Sean Fear’s Friday slot
January 26th, 2007
Are Labour Planning to Get Rid of the County and District Councils?
In my last year as a borough councillor, in 2003/4, there was much speculation that Labour would seek to get rid of the County and District councils, and replace them with single-tier Unitary Authorities.
Some of the powers of County and District councils would be transferred to the new Unitary authorities. Others would be transferred upwards to elected regional assemblies. Although this never materialised, I now understand that this idea is being given serious consideration again in government circles, perhaps as one of the new initiatives that Gordon Brown will announce when he becomes Prime Minister.
The advantages of such a scheme from Labour’s point of view are obvious. Currently, there are 6,100 Conservative County and District councillors, 2,500 for Labour, and 2,700 for the Liberal Democrats. Almost certainly, the number of Labour district councillors will be reduced still further in May.
Obviously, the abolition of County and District councils, and their replacement by Unitary Authorities, would have the effect of sharply reducing the number of Conservative councillors. It would also reduce the number of Labour councillors, but Labour has far fewer councillors to lose.
Many constituency associations are dependent on local councillors to keep going, and cutting councillor numbers will reduce the number of local activists. Such a move might also put Conservative councillors at loggerheads with one another, as they sought selection for a much smaller number of seats, and argued over the boundaries of the proposed new authorities.
New Labour has consistently shown it will try out all sorts of constitutional innovations, in order to strengthen its own position relative to that of its opponents, and this would be an obvious move to make.
Last night’s results were generally good for the Conservatives, and poor for Labour.
Cumbria CC - Brampton and Gilsland: Con. 717, Lab.363, BNP 88. Con. hold.
Isle of Anglesey CC - Llanfihangel Esceifiog: Independent 449, Plaid Cymru 273, Lab 56. Independent gain from Plaid Cymru. How on Earth is this seat pronounced?
New Forest DC - Barton: Con. 990, Lib Dem 426, Ind 277, Lab 48. Con. hold.
Nottinghamshire CC - Hucknall: Con. 1597, Lab 1554, Lib Dem 1007, UKIP 413, Green 350. Con. gain from Lab. This was a particularly good Conservative performance, in the light of quite a strong vote for UKIP.
West Oxfordshire DC - Witney Central: Con. 417, Lib Dem 207, Lab 87, Green 68. Con. hold. Labour won this seat as recently as 2002, and is a further sign of their difficulties in the South of England.
Sean Fear is a London Tory activist
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Discussions have been going on this week over the future of local government in North Yorkshire with County Councillors voting on tuesday to merge the County with all 7 district councils. Not surprisingly all the district councils have come out against this plan.
By-Election Results: Thursday 25th January 2007.
Cumbria CC, Brampton and Gilsland
Con 717 (61.4; +13.6), Lab 363 (31.1; +2.9), BNP 88 (7.5; +7.5), [LD (0.0; -24.0).
Majority 354. Turnout 23.3%. Con hold. Last fought 2005.
Isle of Anglesey UA, Llanfihangel Ysgeifiog
Ind 449 (57.7; +21.0), PC 273 (35.1; -28.2), Lab 56 (7.2; +7.2).
Majority 176. Turnout 50%. Ind gain from PC. Last fought 2004.
New Forest DC, Barton
Con 990 (56.9; -16.7), LD Wyn Davies 426 (24.5; -1.9), Ind 277 (15.9; +15.9), Lab 48 (2.8; +2.8).
Majority 564. Turnout 36.7%. Con hold. Last fought 2003.
Nottinghamshire CC, Hucknall
Con 1597 (32.5; +0.3), Lab 1554 (31.6; -18.2), LD Harry Toseland 1007 (20.5; +20.5), UKIP 413 (8.4; +8.4), Green 350 (7.1; -4.5), [Ind (0.0; -6.4)].
Majority 43. Turnout 21.2%. Con gain from Lab. Last fought 2005.
West Oxfordshire DC, Witney Central
Con 417 (53.5; +10.6), LD Brenda Churchill 207 (26.6; +8.8), Lab 87 (11.2; -16.5), Green 68 (8.7; -2.9).
Majority 210. Turnout 25.1%. Con hold. Last fought 2004.
Once upon a time, I’d have spoken out against Labour twisting democracy for their own ends, but we’re so used to it now I don’t know if I’d raise an eyebrow if it happened.
