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It seems to me that the local government election/funding problem illustrates a fairly diagnosable democracy problem along with a concept problem as well.

Firstly in any notionally democratic hierarchy a general rule applies, arising out of human nature: the higher level of the democratic hierarchy will always want to maximise its power and minimise its responsibility.

The conceptual problem in local democracy is that it is rational to want two incompatible things: local decision and accountability but also an absence of 'postcode lottery' about any local service we happen to want at any particular moment.

In respect of Westminster v local government this is fairly obvious. But because total state managed expenditure is a vast proportion of all activity from building nuclear submarines to park benches and playground swings it goes right down to the level of the village primary school and beyond.

Result: blame transference is one of the great creative industries of the democratic world. It is a social blight. Result: good well intentioned school governors (volunteers) and management etc spend long winter evenings exercising responsibility without power, while a thousand miles away well paid politicians exercise power without responsibility.

Trump says dangerous for the UK and Canada to be doing business with China, as Starmer heads to Shanghai and after Carney's recent trip

"Donald Trump says 'very dangerous' for UK to do business with China as Starmer lands in Shanghai - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0keyyeyr41o

Burner phones and ‘safe’ charging cables. Nothing to see here.

Starmer, and the British Establishment generally, still believe in international order and free trade as taught in GCSE economics and PPE 101. We got ripped off by the Americans and we will get ripped off by the Chinese. Heck, we even got ripped off by the French. They think China will play by the rules because they think everyone plays by the rules.

And in doing so they'll piss off the Americans because they want to piss off Trump but have not thought about what happens after Trump pisses off when his term ends in three years or less. They've forgotten about not burning your bridges on the way out.

In the words of one of the greatest spy chiefs in history, 'always burn your bridges behind you. You never know who might be trying to follow.'

Trump says dangerous for the UK and Canada to be doing business with China, as Starmer heads to Shanghai and after Carney's recent trip

"Donald Trump says 'very dangerous' for UK to do business with China as Starmer lands in Shanghai - BBC News" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0keyyeyr41o

Burner phones and ‘safe’ charging cables. Nothing to see here.

Starmer, and the British Establishment generally, still believe in international order and free trade as taught in GCSE economics and PPE 101. We got ripped off by the Americans and we will get ripped off by the Chinese. Heck, we even got ripped off by the French. They think China will play by the rules because they think everyone plays by the rules.

And in doing so they'll piss off the Americans because they want to piss off Trump but have not thought about what happens after Trump pisses off when his term ends in three years or less. They've forgotten about not burning your bridges on the way out.

Well Starmer did get relatively low tariffs from Trump. Though yes even Biden imposed tariffs on Chinese imports, just Trump increased them further and imposed them on everyone else too

Some good news this morning, Russia has got rid of 71% of its gold reserves since 2022.

https://x.com/kshevchenkoreal/status/2016907186749002198

It appears that, as with their oil, China is the buyer at a significant discount to market price.

Russia is slowly being hollowed-out as a country, they’re trying to fight a ground war and have run out of tanks. The entire Soviet stockpile of more than ten thousand tanks, all gone to give the Ukranians some scrap metal for recycling.

Oligarchs have been buying gold for rubles from the Russian state. The billions of rubles they have stashed are otherwise essentially worthless.

In my day job my conversations with OFSI have increased exponentially in the last six months as more and more Russians are desperately trying to sell stuff.

A good contribution, although a little bit partisan which risks obscuring the real debate.

Local government seems to me in England to be entirely performative, which is why I've never stood as a councillor.

Voting is effectively cosmetic because they have no real power to change anything other than trying to square the impossible.

Unfortunately for those of us whose instincts are on some version the right, that's largely on us.

Democracy has to include the freedom to make mistakes, if it's what the people vote for. Thatcher reduced that freedom with rates caps and abolition of disagreeable councils like the GLC. Major made it worse by changing the balance of local to central funding to make the Community Charge less painful.

Osborne did a lot of austerity by passing the buck to.local councils, then Eric Pickles made it all but impossible to increase Council Tax to meet changing needs, let alone political wants.

So now councils do social care, almost nothing else, and nobody can make the Sims add up. And the more prudent your council has been in the past, the worse the problem since there's less residual muscle to cut.

God knows why anyone would bother being a local councillor now.