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An idea that would sound death knell for democracy
• IN an innocuous looking paper at this week’s full council meeting, there were proposals that – if passed – would sound another death knell for local democracy.
The government is forcing councils to choose one of two new leadership models – the directly-elected mayor or the so-called “strong leader”.
This latter model, proposed at this week’s meeting, would see absolute power invested in the single leader of the council for the whole four years – reducing local ward councillors to mere window dressing and removing the last traces of accountability.
At the meeting I argued against adopting this undemocratic practice, proposing that we should instead reject the government’s false choice and look at real ways of improving local democracy.
I can’t describe how depressing it was to see every speaker at the meeting agree that this was a terrible proposal, only to vote for it.
In a sad taste of things to come, councillors meekly rolled over and did as they were told, with a few impotent grumbles about how unfair it all was.
Welcome to local democracy after the next elections.
There was another choice. We could have stood up to the government and said no. We could have stood with other councils to fight this further erosion of democracy.
The worst case scenario is that central government would have imposed this new model on us. Better that than welcoming the undemocratic, dictatorial change ourselves.
Only a handful of my colleagues had the backbone to vote against the proposals.
The vast majority blithely voted away the last traces of influence and ability to represent their residents.
Your readers could ask their councillors how they voted before contacting your local councillor becomes an entirely pointless exercise.
Cllr Ben Rawlings
Liberal Democrat, Cantelowes ward
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