And after reminding judges to only imprison offenders who pose a riskto public safety, the only person jailed today seems to be a News of the World editor!
If the Government saw the record prison population as a scandal rather than an achievement, there might be hope for better soon, but until the focus changes to equipping and training inmates to stay out of trouble in future, I can’t see the current policy dealing with either those tempted to crime or those already in prison.
Is it true this gives a predicted tory lead of 18% over Labour? If that happened would the tories be in with a chance of getting over the magic 43% of the vote in the English local elections?
Sadly, whatever they do it will still mean local government is largely toothless. What is needed is wholesale reform and repatriation of powers, not tinkering at the edges.
This is a slightly odd post, given the current context!
The proposals for this were announced in October. Councils have been encouraged to apply for reorganisation if they want it - about ten counties (Cumbria, Somerset, Durham, Cheshire, for instance) and a dozen or so permutations of cities (Oxford, Norwich, Exeter, Ipswich) and combinations of districts (South-East Northumberland, Mid Bedfordshire) have chosen to do so. There might have been more but Conservative policy was set against it and that persuaded a few (though not all) Tory authorities out of it.
The deadline for applying was yesterday, and the Government anticipates letting somewhere between 8 and 12 become unitary - the shortlist is expected in March. The big question mark is whether they will go with the big authorities or the small ones. The main incentive is financial, and the bigger authorities offer more cost savings more quickly (one big block on this change being its effect on the ‘golden rule’), but the smaller authorities are more likely to have vocal and controlling Labour Groups, so that could influence ministers in the other direction.
Full disclosure and all that, I work for the Counties’ Association.
Sean,
Thanks as ever for your weekly article. I agree that Labour’s addiction to gerrymandering our constitutional settlement has reached such endemic levels that this latest suggestion hardly raises an eyebrow. After the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, nothing would surprise me from this lot.
As an English incomer to North Wales, trying to learn the “idiosyncrasies” of the language, I’d have a go at Llanfihangel Ysgeifiog as:
Hclan-vi-hangel Uz-gai-viog
In pronouncing it, you have to ensure your partner ends up drenched in your saliva.
No doubt Gwenfya or cymrumark will correct me.
When Prescott and Milliband looked at it the bill was so high that Gordon vetoed it.
If however Gordon thinks it could help him get elected, then no bill will be to high.
*Gwynfa* Sorry.
5 If you look at Labour’s approach , even in bills meant to “free” local authorities, it is that local authorities are delivery agents for central government services. They have some freedom in how they provide them but constrained within targets and guidance.So while Sean Fear may be right in judging there is an upside to Labour in amalgamating authorities the underlying reason in trying to “modernise” is in establishing a better distribution network.
Gordon Brown may present it as a great “localising” change but by simplifying the structure it will enable better management of local authorities from the centre. Look how well Labour gets London to do its bidding by setting the rules for revenue raising so Ken follows the behaviour track the Dept of Transport and others want him to.
Gwynfa/Cymru Mark/Mark Senior about.
Quite a good week for the Lib Dems, too Sean - although a failure to stand in Brampton, Cumbria where Lib Dems have recently done well.
One difference between the local government White Paper and the subsequent Bill is that the goverment now retain the right to impose Unitary authorities
Sean, if this is a ruse to reduce the number of Conservative councillors, why do you think Tory controlled Shropshire CC has launched a bid to swallow up four district councils where around half the councillors are Conservative?
Would you support a bid for unitary status if it had local support and was likely to result in cost savings? Or wou;d you prefer to keep your extra councillors and their allowances?
Surely even if changing the system was to Labour’s advantage now, when the Conservative’s return to power, (they will one day) and the pendelum swings the other way, there will be less seats for Labour to gain. As for gerrymandering, seem to remember the Tories getting rid of the London County Council because it was a Labour fiefdom. I don’t think the Tories can be too proud of their record on local government, remember Peter Walkers re-organistation bill in 1974, what a disaster that was, probably one of the worse pieces of legislation ever: then there was the poll tax. Both the major parties have plenty to be ashamed of when it comes to fiddling around with local government.
Whether you are pro or anti electoral reform for Westminster, I think there is a good case for some form of PR at council level. It would get rid of the ‘rotten borough’ tendancy, and stop the big parties ‘tinkering’.
Scotland’s experiment will be interesting.
16
Agree it would break up the power monopolies, Labour in the North, Tories in the South, no party should be so dominant in local government, that it can get away with just about anything.
