Abstract
As the other chapters in this volume document, major changes are occurring to British local government. These changes are significant ones which challenge conventional conceptions about the purposes of local government and the political values which should be represented in the political institutions of local authorities. This chapter reviews the political values commonly imputed by the left and the right to local government institutions and assesses how these values have fared in national and local policy during the 1980s.1 The chapter is therefore concerned primarily with normative arguments and not simply with describing government policy. It is not assumed that there is any direct relationship between political values and public policy but it is assumed that political principles constitute relevant criteria with which to discuss public policy.2
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Notes and references
On the importance of political principles and values, see Brian Barry, Political Argument (Harvester, 1965).
See Robert E. Goodin, Reasons for Welfare (Princeton University Press, 1988); and
Desmond S. King and Jeremy Waldron, ‘Citizenship, Social Citizenship and the Defence of Welfare Provision’, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 18, no. 4 (1988) pp. 415–45.
For a discussion of this issue, see Brian Barry, ‘Morality and Geography’, Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, 1980; David Heald, Public Expenditure (Martin Robertson, 1983); and King, The Cities.
See Desmond S. King, The New Right: Politics, Markets and Citizenship (Macmillan and Dorsey Press, 1987).
See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford University Press, 1971); and
Roberto M. Unger, Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
See David Harvey, Social Justice and the City (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973);
Paul E. Peterson, City Limits (University of Chicago Press, 1981); and Charles Tiebout, ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’, Journal of Political Economy, vol. 64, pp. 16–24.
The phrase ‘rules of the game’ is taken from R. A. W. Rhodes, Beyond Westminster and Whitehall (Unwin Hyman, 1988).
David Widdicombe, The Conduct of Local Authority Business, Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the conduct of Local Authority Business (Chairman: David Widdicombe) Cmnd 9797 (London, HMSO, 1986) p. 46.
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (Dent, 1972).
Mill, Considerations; L. J. Sharpe, ‘Theories and Values of Local Government’, Political Studies, vol. 18 (1970) pp. 153–74; and
Dilys Hill, Democratic Theory and Local Government (Allen & Unwin, 1976).
George Jones and John Stewart, The Case for Local Government (Allen & Unwin, 2nd edn 1985); and Widdicombe, Conduct of Local Authority.
Albert Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty (Princeton University Press, 1970).
George Jones, Responsibility and Government, Inaugural Lecture, London School of Economics and Political Science, 1977.
See Goodwin, Reasons for Welfare; and Raymond Plant, Equality, Markets and the New Right (Fabian Society, 1984).
F. Layfield (Chairman), Local Government Finance. Report of the Committee of Inquiry, Cmnd 6453 (London, HMSO, 1976).
See King, The New Right; Kenneth Hoover and Raymond Plant, Conservative Capitalism (Routledge, 1988); and
Andrew Gamble, The Strong State and the Free Economy (Macmillan, 1988).
Competitive tendering also reflects the criticisms of William Niskanen, Bureaucracy: Servant or Master? (Institute of Economic Affairs, 1971).
Nicholas Ridley, The Local Right (Centre for Policy Studies, 1988); and see parliamentary debates during the third reading of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, Hansard, especially 18 April 1988, vol. 131, columns 569–642.
David Blunkett and Keith Jackson, Democracy in Crisis (Hogarth, 1987) p. 64.
John Gyford, The Politics of Local Socialism (Allen & Unwin, 1986);
Hugh Morrison, The Regeneration of Local Economies (Oxford University Press, 1987); and King, The Cities.
There are historical precedents on the left, however: see Andrew Sancton, ‘British Socialist Theories in the Division of Power by Area’, Political Studies, vol. 24, no. 2 (1976) pp. 158–70. The GLEB drew up a series of investment strategies for the London economy and provided capital to small firms which satisfied specific criteria such as being co-operatives, involving trades unions, employing minorities or women. According to the London Industrial Strategy (GLC, 1985) produced by the GLEB, their main emphasis was to be upon production and the character of that production: the stress is upon ‘socially useful production’ which ‘takes as its starting point not the priorities of the balance sheet, but the provision of work for all who wish it in jobs that are geared to meeting social needs’ (p. 18). Commercial viability is not ignored but social objectives are given priority in GLEB grant allocations. The GLEB stressed active intervention — that is, the formulation of projects either from the beginning or according to specific criteria — and produced a series of detailed studies of the main sectors of the London economy together with proposals for their development.
See Julian LeGrand, The Strategy of Equality (Allen & Unwin, 1982); and
Robert E. Goodin and Julian LeGrand (eds), Not Only the Poor (Allen & Unwin, 1987).
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© 1989 Desmond S. King
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King, D.S. (1989). The New Right, the New Left and Local Government. In: Stewart, J., Stoker, G. (eds) The Future of Local Government. Government Beyond the Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20179-2_10
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