Spending curb
The growth in recent months of the power of the ratepayers' associations, and their evident determination to struggle fiercely against the burdens profligate councillors are willing to impose on home owners has been a most welcome political development. The latest onslaught of the associations against council spending in the newly reformed local government system is particularly welcome, for it may add some muscle to the Chancellor's pleas to local authorities to curb their spending and reduce their requests for government subsidisation under the Rate Support Grant negotiations. The Exchequer does not possess the money, and ratepayers cannot find the money without bringing themselves perilously close to ruin, which the bigger councils especially seemed determined to spend in the pursuit of grandiose and unrealistic programmes. All forms of public expenditure need to be curbed if inflation is to be brought under control; but local authority spending is particularly ripe for pruning.
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