17 - Wasn’t there a study done recently suggesting that the quality of local government administration was generally higher in areas with stable political control? There’s no automatic rule that says local party dominance is a bad thing. Just look at Westminster and Wandsworth.
18
Sorry but is that the Westminster once run by….what was her name….Oh yes Lady Porter, fine example!
18 Try looking at Labour Councils which have been in power since 1974 without any real chance of a change in control - you’ll find a few rotten councils there
19 - Westminster is one of the best run councils in the country. Are you disputing that?
21.
As in ‘The Great Train Robbery’ and the ‘Brinks-Mat Gang’ weere well-run?
Whether it is well run or not, is irrelevant, power will corrupt, if you want the same people to always run things, scrap democracy and go over to a dictatorship, is that what you want? I prefer a system that has to go through periodic change. Now if that change produces a government or local authority which is not of my choosing, fair enough, its change that is important, not my preference.
Local Councils don’t have any power.
Why do you think PR will lead to periodic change? Either you think the problem is a few individual local parties, or you think the problem is power itself. If the latter, then PR will lead to exactly the same problems just via “coalition” govt.
*PR will initially break up a few longstanding local monopolies but in the medium term lead to exactly the same problems just via “coalition” govt.
When you see New Labour talking about ‘freeing up local populations’ and ‘making things more accountable’, you know 1001 per cent that what they will be proposing will mean exactly the opposite. The centralising thuggery march on.
24. What they mean is Labour and Conservative changing periodically at the pleasure of their Lib Dem partners with the Lib Dems remaining as the real forever or nearly forever party of power like the FDP in Germany managed for well over thirty years.
All the parties are coalitions anyway, there are people in Nulabour that could fit quite happily into Cameron’s Liberal Conservative’s and vice versa. Peter Temple Morris when he switched to Nulabour was amazed at how at home he felt in his new party, didn’t even think he’d changed. Chris Patten, could have sat quite happily in Blair’s Cabinet, he seemed to be a regular fixture at No10 when Blair first took over.
28 - I’m not sure if that was intended but you’ve only strengthened my argument that PR wouldn’t change anything viz a viz local govt. You would still get some excellently run local authorities, like Westminster, and some poorer ones, like, I don’t know, Liverpool.
Isn’t the evidence that these local feifdoms are becoming less secure? When Labour loses control of places like the South Yorkshire boroughs or Newcastle, it shows a new willingness to vote against type if the council isn’t sufficiently well run. Likewise, the 90s proved to Conservatives in many parts of the country that there were no God given rules protecting their power bases either.
FPTP seems to work well enough when people want change - and if they don’t, who are we to argue? PR would place that power in the hands of politicians to a much greater extent, which I’m not sure would be well received by the electorate.
Interesting article Sean amd some interesting comments as well. That said on the “constitutional tinkering we now look set to get fraud trials without juries.
See for below for more
http://aconservatives.blogspot.com/
However, Coldstone’s comments on previous local council tinkerings are noted. You just have to wonder why they don’t leave things that work alone!
There may well be a case for unitary authorities, but there are are good arguments against. In essence the problem is one of how local things feel. I wonder if Mark Senior will back me up on this. West Sussex is large and it’s capitol, Chichester is at one end of it, so it feels very remote. Mid Sussex is small, so its capitol Haywards Heath is fairly easy to get to from every where in the district. The problem comes with unifying authorites, like say Mid Sussex with Horsham. Where do you put the capitol? Haywards Heath or Horsham? Well, you will irritate half the new elecorate which ever one you choose. The alternative is to be bold, and build a new capitol in somewhere like Bolney or Warninglid, which will irritae about 90% of the electorate.
So what do you do?
In many ways the best way of unifying authorities is down not up, so they feel more local, but encourage them to work toghether in ad hoc groups to get the cost savings. That sort of thing already happens amoungst some of London’s boroughs.
30 - I wonder what extent the Audit Commission CPA’s could be having an impact. Frankly if people continue to elect (assuming no widespread electoral fraud) councillors who preside over 1 or 2 star non-improving authorities then they can have no significant complaints. As you say the one thing that FPTP usually does is empower the voters to remove current administrations.
*CPAs
14 I think that proves my point. Some Conservative councillors will see this as a great chance to grab power, even while others are opposed. WRT your other points, I have never heard of any form of local government reorganisation that ever saved money.
