Patrick Jenkin's blunt weapon
Sir: Since the leader of Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council told me recently that he deemed my earlier letter to be `scurrilous', it is not surprising that one of his acolytes has now written to you in similar vein (Letters, 2 June). However, Councillor Nickols should have read my letter with greater care. Nowhere did I argue for retention of the Greater London Council in its present form. What I did point out was that some of the arguments for abolition are bogus, while the professionals of local government in London (i.e. the chief executives of the boroughs) themselves believe that a successor body will be needed.
Although I sit at County Halt as GLC member for Finchley in outer London, I pay my rates to Kensington. What worries me is that, even when the GLC precept has gone, the borough will still be asking me for several other rate precepts in respect of London Regional Transport, the Fire Brigade, the Metropolitan Police and the Inner London Education Authority (the latter continuing despite a well-known wish of the borough to run its own educational services). Moreover, the borough and the Thames Water Authority will presumably need to increase their own rate demands to finance those functions taken over from County Hall.
Can Councillor Nickols really be so confident that my total rate bill is going to come down in real terms? Patrick Jenkin has already confessed to the House of Commons that he is not sure whether savings will be greater than the transitional costs. Yet if the whole exercise does not achieve a noticeable cut in the total burden of rates, the Conservative Party risks reaping a grim harvest at the borough elections in 1986. And a general election must follow not long afterwards.
Neville Beale
Members' Lobby, County Hall, London
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