Council shake-up
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Posts
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Sounds like change is coming down the track for councils in Wales.
STV is the best news for democracy since all women got the vote in 1928. The European elections list system and those dodgy regional list AMs were a step backwards, but under STV we will able to choose who represents us, more voters will actually be represented (unlike the current winners or losers approach) and there will be fewer wasted votes. There will also be fewer rotten boroughs with their unopposed councillors.I can’t get my head around the fact that we have raised the school leaving age effectively to 18 but plan to lower the voting age to 16. Meanwhile, a sixteen year old will be able to decide my future but they aren’t allowed to buy a pack of fags or purchase a pint in a pub. It is all rather confused.
Electronic voting and electronic counting. Not only will the Russian bots and trolls be allowed to influence our elections, we are now planning to invite them to actively participate. It is going to need a watertight system or we are just going to have to rely on Welsh councils being so unimportant the Russians just ain’t interested.
The general power of competence sounds useful unless in the hands of people who turned out to be generally incompetent. How about a general rule that any power held in Cardiff that would be better devolved to local councils should be moved closer to the people. Transferring power from London to Cardiff may please nationalists but it is not always the most effective solution. Bypass Cardiff and give the power to people on the ground with the solutions and local knowledge.
Council mergers are back on the table again. The miserable cost savings won’t balance the feeling that not only central government is far far away, but soon even local government will be increasingly distant. Sadly the bills will still be drop through the letterbox and are only going to increase.
I love the phrase about most of the cost of these changes will fall on the Welsh Government as if they have a printing press down in Cardiff Bay on standby to produce the readies. There again going by the promises being made in the current general election, they aren’t the only ones who are going to need a printer working flat out to produce the required number of banknotes.
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I can’t get my head around the fact that we have raised the school leaving age effectively to 18 but plan to lower the voting age to 16. Meanwhile, a sixteen year old will be able to decide my future but they aren’t allowed to buy a pack of fags or purchase a pint in a pub. It is all rather confused.
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With the turnout at local elections being so low – there is no danger whatsoever of 16 year olds turning up en masse on election Day to cause mayhem.
My best guess is that anyone civically minded enough at that age to vote should be considered sensible and mature for their age and applauded for participating. The vast majority of 18 year olds don’t even vote – as they are too busy getting their fill of fags and booze.
The current electoral worst case scenario is the one we have now where such low turnouts of 30% or less means the same people who get in every time and persistently mismanage the county stay in place causing further damage and decay. Nobody is happy about who is in charge but nobody can be bothered to do anything about it.
You are right about turnout.
Anything that gets rid of the current pocket rotten boroughs has to be an improvement;STV achieves that. Then we need a similar change in the votes for AMs and MPs.
In Wrexham the choice is between the Conservatives and Labour. They are definitely different but it is still a Hobson’s choice: like choosing between cars you can only afford to buy because the dodgy finance scheme makes it appear a bargain on a monthly basis as long as you overlook the bill at the end.
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