- Local authorities will get to keep more of, and spend, 'taxes raised locally'
- LAs will be able to borrow more
- But somehow this won't just make a handful of high tax-base areas disproportionately better off, nor leave low tax-base areas stranded
If not, then ... how is that any different? Or at least, different enough to merit gushing stuff like "the biggest shift of power out of Whitehall and Westminster" (Burnham) or "phenomenal, it really is a sea change, it's monumental" (Mayor of West Midlands)? Right now, central government comes up with some kind of "needs-based" assessment and distributes grants etc accordingly from those 'taxes raised locally', acting as a kind of equaliser. Won't we end up at the same place, albeit after perhaps a couple of years of chaos and unexpected consequences?
Does it mean that, whereas today if Barchester wants the A99 to bypass the town centre, it has to lobby Westminster for tax-payers' money to build one, tomorrow they'll just have to pay for it themselves because nobody else is going to anymore - so maybe they'll just decide they don't want one after all?
Burnham swiftly ruled out Houchen's smart, cheeky riposte of saying that with his new share of the income tax pie he'll give everyone on Teesside an income tax rebate!
As for borrowing more ... FFS, how many more Birmingham / Northampton / Croydon / Thurrock bankruptcies does Burnham want? In 2011 the cretinous Osborne took off the very prudent constraints on what speculative 'commercial' dealings LA's were previously allowed to get into, and that hasn't ended well at all. And we haven't even mentioned the increasingly dire incompetence and corruption of whole swathes of local government, both elected members and employees. I mentioned Houchen somewhat favourably above, but in most other respects, his Teesside fiefdom is a poster-child for outrageous local cronyism, rentierism and all-round hanky-panky - see every issue of Private Eye.
Please tell me if I've got the wrong end of the stick!
ND
14 comments:
Burn it all down and start again. And be quick about it before the bloodshed begins.
Giving a fuckwit like Tracy Brabin more money to play with is akin to handing over a can of petrol & matches to a 5 year old!
It is obvious.
Give taxpayers money to devolved Local Authorities.
They piss it up the wall on cronyism/corruption/incompetence.
They go bankrupt.
They come back to the taxpayer for more.
"I mentioned Houchen somewhat favourably above, but in most other respects, his Teesside fiefdom is a poster-child for outrageous local cronyism, rentierism and all-round hanky-panky - see every issue of Private Eye."
One supposes PE don't bother shining a spotlight on the 'local cronyism, rentierism and all-round hanky-panky' thats been going on in Manchester then?
There's no hint that the Teesside people - all named, with lurid details - have sued. And these stories have been running for years. Sobers, if you are in possession of Manchester stories as detailed and damning as what the Eye has published about Teesside, you should definitely send them in.
If it existed on anything even remotely approaching the Teesside scale, don't you think Starmer's crew would have broadcast any such material to the whole world, starting many months ago? I mean, come on. Innuendo is one thing, but it doesn't get past the libel lawyers, week after week.
If Barchester wants the A99 to bypass the town centre, won't they just give planning permission for 5,000 houses off the new bypass?
Money will go to seven CITIES with Mayors. 6 of them Labour.
The South West? Are we to be ruled by Bonkers Bristol?
Seems to me it's just chucking MORE money at hopeless Labour/Green councils.
Q
We might take a look at Failed State by Sam Freedman. In essence HM Treasury has not been able to rustle up much growth in 50 years. A respected No2 John Kingman at Treasury has suggested 'go big on devolution'. Sure, some mayors will fail and some will be corrupt.
Their failure and bringing us to the brink of bankruptcy (and more) might sufficiently frighten Parliament into abandoning its little fiefdoms and find (quickly) some sane way to govern our country. In a similar way when Napoleon was a serious threat we actually put together effective dockyards and trained the workers and taught them what an inch was. Serious business, we could easily have done without King George but our aristocrats losing their land was a serious matter. That concentrated minds.
I did see an unlikely proposition that Burnham plans to weaken and reduce the London Civil Service. Forcing them into the regions or onto the streets. Very brave Prime Minister.
More worrying is growth. The French can't find much, the Germans are losing their industry and are scratching round for 'growth'. A lot of competition out there.
I'm afraid I have no faith that the PE would investigate its pals to the same extent (or indeed at all) that they do their political opponents. PE is fully paid up Establishment Leftist propagandist rag nowadays, sadly fallen from far more even handed muck raking beginnings. If there were any tales from Manchester (and the fact a developer sued over dodgy loans to a rival would suggest there were) PE would be studiously ignoring them.
Barchester sounds west country English. The A99 would be in Scotland. Barchester would be in Zone 3 not Zone 9.
A lot OT
After the Infantino FIFA debacle I wonder why we have heard so little from the Josh Kushner et al side of the action. UEFA says it is considering legal action. But given the nature of these operators and their associates I can't see this deal going away. Might go quiet fo a bit, might morph a bit. But too much moolah to be allowed to drop.
Pecunia non olet as they say. Forget Burnham, think serious money.
@Jim - I suspect it'll disappear, much as the 2 year WC idea did. It might be a lot of money, but football is a hierarchy of vested interests, and unless you can balance those, even that much money - and Infantino's sums were ropey - can't break through.
FIFA's only real leverage is it being the central home of player registration, whilst if the bigger member associations of UEFA are aligned they can use a WC boycott as their leverage as we saw. Take away the European teams en masse, the value of a WC drops by orders of magnitude and may not even be viable in the modern world.
CH
The thought occurs that if tax powers are to be devolved to the mayors of the combined authorities, and that a wealth tax is to be introduced, or for that matter, some form of LVT, then the mayors should be the ones to carry out that particular experiment.
In particular, Bev.
Vince Cable was desperate for a super tax on property. Was sure it was a tax raiser and a vote winner.
The old duffer seemed to forget his own constituency had one of the highest property prices in the country.
(In 2009, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable first proposed a 0.5% annual "mansion tax" on properties worth over £1 million. Facing an internal party revolt, he later watered it down by raising the threshold to £2 million while doubling the rate to 1%. The specific £1 million version was effectively dropped, …and was later left out of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition)
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