Simon Carr: Everyone is sincere in this maelstrom of conflicting facts
Sketch
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Cuts, cuts, cuts. Are people and places to be devastated, with "the life sucked out of communities"? Or is it a great opportunity? A liberation, a historic chance to give local government some Camelot glamour while "the vulnerable" are progressively protected?
It depends what side you're on. We are free to believe a very wide range of things. What do you fancy? Caroline Flint, for instance, able, attractive, affable. She made everyone laugh by telling us about Labour's restless appetite for giving power away to local councils.
After that she was faced with a large number of supplicant Tories. Eventually she said: "The record will show that I've taken more interventions than the Secretary of State". That was true, but she also turned down more interventions as well. Was she better or worse at interventions? It depends which side you're on.
Thus: is West Oxfordshire losing more funding than Durham or less? David Cameron said more, and the Durham MP felt less. Durham was losing £60m, he said, and the Oxford lot were losing £775,000. But then Durham indigenes get £4.59 a head, "a sum West Oxfordshire can only dream of". Hartlepool and its mushy peas was losing £113 a head, whereas Wokingham with its guacamole was losing just £4. On the third or fourth hand, for every pound going to the richest areas, £4 was going to Newcastle.
Jack Dromey could throw in the confident assertion that every lost public-sector job would take a private-sector job with it. He believes it perfectly sincerely – but his opposite number believes the opposite with equal sincerity.
You'd be so welcome on either side the rights and wrongs hardly matter.
The multiple meanings of the Localism Bill applied to matters below the numbers as well. Eric Pickles was proud of giving a "general power of competence" to councils. Hitherto, they have had to find a statute allowing them to do something they wanted to (it's the continental way). Now they'll be able to do anything that isn't expressly forbidden (the Anglo-Saxon tradition).
However, Caroline F pointed out the one empowering Clause was followed by four constraining Clauses – which may have the New Labour effect of allowing councils to do anything they want as long it's what the Government wants as well.
David Blunkett suggested the Bill was "centralising the power and decentralising the pain". And Eric Pickles hoped the Opposition would "stop using the poor as a battering ram against the Government".
He's a big fellow, Eric, but there's a fat chance of that coming true.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments