The House of Commons will today approve the government spending £ 48.875 Billion of your money for the Home Office, Foreign Office and Department of Communities and Local Government. This is part of a total Estimates approval for the year ending March 2012 of £221,086,166,000. Even today, that is a serious amount of money.Richard North in a comment here has claimed that his research into local referenda undermines criticisms of his referism proposal - the idea that there should be annual national votes on the government's budget.
In the local votes, the electors were presented with clear choices. In Croydon, for instance
Of the 4,190 council tenants responding to the rents referendum (24.1 percent turnout), just over 58 percent voted for a rent freeze, keeping average rents at £65 a week. On offer to the tenants had been a community patrol service, community grants, money advice and debt counselling services – all of which were rejected.Here it's quite clear what the choices are for you. You pay more, you get more services. Your vote will affect what happens in a clear way.
By comparison the numbers quoted by Douglas Carswell are mind boggling. National votes on them would also be meaningless, because all the departments have so many lines of spending. I'm not offered a choice at the margin directly affecting me which I can easily understand, it's a Yes/No vote on unimaginably big numbers.
That's why turnouts in local votes are irrelevant to a national referism proposal. That's why national incomprehensible votes would probably received apathetically. It would be unclear what a Yes or a No vote actually meant - whereas the council tenants' view was crystal clear.
Local votes - fine. National referenda on specific questions - fine. Annual votes on the national budget - waste of everyone's time and taxpayers' money. I'll vote No.
6 comments:
I think you are rather in danger of making the facts fit your own prejudices. Go back and look at your original objections ... you will find I answered them.
Now you raise new objections, and argue that my argument does not address them ... neglecting the rather obvious point that it cannot, as you have only just raised it.
Why don't you do the decent thing and admit you just don't like the idea of referism, and be done with it. That will save you the trouble of inventing increasingly implausible objections and pretending you're being objective.
Purple Scorpion - you are right, there are many objections to Dr North's "Referism". A better way would be a law to prohibit a national deficit. Then the national parties could compete directly and transparently on the tax-and-spend vs less-tax-less-spend issue.
I am however a fan of direct democracy for single issues. Referendums would be generated by citizen petitions and not repeatable for say 6 years.
Why should council tenants decide what rent they pay? I wish I could decide what I pay at Sainsburys for things.
Surely all council tax payers should decide what rent council tenants pay - I would decide that they pay the same as private tenants and that the rest of us pay less (or no) council tax.
Richard
It's not a question of liking or not liking. The arguments you advanced to support your view that referism would be practical politics still don't convince me.
As for me rebutting the points about local referenda which you made subsequent to your first series of referism posts - that's called debate.
Simply labelling my objections as "increasingly implausible" is unlikely to win any new converts.
But of course this is the blogosphere, and we all pursue our own tactics.
Budgie
I agree with much of what you say, except that I wouldn't outlaw state deficits in all circumstances.
But I do agree with your final paragraph.
Anonymous
As I read it, the tenants were being asked if they wanted to pay increased rent, and in exchange they would benefit from additional services.
My own understanding was that the level of their basic rent wasn't at issue.
And that's the point. Budget referenda on marginal changes are comprehensible and effective.
Referenda on a budget as a whole provide an unclear answer to a vague question.
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