Thanks David .. financialisation of civic affairs (Hammersmith rates swaps and similar) has been the raac applied by local government to recreate the civic opportunity shown by the initiative of Victorian grandees in Birmingham's - glib bankers and technologists promising cost effective solutions to fund and fix earlier errors compounded them (demonstrated by the fatal Grenfell alu cladding).
Frankly I feel that a period of Victorian municipalization would be a much better solution to wholesale nationalization.argued for by the hard left, as a possible cure to current national political malaise- it keeps politics local and meaningful - what are your thoughts ?
Fascinating. I do think that there’s another, specifically Birmingham, issue that contributed to a lack of self-confidence in the city as compared with, say, Manchester (a city with a longish recent period of sensible but ambitious one-party dominance). By the late 1960s Birmingham was growing strongly, and with a varied local economy. Wages and property prices matched, or exceeded, London’s. It was a major centre of media, with both BBC and ATV centres there producing some of the highest rated programmes at the time. But a decision was taken to prevent what would have been normal in most countries - the emergence of a city with the size and economic base to rival the capital. A long period of disinvestment followed, some that would have happened anyway, some deliberate (I think that there was a ban on companies have HQs in the city, a stop to new commercial property other than retail in the city centre, and more. The recent building frenzy, the location of HSBC’s British retail banking HQ in the city, etc. would have happened 50 years ago if it had been permitted. All of which “might have been” stuff explains the city’s shrinking revenue from business taxes over decades.
“The ultimate problem is perhaps the lack of seriousness with which local authorities are regarded and the lack of seriousness with which councils are run. […] Councils are expected to do a great deal, but with fewer resources and almost no real autonomy”
This is the crux of the problem - local government in the UK is a joke, an afterthought, somewhere central government can dump responsibilities without having to hand over the powers or the finance to deal with them. It was also the perfect victim of the coalition government’s savage attitude towards public debt and deficit, as most people don’t understand what LAs do despite them having more impact on their daily lives than anything Westminster does. Just cut their funding and let them fend for themselves, they said. Well, the chickens are finally coming home to roost...
Thanks David .. financialisation of civic affairs (Hammersmith rates swaps and similar) has been the raac applied by local government to recreate the civic opportunity shown by the initiative of Victorian grandees in Birmingham's - glib bankers and technologists promising cost effective solutions to fund and fix earlier errors compounded them (demonstrated by the fatal Grenfell alu cladding).
Nicely put.
Frankly I feel that a period of Victorian municipalization would be a much better solution to wholesale nationalization.argued for by the hard left, as a possible cure to current national political malaise- it keeps politics local and meaningful - what are your thoughts ?
Fascinating. I do think that there’s another, specifically Birmingham, issue that contributed to a lack of self-confidence in the city as compared with, say, Manchester (a city with a longish recent period of sensible but ambitious one-party dominance). By the late 1960s Birmingham was growing strongly, and with a varied local economy. Wages and property prices matched, or exceeded, London’s. It was a major centre of media, with both BBC and ATV centres there producing some of the highest rated programmes at the time. But a decision was taken to prevent what would have been normal in most countries - the emergence of a city with the size and economic base to rival the capital. A long period of disinvestment followed, some that would have happened anyway, some deliberate (I think that there was a ban on companies have HQs in the city, a stop to new commercial property other than retail in the city centre, and more. The recent building frenzy, the location of HSBC’s British retail banking HQ in the city, etc. would have happened 50 years ago if it had been permitted. All of which “might have been” stuff explains the city’s shrinking revenue from business taxes over decades.
“The ultimate problem is perhaps the lack of seriousness with which local authorities are regarded and the lack of seriousness with which councils are run. […] Councils are expected to do a great deal, but with fewer resources and almost no real autonomy”
This is the crux of the problem - local government in the UK is a joke, an afterthought, somewhere central government can dump responsibilities without having to hand over the powers or the finance to deal with them. It was also the perfect victim of the coalition government’s savage attitude towards public debt and deficit, as most people don’t understand what LAs do despite them having more impact on their daily lives than anything Westminster does. Just cut their funding and let them fend for themselves, they said. Well, the chickens are finally coming home to roost...