The Government wants to create a single county council in Gloucestershire to ‘improve democracy and efficiency’. The real aim is to control things more and slash expenditure.

As a response some local politicians want to split the county in two focussing on Cheltenham and the Cotswolds and Gloucester and the Forest. They think this could benefit them – with the Cheltenham area supporting the Tories and the Gloucester area supporting Labour, and with the Liberal democrats and the Greens marginalised.

This alternative plan is unlikely to be accepted by National Government. They aim to create authorities of a size that can deliver ‘economies of scale’ and pave the way for ‘elected mayors’ with the illusion of more ‘democratic’ accountability - while further reducing Government financial support.

Local Government is increasingly a transmission belt for the implementation of national policies. When Council’s had more autonomy and government subsidy, they had larger discretion on what they could spend.

The introduction of council tax and its subsequent ‘capping’ alongside the reduction of central government support has meant that ‘discretionary’ services are being axed. Those defined as ‘mandatory services’ by the government must be financed as a legal priority. The result is that local taxes are being used to fund national government obligations that at one time were largely funded through government support. The bill has been transferred to local taxpayers. With council tax capped, cuts are inevitable.

The Parliamentary constituencies coincide with the district council areas. The elected district councillors become the ‘activists’ who work to return their candidate to Parliament – where real state power over local government lies.

Our whole ‘democracy’ is contrived around a two-party first past the post voting system that makes for greater party-political control. It is this that is inherently undemocratic – not the number of elections we have.

Why don’t we abolish our current system and have all elections based on parishes – a bottom-up approach? We should have a national constitution that protects freedoms and rights complemented with a federal democratic system that starts with electing people in the localities who then elect delegates to a district level to run existing councils. They can then appoint MPs to Parliament and delegates to run county wide services who live in the locality.

This would generate passionate local involvement in politics and short circuit the stranglehold that political parties, big money and the national media currently have. It would stop opportunist ‘career’ politicians being imposed on local constituencies. It would give local people more power and create more stable governance which would greatly inspire officer confidence. It would make politics less reliant on the established political parties and encourage competent ‘independent’ and knowledgeable candidates. And people would only need to vote once.

The major problem is the government wants to control everything and does so in the name of ‘democracy’– a cosy complicated passive establishment democracy that has largely relegated local politicians to whipping boys for service failure when it is really central government to blame.