To be living in Denbighshire at the moment is to witness what happens when local government is given too much power without any recognised accountability. The Labour leader today pledged to back localism at the forthcoming local elections and beyond. But what exactly does he mean by localism? You won't be surprised to learn that several versions exist.
Miliband refers to a devolution of power from central government to local government. His was the government which did this more than any other between 1997 and 2010 so I suppose he simply intends to embark on more of the same. Nothing wrong with that per se except that it isn't always easy to see who is supposed to benefit. I had been under the impression that the winners were supposed to be members of the public. Where I live, that has recently become something of an aspiration rather than a reality. Whether our council is just typical of the national picture I 'm not sure but they currently seem intent on closing as many public services as they can. But maybe that isn't a bad thing either. As services become ever more scarce, people might have to divert their dependent gaze away from their local council and towards each other.
The latter broadly fits my understanding of localism. In the town where I live, there seems to be a simmering under current of people engaging with each other in terms of business ideas, social enterprise initiatives and ventures aimed at benefiting the local community. As I write, it's hard to gauge how big this group of people is but I've seen enough to know that it is growing. As people have become successively impoverished during the growing social inequality generated by our obsession with economic growth, they have understandably become more agitated. If you leave heat under a pan of cold water for long enough, the molecules become agitated and, in time, they begin to simmer. Eventually, they will reach boiling point.
I know many people who are contending with considerable heat at the moment and I suspect this is what is driving the local initiatives to which I refer. Whatever the source, the outcome is the key. We are fast approaching a straightforward choice between globalism and localism. In most communities, the former seems to be holding the advantage principally on account of its wealth advantage. For localism to seize back the initiative, it will just take sufficient numbers of local people with enough in common to forge their own route and turn their backs on globalism.
Before the old Gods were replaced by money, we know that most people existed by swapping goods and services through various systems of barter. In a piece last year, I highlighted the Spanish community of Marinelda to illustrate where I saw communities going in the years to come. Since I wrote that piece, my view has only been strengthened. I have never known so many ordinary people so utterly disinterested in the political system. I have every sympathy with them because the current system seems to have run out of ideas. Whether that political system is at a national or local level is largely academic because they are so difficult to distinguish.
It is said that the mobile phone giant Nokia fell from grace because it was being run by too many people from the same background with the same ideas and the same view of the world. Unable to consider alternative views, they were unable to cope with the threat of Samsung when it did come. The analogies are compelling. In a recent attempt to gain some insight in to what it was that local people would most want to see return to their high street, the leading response was very revealing. The majority expressed a desire for a dedicated market day. Hardly high tech I think you'd agree so what's the big attraction. Well, I would suggest it's people. There is nothing more basic or meaningful than real human contact and the street market is part of our heritage. This is the place where people come together to trade, to chat, to eat, to discuss and most importantly, to be with their fellow man. It will be interesting to see what my town will look like ten years hence. Will it be Tesco Express, Starbucks and Waitrose or will it return to it's ancestral roots? The people will decide...
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