Working at a Local Level
It is confusing at election time to make sense of what different parties are offering, this year it is more confusing with what appears to be local parties offering what on the face of it seems the same thing, devolution.
But what is on offer is not the same there are significant differences, apart from the obvious gerrymandering nature if the Tory proposals (looking to put rich areas together in the hope of creating a Tory area), there is a much more fundamental difference between their proposals and what the rest of the council want to do.
The Conservatives who were given short shift by Eric Pickles when they tried to create more authorities by a costly proposal to split Kirklees last year, have come up with a model of nightmarish bureaucratic proportions. After the council has spent the past 4 years reducing the back room staff by centralising support workers, vastly reducing the numbers "support" workers, to protect the "front line", the Conservatives want to create four mini councils each with their own staff, each tendering for their own services at a massive cost to the front line.
More frightening than that is their attitude to employment that is different to all the other parties on the council. At the last council meeting they refused to back a call for our employees to be paid a "Living Wage", also voting against the condemnation of "Blacklisting" (even though it is illegal, they refused to condemn firms that were using it against the workforce). We know what the Conservative view is nationally about public services, if they can't sell them to foreign governments, or the "spivs and speculators" in London, they will award contracts to their friends who will look to drive down wages and conditions of employment by any means, not to make saving for the public, as most end up costing more for less, but to put profit into the hands a a few private companies.
A further difference is the commitment to devolving further to local communities who want to play a part in their local areas, whereas the Labour proposals make it quite clear that their "Districts" would be expected to encourage local groups to take power over their local services, the conservatives see their "Districts" as an end to themselves. We have seen nationally what the Conservatives think of devolution, whilst they "Talk the Talk", Eric Pickles is the most Stalinist Minister we have ever seen, issuing weekly diktats to Local Government insisting that he knows best, to a ridiculous level of micro management, Gove top slices money from the schools budget to fund his own experiments, and we have seen lately how badly they have gone wrong.
Labour are committed to forming partnerships with local people to meet the difficult times ahead. The Tories are not.