4 No. I think it’s more likely Labour would be heading down to little more than 20%.
15 I take your point, but to be fair, the LCC boundaries made little sense by 1964.
32. I’d agree re the CPA. I suspect there aren’t that many people who live in areas with a 1* council who don’t know it’s not that good - but the CPA ratings do go some way to confirm it.
That said you can get all sorts of answers when you ask people who they think is in control in the town hall, especially where there is split control between district and county, or coalition administrations. Some will assume it’s the government (and won’t be far wrong), others won’t have noticed a change of administration. But that all adds to the fun of campaigning.
32/35. What are the authorities that have a low grade and aren’t improving?
36. It was a hypothetical 1* council in my post, but the real ratings can be found here:
http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/cpa/
Hope that’s of some use.
37. yes, David, I was looking at that seat. Being lazy as I am tonight, I was trying to avoid to look council by council.
I see that some 2* councils were elected back easily last year (and some 4* were thrown out), but at least they were improving.
I guess people have done a fair number of studies on it.
Here’s one, no idea if it’s reputable. Suggests poor councils have suffered (in terms of votes) but excellence is often not rewarded.
LibDems do well in Brampton???
My arse, they have never picked up more then 20% of the vote, and are at the moment bricking it for the byelections in the other area of Carlisle….
27 - so I presume you object to the fact that, to pluck a local authority out of the air, Rushcliffe has been Tpry controlled since its founding in 1974?
The CPA itself is a gross fraud, the unelectable trying to measure the politically-selected unmeasurable. Many of those local authorities who get ‘good’ ratings are those who put the achievement of good ratings above the provision of good services. The Audit Commission “bless’em” principally like to make nice noises. A lot of officers and councillors time is spent telling the poor dears what local government is actually about. But the Commissioners nod along, put up with ghastly hotels for a day or three and it all pays nicely for their villas in Portugal and gives Prescott’s idiots fresh excuses for skewing their distribution of funding in yet another way to keep the natives on their toes.
Tim 13 @ 12, as gaz @ 40 half gets it right, there was never an expectation that we would have a candidate for Brampton. Some today though that the BNP total of 88 was “good” in both that it was not a high number, whilst other views were that it was “good” as in a high number.
Unfortunately Gaz @ 40 isn’t quite correct regarding the “bricking it”. There is a by-election as a colleague died of cancer, and there are 4 candidates……….Lab;Con;LD; & Green. I expect a higher turnout than Brampton (23%), as Labour will pull out all their dirty tricks to win……..but I think gaz had better not hold his breath!
As Chair of a Cumbrian District, and Executive Member of Cumbria CC, I have been having an “interesting”time with regard to the Unitary debate. I would not be surprised to see it quietly forgotten about after a Brown take-over.
43.”I expect a higher turnout than Brampton (23%), as Labour will pull out all their dirty tricks to win”
isn’t accusing a party of dirty tricks even before doing them (so without 100% sure they’ll do them) considered, well, a dirty trick itself? you know it can sound like a smear….
37 - what an amusing website! I put in my postcode to “Find my council” and the webpage got it wrong. I put in the postcode of my previous address and it got that wrong too!
45. SBS. Reading is 3* and improving adequately
46 - good for Reading. But the audit commission need auditing.
47. well, I reached the Reading page easily using the “search by name” function. However when I tried to reach it using a postcode (I used Tory association postcode) they led me to Wokingham District Council, South Oxfordshire District Council and Oxfordshire County Council
New Labour believe that ‘big’ gives cost benefits on the old concept of ‘the economies of scale’. So we see large hospitals favoured in the health service and similar moves in to bundle things together into ‘bigger and more effective’ education and policing units. So why not local government.
But big usually, in government, has meant cost inefficient because the basic management is not there, accountability gets weaker the bigger the unit gets and money disappears at an alarming rate without real benefits being delivered.
Its simply a current model of the socialist state.
After tripling the health budget and creating 100 billion of long term debt through PFI to build the monster health leviathans the fallacy of this concept is clear. to everyone but G Brown.
Small, readily accountable to the tax payers, easily surveyed and audited should be the model for better value and real democratic control for all government whenever possible.
The correct answer to the question “How is Llanfihangel Ysgeifiog pronounced?” is “Correctly, according to the entirely regular and logical rules of Welsh pronunciation, with which every normal decent reasonable intelligent cultured person is already familiar without needing to ask”.
