A pertinent question to those who voted Conservative in the local elections. Just a few months after those elections Tory Cllrs are voting themselves massive pay rises whilst expecting everyone else to tighten their belts. Frankly I’m not surprised. The Tories know that local democracy is broken and that many people simply don’t see any difference between local and national politics and will blindly vote locally without any reference to to competence of their local Council and its political administration. The greedy Cllrs know that in four years time only the political geeks will remember this and that they will probably get away with it.

Local democracy will only be restored when Councils are given back much of the powers that central government has taken from them and when central government does not step in to subvert local decision making. The roots of this stem back to the Thatcher era  when loony left councils were rate capped. They should have been left alone so that people saw what the consequences of voting for them were. Now it so heavily controlled and sanitized that most voters don’t know or care what their local council does until it directly effects them which for most people who don’t actually have to use council services is very seldom. The current behaviour of Barnet’s Tory Cllrs is a disgrace and has rightly been condemned. Let’s hope that they get what they deserve.