Localism bill at Westminster next week: Any chance of more democracy?

[IandRgb]

*Localism bill at Westminster next week: What chance of more democracy?* 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/19/localism-bill-referendums-elected-mayors?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments>

According to the Guardian on-line (19th Nov.) the Conservative/Libdem 
government proposals for reform of local democracy and governance will 
be presented next week. The Guardian's political editor P. Wintour 
writes, "An outbreak of direct democracy in local government, including 
referendums for directly elected mayors in England's big cities, will 
feature in a wide-ranging localism bill due to be published next week." 
and further, "The bill will also include plans for people to be able to 
petition for referendums on any local issue, including pay of chief 
executives. But the bill will have to set out precisely what issues can 
be voted on and whether the results are advisory or binding. There will 
also be powers to hold ballots to block large council tax increases."

To set the new Tory/Libdem proposal against a democratic benchmark 
please review our assessment of their democracy reform promises:
Season for change in Britain? Citizen-led democracy 
<http://iniref.wordpress.com/>
Conservative/LibDem coalition programme. Shift of "power to the people"? 
<http://www.iniref.org/latest.html>

We comment on the Wintour's Guardian article as follows:
INIREF comments:

Patrick Wintour writes: "The bill will also include plans for people to 
be able to petition for referendums on any local issue, including pay of 
chief executives. But the bill will have to set out precisely what 
issues can be voted on ..."

In 2009 David Cameron said in a public speech that if elected to govern 
he would introduce citizen-initiated referendum both at local and 
national levels.

The Con/Libdem coalition agreement states, "We will give residents the 
power to instigate local referendums on any local issue."

Is that not very clear? If residents gain the power to instigate local 
referendums on any local issue then why or in what way will the bill, 
"have to set out precisely what issues can be voted on"?
---------------------------------
/A service of/
I&R ~ GB
Citizens' Initiative and Referendum
Campaign for direct democracy in Britain
http://www.iniref.org/



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.gn.apc.org/mailman/private/diggers350/attachments/20101120/8b26c919/attachment.html>