Midlands devolution revolution

It doesn’t rhyme but it chimesIt’s Handbags Replica three years now since the then Chancellor George Osborne coined that expression “devolution revolution”.

As slogans go, it’s always looked better on paper than it’s sounded out loud. An replica handbags online omen, perhaps, that his future lay not in the Commons but in the newspaper editor’s office.

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The government reassured us all that devolution meant downloading money from Whitehall’s funding streams, rather than uploading it from those of the town hall.

One reason, perhaps, why the political honeymoon enjoyed by Conservative metro mayor Andy Street since his election last May has lasted longer than most.

Yes, he took some flak over his refusal to intervene in the Birmingham bins dispute; he said during the summer it was a city council responsibility and that was that.

buy replica bags More generally he has been largely immune to criticism. buy replica bags

Now though, with the new year comes the reality check.

Devolution was never going to offer something for nothing.

replica designer bags Initially we were told this would equate to a draft precept of 12 a year on council tax bills for Band D properties. But by the time the agenda for the WMCA board meeting had been finalised, the figure had been revised down to 10.80, in support of the mayor’s proposals, among other things, to cut traffic congestion, introduce new cycle lanes and establish park and ride facilities at railway stations. replica designer bags

Council tax riseSome form of clean air charging to curb atmospheric pollution by ageing diesel cars and commercial vehicles is also on his horizon.

But whatever the justification, we should never forget the fundamental reason why politicians tax people: To raise money.

best replica bags online The same applies to the government’s other big venture into the arena of directly elected quasi presidential leaders, the five police and crime commissioners who now oversee our five local forces. best replica bags online

Like the Conservative mayor, the Labour commissioner in our biggest KnockOff Handbags local force area also wants an extra 12 precept on top of council tax bills for Band D properties.

replica designer bags wholesale The Replica Designer Handbags West Midlands’ commissioner David Jamieson says he needs the maximum allowed by the government to deliver the 20m he needs merely to stand still, having already made all possible efficiency savings. replica designer bags wholesale

best replica designer His Conservative counterpart in Staffordshire, Matthew Ellis, spent his first term of office championing the “live within our means” mantra of wholesale replica designer handbags efficiencies, smart working and forging new partnerships. best replica designer

cheap designer bags replica ‘Clearer accountability’But by last summer, firmly established in his his second aaa replica designer handbags term, he made what turns out to be a significant break with that earlier rhetoric. cheap designer bags replica

Joining me in the purse replica replica bags handbags Sunday Politics studio, he told me that even he now needed extra money.

Just before Christmas, Mr Ellis tweeted that his comments during that interview had been broadly adopted in the government’s police funding proposals allowing police precepts Designer Replica Bags of up to 12 a year, on condition of “transparent decision making and clearer accountability”.

Now that’s what I call an influential TV programme.

It also explains why he plans to consult the public over an itemised list of how exactly any extra money should be spent.

The Replica Bags signs are that other PCCs are also planning similar injections of local cash.

best replica bags Why does this matter?Andy Street, David Jamieson, Matthew Ellis and the rest are all responding, to a greater or lesser extent, to the funding replica Purse squeeze imposed by a Wholesale Replica Bags cash strapped Westminster government with Designer Fake Bags its own very obvious reasons for wanting to keep national tax increases to a minimum. best replica bags

This Replica Handbags leaves the new generation of local leaders feeling they have little option to but to pull whatever money raising levers are available to them.

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