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Wednesday, March 02, 2011

localism

localism.
choice. 
big society. 
key words for the conservatives. 
they are also very powerful concepts (albeit not new) and powerful rallying cries. they are all about power. the argument is that they want to return power to the people. more choice for people means more power. less power to central government, more power to local councils which means more accountability which means people have more power. local groups coming together to take control of local resources: they know what is best and so they can deliver it better than anyone else. 
power. 
power. 
power to the people. 

funny how quickly that gets thrown out the window when the choices people make are not the ones that are wanted. 
we have already seen david willets get his two brains in a bunch when several universities have opted to charge the maximum amount in fees to students. no i don't understand why the government is shocked that a university would do it. 

now we see it over there in local communities who have come out against the proposed high-speed 2 rail link. lots of little community groups along the proposed routes have come out to say: "no", "no" and "thrice no".
given the desire for local power, less control from the centre (one of the strands of this was to allowing local communities to have more say in planning controls) and the development of the big society you would have thought that government would have been celebrating the existence of groups such as 'say no to high-speed 2', pointing to them and saying that is localism in action.
nope.
not at all.
what they get is transport secretary philip hammond accusing them of being part of the 'not in my backyard' brigade. nimbys are not seen as being nice people, they are selfish and only think of themselves and not the wider community (which could just as well be a good description of what localism means).
funny how it is that when people and organisations do what the conservatives say they want them to do when it comes to things like localism, choice and the big society it only counts as being a good thing if the choices they make are the ones that the conservatives and central government want or like.

funny that. 

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