For the linguistically challenged English, try:
hlan-vee-HANG-el us-GAY-vee-og
for sheer entertainment value, try listening to the Radio 5 sports presenter trying to report the rugby cup result between….
Waunarlwyd v Cwmllynfell
classic
51 - PenDdu - pleasantly surprised that my attempt at post 7 seems pretty similar to yours. Can’t be doing too badly in my lessons, and maybe JohnLoony has a bit of a point in terms of the “regular and logical” rules!
No idea of Waunarlwyd, but Cum-cleen-vell for the 2nd?
Why is this being seen as a conspiracy? After independence RoI abolished all the rural district councils, making the counties unitary authorities with the only level below them being parish councils. Cities remained county boroughs. The handful of urban district councils remained as urban district councils. The county boroughs and urban district councils have now been renamed city county and town councils but both still retain their “pre 1974″ powers.
Surely this is the way forward. Abolish ALL the district councils making all the counties unitary and give the town councils their pre 1974 powers back to give a truly local council with sufficient powers (with the exception of things like rubbish collection, environmental health and street lighting which is more efficient on a county wide basis).
Here in Rural Bedfordshire, it is noticable that our town council (which was unusually not an UDC as the place was still a village in 1974) are steadly aquiring more and more of the powers of an UDC to the extent that we now pay far more council tax to the town council than we do to the district. There is the risk of “pocket” councils but our town council is in a far better situation to sort problems in our town of 12,000 people than when I lived in an “unparished” london borough and little attention was given to our ward.
PS as far as the Bedfordshire proposals are concerned I think both sides have got it wrong. I think that Bedford Town should be a unitary authority comprising the town of Bedford along with Goldington and Kempston Urban only (ie not the whole of north Beds) and Bedfordshire cc become unitary. Bedford town would have a population of 70,000 which is more than enough.
Renaming North Bedfordshire District Council “Bedford Borough” was imho silly and deeply insulting to those who live in rural north Bedforshire as well as being inaccurate & wrong. The Borough of Bedford comprised the unparished area of North Bedfordshire comprising urban Bedford only (and not even Goldington or Kempston). If the town of Bedford (plus Goldington and Kempston) became a unitary authority it might actually stand a chance of a majority of one party being elected to the council and end the interminable rainbow coalitions.
52 - Robin - the skill is to do it without spitting………
54: Bedford Borough Council currently has a directly elected executive Mayor, so it wouldn’t really matter if one party had a majority of seats on the Council unless they had 2/3 of the seats and could veto the budget.
Witney Central. Tory hold
This was held by Labour in the past but only on the back of a strong local candidate of long standing with a personal following on the small former council estate. It was won by an independent running a local campaign in 03, but has been otherwise Tory since the turn of the century. So don’t draw too many conclusions
However the by-election was caused by the sitting Tory doing a runner and going missing because of money problems. Rumour is the Tory leadership know where is but have hushed it up.
The easy win by the Tories really reflects the poor local organisation of both Labour and LD, who have bearely 10 active members between them. The Labour candidate was particularly abysmal. They were singularly unable to exploit the open goal left them by the missing Tory councillor.
The clue is the 2003 victory by Harriet Ryley as an independent on a strong local issue. Despite strong cross party support in the town and a good activist base who had helped with her campaign against a supermarket, and also good media contacts (media savvy people may recognise the surname), she only beat the Tory by a whisker. Basically it is a Tory ward.
This business about unitary authorities. It is a hot topic in the Oxfordshire County area. Can any of you people who are “in the know” please advise me if it is still the case that if a County is broken up, as is proposed for Oxfordshire, what powers if any migrate to a regional authority.
Officially the powers of a new unitary would be the same as the powers of the previous county and district for that area - the role of the Regional Office, Regional Development Agency, and Regional Assembly would be unchanged.
In practical terms it would probably affect the relative positions and lobbying strength of Oxfordshire Councils on such things as spatial planning, though not in a wholly predictable way, which are largely handled regionally, except that Counties have retained a say.
So it’s really about influence, not formal power. The Leader of Oxfordshire currently Chairs the South East County Leaders’ Group, so that’s a strong position of regional influence - clearly that would not continue. Advocates of splitting up the county would probably respond by saying that they don’t like how he uses that influence anyway.
