Why Rory Stewart is right about Westminster…
Many MPs and ministers first learned their political craft in town halls, taking decisions that affected local people.
To the aspiring prime minister (don’t they all want to be PM?) who wants to make a difference and change the world for the better - being a councillor in a small ward in Oxdown on Sea, being quoted in the Oxdown Gazette for a stunning intervention in a debate on town-centre signage maybe loses its fizz after a couple of electoral cycles.
So, to Westminster, it is – with a glad heart, high aspirations, and a ministerial office surely just a couple of sycophantic PMQs away.
Sadly, many discover there is no real power in being an MP. Even though national government puts its fingers in every pie, it does so ham-fistedly.
This is because national politicians don’t know what is needed locally; they have no sense of the unique and diverse challenges of Portsmouth, Plymouth and Portishead – nor the unique solutions.
Not like local politicians do.
Perhaps that’s why some sensible national politicians have gone the other way, leaving Westminster to try to exercise real power in the towns, cities and regions.
These include Ken Livingstone, Sadiq Khan, Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin – to name four random, former Labour MPs who have become city mayors. Two were even Cabinet ministers.
As former Tory MP and minister Rory Stewart told the FT newspaper: “I’m now almost ready to imagine coming back into politics if I was to run as a mayor or something. I was with [West Midlands mayor] Andy Street and [Greater Manchester mayor] Andy Burnham yesterday, and I’m very jealous. Andy Burnham’s analysis of parliament is almost identical to mine. He’s just like, ‘what a terrible place, I was becoming the most awful human being and now in Manchester I can be myself and do stuff.’”
The problem is that Westminster has too tight a grip on local mayors and local councils. It is too restrictive. Too controlling. Bullying even.
It gives cash – levelling up funds, along with orders and demands.
Westminster giveth and Westminster taketh away.
It tells local councils how much money it can raise, how it can spend it and gives orders about pretty much every area of policy.
It’s time to let local politicians take control, to tackle the problems on their streets and in their towns and villages. It’s time for real decentralisation.
Rory Stewart’s book Politics on the Edge has just been published.
Download our paper on Decentralisation.