On the long finger

Just a quick one to round the week off. I missed this post yesterday on Paul Waugh’s site.

I won’t accuse George Osborne of cowardice for saying this because he’s hardly unique in this respect:

But he left the best til last. When asked if there was any chance of following up this localist agenda by giving councils more of their own money via loc govt finance reform, the ghost of the poll tax hovered over his reply:

“Let me put it this way. Local government tax reform is something that we might leave to a third or fourth term..”

But it does sum up the problem, doesn’t it? I don’t think you could read that story and not see that local policies are seen as anything other than a pawn in the Westminster game – one that’s played out mainly for a small highly valued demographic of swing voters who have to be reached through the prism of the reporters on a handful of national newspapers.