Tuesday, 6 June 2017

Unitary Authority for Oxon

The rise in the number of English unitary authorities has caused a revolution in British politics. The traditional geographic distribution of government control consists of counties and in turn most counties are split into districts. With the exception of institutions like the armed forces and the National Health Service, which are directed straight from central government, the local centres of government direct most other state functions. The county boundaries shift from time to time, with counties being divided or united sometimes, or even abolished and absorbed; but the system works pretty well... therefore it has to go! A unitary authority is designed to be a replacement to the two-tier country-district system. Some of these make some sense, for example the big city of Leicester has devolved from its eponymous shire to be run independently as a unitary authority. This is because that one city had a third of the county's population and land area in itself. In the same way the Isle of Wight was once a county in its own right until 1972; then it was annexed by Hampshire and divided into two districts. The Isle of Wight people, including  David Icke without a doubt, have always had a strong independent spirit as islanders tend to. Therefore it was popular and logical to create a separate authority for the island. The problem is that the government now want to turn Oxfordshire, my home, into a unitary authority and this is an entirely different situation. "The Emerald of the South" is not a metropolitan region like Leicester. Its capital, the city of Oxford, where I live, is a relatively small city in a large rural county. Oxfordshire currently has five districts, Oxford City, Vale of White Horse, South Oxfordshire, Cherwell and West Oxfordshire. The original plan was to divide the county on a basic north south line, create two unitary authorities and then let Oxford City devolve into a third; but now the proposal is for a single unitary authority for the whole of Oxfordshire. The county council reckon this will save a hundred million pounds a year, see: https://www.betteroxfordshire.org/. Critics say it will raise council tax bills and cost jobs, see: http://www.oxcivicsoc.org.uk/devolution-and-reorganisation/. Two districts support the unitary authority agenda, South and White Horse, even though it technically means their own abolition. Perhaps those district administrators hope to get better jobs in the unitary authority; never underestimate how much the prospect of personal gain influences the decisions of a bureaucrat. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-39271439. This reminds me of the European Union on a smaller scale. Independent self-determining places are being broken down and digested into a single centralized power bloc. For this reason I oppose the Oxfordshire unitary authority proposal.
See here for more information: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/article-50-at-last.html.
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brexit-reality.html.
And: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/programme-193-podcast-eu-referendum.html.
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8 comments:

  1. Reg6 June 2017 at 18:48

    What a boring blog, I'd give up if I were you.

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  2. Ben Emlyn-Jones6 June 2017 at 19:19

    I won't. Go and watch the BBC if you're bored!

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  3. Anonymous6 June 2017 at 19:25

    Hi mate, interesting stuff ben. Never been to oxford to be fare but sounds a proper posh place to tell the truth. I agree with ya that island people are different and the smaller you get the more people are different and protect what theyve got especially there identity and what have you . Small is beutiful definitely ben. The more remote your power the less democratic I reckon. I was born and bred on the isle of dogs to be fare mate and yeah not really a proper island like were your david icke lives the isle of wight, but I tell ya Ben your isle of dogs people take no shit whatsoever. Absolutely no shit mate. Look after one another to be fare. I live in Dagenham now which by london standards is still monoethnic if you catch my drift Ben. I think what your saying in a way is that common identity is important. Im so glad we voted to leave the EU and though I was gonna always vote that way myself ben your blogs on the matter helped a lot so cheers again pal. Baz

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  4. Ben Emlyn-Jones6 June 2017 at 19:34

    You're welcome, Baz. I've been to the Isle of Dogs. It's a huge collection of skyscrapers today. I think the local people have moved out. I understand the value of monoethnic communities and sometimes think I'd like to live in one. Multi-ethnic communities are not all bad though. The one I'm in is fairly peaceful, even though it's far from posh (not all of Oxford is!).

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  5. Laurence6 June 2017 at 19:48

    Baz said, "I think what your saying in a way is that common identity is important." I do not believe this is the point of the article; rather, Ben is warning against imposed centralisation, a centralisation that history demonstrates leads to autocratic decision making of the Marxist type, at the very least.

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  6. Ben Emlyn-Jones6 June 2017 at 20:01

    That's true, Laurence. It's a domestic EU basically. It scares me when govt power is placed in fewer and fewer hands, but that is the general strategic trend of modern politics.

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  7. Laurence6 June 2017 at 20:13

    As you say Ben, do not underestimate the common-or-garden apparatchik; they can be as self-serving and autocratic as the best of them when handed power in this way. As an aside, I find the terminology of unitary interesting in and of itself: Unitarianism being the denial of the Holy Trinity.

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  8. Ben Emlyn-Jones9 June 2017 at 13:31

    Laurence, it's a bit like a Secular Protestant Reformation. ;-)

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