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Imaginings
Local Government
Chronicle - 1 December 2006
Present fears are less Than horrible imaginings.
This bit of MacBeth has stayed with me. It is Macbeth addressing Banquo. It has always struck me as being a particularly appropriate sentiment for politicians whose stock-in-trade is to paint graphic warnings of the horrible consequences of a vote for the other side.
Banquo, more particularly his ghost, is another political regular. The past couple of weeks have been particularly fertile in the conjuring of horrible imaginings and in the invocation of ghosts.
Let us start with the ghosts. Ruth Kelly, in her brisk gym-mistress-verging-on-jolly-hockey-sticks manner, managed to introduce the debate on the Queen’s Speech without making any reference to local government finance whatsoever, thus demonstrating that Sir Michael Lyons is perfectly capable of achieving ghostly status without the inconvenience of being murdered.
Sensing the Kelly peroration was imminent (her tones were becoming more huskily baritone by the second) I helpfully inquired if it were true that the report would be delivered just before the Christmas recess. If so could we be assured it would be published in the week Parliament returned from the Christmas break?
Ruth Kelly bestowed a pitying look upon me and said that Sir Michael would deliver his report to ministers when it was finished but only he knew when that would be. Well, I have often mused about the similarity between Sir Michael and Penelope, the husband of Odysseus. Odysseus had still not returned to Ithaca ten years after the fall of Troy and was presumed dead. Penelope was besieged with suitors for her hand. In order to keep them at bay she said that she would chose one as soon as she had finished weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law Laertes. But every night she unpicked the previous day’s work so that she never finished the shroud. I wonder whether Sir Michael creeps to his computer every night and deletes the day’s drafts in order to make sure the work is never completed. I am sure that the Government would be delighted at such nocturnal deletions!
As for horrible imaginings welcome to Northern Ireland. The Province has never had the blessings of council tax bestowed upon it but the Administration has just carried out a revaluation of property for rating purposes. A rate cap of £500,000 and help for pensioners was one of the terms of the St Andrews agreement intended to usher in devolved government. Co-incidentally the report on local government taxation in Scotland has floated the idea of a property value tax, to be greeted with howls of repudiation from the Scottish Executive faced with the threat of the nationalists emerging ahead of Labour in May’s elections to the Parliament.
This is manna for the Conservatives. Northern Ireland today, England tomorrow. Labour baled out of the revaluation of properties in England following warnings about the horrors a similar exercise had visited upon Wales. Ulster, Scotland, Wales…it must be England’s turn next. The spectre of an English tax on house values is being whooped on by the Tories with the willing help of the Daily Mail. It’s one of the best scare stories since naughty children were threatened with Napoleon. Labour, naturally, denies any such intentions, and evokes the shades of the Poll Tax to demonstrate Tory turpitude on tax matters.
Meanwhile pity poor Caroline Spelman, Tory local government shadow. She has come number 3 in the ballot for private members’ bills – about the last thing a front-bencher wants. I suspect she will return to another rich Tory theme – garden-grabbing for development. The top slot in the ballot has been won by Nick Hurd, the eminently sensible son of Douglas. He will doubtless have greatness thrust upon him in the shape of the Sustainable Communities Bill, the measure David Cameron has pledged to promote. Since 360 MPs have signed the Early Day Motion in support of the bill- including a fair chunk of the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Parties, they will be called upon to put their vote where their mouth is.
Of course, voting for private members bills means being at Westminster on Fridays. Now that really is a horrible imagining!
© Local Government Chronicle
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