What should be done?
The delegates to next week's Conservative Party Conference at Blackpool will include a great many people who would probably be by no means unsympathetic to the general tenor of the last few pages. Local government reform was introduced by a Conservative government. I3ut resentment over the loss and dismemberment of the old counties is still most obviously felt in Conservative ranks (one of the few Labour politicians who has ever gone on record as caring a damn on this issue was, rather surprisingly, Tony Benn, who opposed the inclusion of Bristol in the botched-up new county of Avon). In other words, if anything is to be done, it is only likely to be done by a Conservative government — by this one in Particular. The question is, why should they bother? Of course the restoring of the old county boundaries would be purely symbolic. There is no point in pretending that such a step would improve the efficiency of local government, reduce the number of bureaucrats, save money. These were anyway the kind of arguments that were put forward in support of the reform in the first place, and we all know how pitifully thin they look in the light of what has happened. In fact to say that bringing back the old counties would be Symbolic is precisely the point. The county is the oldest geographical focus of loyalty and identity the English Possess (older by far than any loyalty to the country as a Whole). That is why so many people have been so profoundly disturbed by the changes made under the 1972 Act. It is a commonplace to say that nowadays people are desperately trying to cling on to their roots, to the traditional framework of their lives, at a time when so much is changing — money, weights and measures, the landscape, morals. That is why our society is being swept by such a wave of nostalgia, by conservationism in all it§ forms, by dislike of the new — particularly the new that seems totally unnecessary. And not the least offensive thing about the changing of the old county system was how unnecessary it was.
But there is another way in which symbolism would be involved in this matter. This government is particularly motivated by a desire not to repeat the mistakes of the last Conservative government, which to so many now seems 'conservative' only in name. The Thatcher government is committed, both in principle and philosophy, to obliterating the memory and the mistakes of the years 1970-4. And in no way could it more obviously symbolise its determina tion to undo the mistakes of those years than by taking a fresh look at local government.
What we are proposing is not the wholesale dismantling of the 'two tier' system set up by the 1972 Local Government Act. However unpopular the new district councils may be, local government has been reformed, and there is an end to it — at least until the next wholesale reform in a generation or two's time. But the question of the counties is a different matter. Here and there in England — in Avon, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Huntingdonshire, Shropshire, Berkshire and elsewhere — there is still deep unhappiness over the consequences of the 1972 Act. The government should set up a small committee to discover just where that unhappiness is most acutely felt; to review the workings of the 1972 Act in the light of six years' experience; and to look into the practicability of making a number of adjustments back to the status quo.
It would of course be crucial that such a committee did not repeat the mistake of Redcliffe-Maud back in the Sixties by only consulting the local bureaucrats, who now have an entrenched interest in maintaining the status quo. Even so such a committee might well find that it was now impracticable to undo the six new metropolitan counties. It might well find that the citizens of a comparatively young town like Bournemouth do not mind whether they are in Hampshire or Dorset. But the committee might also find that there was a limited number of revisions which could and should be made, without enormous expense, simply because enough ordinary people do still feel passionately about them. Perhaps the Berkshire White Horse should be returned to Berkshire? Perhaps the citizens of Bath should be returned to Somerset — and those of Salop should once again be allowed to call their county Shropshire, if they so wish?
Perhaps Huntingdonshire and Rutland and Westmorland and Cumberland should be re-born? Above all some effort shOuld be made to find out what people do want, instead of forcing them, as has happened with the 1972 Act so far, simply to accept yet another bureaucratic fait accompli, from whom the only beneficiaries are the bureaucrats themselves. It may not sound very much — but it would somehow be a peculiarly appropriate gesture for the Thatcher government to make. And who knows? The sigh of relief that a government had at last done something symbolic and right might well be heard from one end of the land to the other.
Previous page
