties 1998" derived by Dr Greg from work by Nilfanion.[CC BY-SA 3.0]
3. "petition" by League of Women Voters of California. [CC BY 2.0]
4. View to Sizewell along the beach taken from Wikipedia. [CC BY-SA 3.0]
5. "Windfarm" by Russell Smith (rasmithuk) [CC BY 2.0]
6. "The not so slim controller" by Lee Turner [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
7. "See No Evil" by Tim Ellis [CC BY-NC 2.0]