“Nottinghamshire CC - Hucknall: Con. 1597, Lab 1554, Lib Dem 1007, UKIP 413, Green 350. Con. gain from Lab. This was a particularly good Conservative performance, in the light of quite a strong vote for UKIP.”
Punters really must move away from this idea that UKIP candidates depress the Tory vote - in GE 2005, the Tory vote went up on average more in seats with a UKIP candidate than in seats where UKIP didn’t stand.
On that basis, a UKIP candidature actually helps Tory candidates rather then hurting them. It seems it’s the liberals who suffer most from UKIP standing - probably as a more venomous protest vote?
“in GE 2005, the Tory vote went up on average more in seats with a UKIP candidate than in seats where UKIP didn’t stand”
Not according to Butler and Kavanagh.
61 - well it did according to Geddes and Tonge p17…
Change in major party vote shares in consituencies between 2001 -5 (England and Wales):
In seats where UKIP stood, the average Tory vote increased 0.5% but went down 0.3% where there was no UKIP candidate.
Lab figures show no variation, whilst Lib figs are up 3.4 in seats with a UKIP candiadte, and up 4.9% where they didn’t.
Sean’s figures: 6,100 Conservative County and District councillors, 2,500 for Labour, and 2,700 for the Liberal Democrats just goes to show how things have changed in the last 10 years.In 1997/98 Labour had 5009, the Liberal Democrats 3324 and the Conservatives 3187. Not to mention the party dominating the then new unitary authorities and the Metropolitan Districts, where, too, Labour have been losing ground
As far as Durham and the future structure of Local Government goes, the position is as follows:
*Durham County Council favors one county wide unitary authority
*Six of the seven district councils in County Durham favor the pathfinder option leading to unitary
*Durham City Council favors enhanced two-tier
As far as the latter goes, the Liberal Democrats will settle for their cherished object of a Durham “Town” Council, which they are certain to control. The city itself has never been so much fertile Labour territory as to the extent that the wider district has. Indeed, it is the district, rather than the city, which has defined Durham politics, both at the local level and, more especially, the parliamentary level. Even when the Liberal Democrats wrestled control of the city council from Labour in 2003, it was not so much them winning it, more a case of Labour losing it and they did miserably.
Two recent by-elections, early 2006, in Durham, Durham South County Council and Shadforth and Sherburn City Council both saw significant swings to Labour (Labour hold, Lib Dem hold, respectively).
While, last May, the Framwellgate Moor County Council by-election saw only a 1.3% from Labour to the Liberal Democrats. This division has long been held by Labour, and, as of now, it has 3 Liberal Democrats (Bearpark and Witton Gilbert); 2 Independents and 1 Labour (Framwellgate Moor)on the city council. Traditionally, a high and solid Labour turnout in Bearpark has enabled Labour to hold this division but, in 2006, this was not the case. Framwellgate Moor broke for Labour, in the absence of a strong independent (in recent years, Independents had given the late Labour county councillor a free-run); Witton Gilbert narrowly went Labour; while Bearpark broke rather heavily for the Liberal Democrat. However, this was not so much because their candidate was a Liberal Democrat, but because he was Bearpark born-and-bred; while the, succesful, Labour candidate was largely unknown in the village.
It will be interesting to see what happens in Durham come May, especially if a ‘rejuvenated’ Conservative Party contests all wards. They lost their last two city councillors back in 1987.
Even if Labour takes a pasting nationally, which seems highly probable, there may yet be local results which buck that trend.
Nevertheless, the old maxim of former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s, “All poltics is local”, doesn’t so much hold to the extent that it once did in UK local government elections.
Are the tories even in contention in any of the City of Durham seats?
jdc 59
Do you know - as a consumer of local government services, the arguement that it gives the chair of the council “more influence” is of diddly squat appeal to me. It is a non reason.
As a voter I can have some influence over my district authority, the leaders of which I know are slaves to several local media including the letters column of the local paper.
The County Council is something that does what it wants.So more power to the local level would suit me.
64 The Conservatives only contested 5 wards in 2003 , mostly polling under 10% of the vote , the best result being 18% or thereabouts .
51.
Hlan Vee Hang El Us Kye Vee Og
Wine Ar Loo Id
Coom Hleen Vehl
Looking at the destruction of the language of heaven on some of these postings it is no wonder tha the old RWF recce platoon used to use Welsh speakers to confuse the enemy!