Put aside Brexit when you go to the polls

Don’t take out your anger on Tory councillors says Boris

Once you get going you will find that canvassing in a British high street is as enjoyable as any other contact sport – and even more exciting, in the sense that you can never be entirely sure who is going to be on your side. As you weave from shop to shop in a kind of rolling maul, you develop an instinct about the members of the public who loom into your path. Sometimes you need to deploy the old side-step; sometimes you palm them off with another member of your team. But most times you will want to commit wholeheartedly to the tackle – thrusting out your garish campaign bumf, clasping their hand, and inquiring joyfully whether you can count on their support. That is how I have spent many happy hours in the past week, in the run-up to Thursday’s local elections.

I have rung bells, patted dogs, admired wisteria, wolfed samosas – and in return I have been given some pretty frank opinions about the state of politics. I have come to a tentative conclusion. This may be too optimistic, and I may be proved wrong – but I am starting to think that

people can make a crucial distinction at this election on May 2. Whatever they may think about what is going on at Westminster – and our current dismal failure to leave the EU – they can see that there is no point in taking out their frustrations on effective and hard-working Tory councillors.

I think they know how much good they do, and how much we all rely on them. It’s not just a question of getting the bins emptied or fixing the streetlights. Ask any MP about the really tough problems they get in their surgeries – the truly heartbreaking frustrations of our constituents. Nine times out of 10 it is about some aspect of their immediate domestic circumstances.

It’s about damp, or an oppressive neighbour, or drug-dealing in the street, or the plain hardship of living in a tiny flat with more than one child. It’s not Brexit that moves them to tears (or not that often); it’s much more likely to be a problem related to housing, and the answer almost invariably lies with the council.

So much depends on the efficiency and responsiveness and capacity of those councillors. They can make all the difference, for many families, between misery and contentment. That is why it matters so much who we elect on Thursday – and that is why I hope that people will vote for the councils that deliver the best services for the best value; and that means the Conservatives.

I have no hesitation in offering my own local council, Hillingdon – a textbook example of One Nation Conservatism in action. Yes, they have an exceptional record of delivery, with a huge programme of building homes and schools. They also have more “green flag” awards for their parks than any other borough in the UK. But their approach is to invest in people’s health and quality of life because that is how you end up saving money on social care. They have been opening new libraries, and bowling greens, and giving free burglar alarms to pensioners, and new ways of checking on their well-being; and all the while they have frozen council tax for year after year.

That is not because they have done especially well from central government revenue support – far from it. It is because they have applied a sensible cost-sensitive Conservative approach, and that approach is echoed, broadly speaking, by Tory councils across the country.

All councils have faced a funding squeeze. But on average – and here is the key statistic of the election – it is Conservative councils that have managed their finances better, and charge £100 less in council tax for a band D household.

If there is one reason why Conservative councils are on the whole more efficient at recycling waste and filling in potholes it is because, on the whole, they have been less obsessed than some Labour councils by objectives that are more to do with ideology than taxpayer value.

That is the key difference, and we should accentuate it. We have many superb and public-spirited people working in local government, and we should trust them now with more responsibility – and accountability – for the vast budgets that they spend. No one wants to go back to the obscene profligacy of the Labour councils of the Eighties, which relentlessly jacked up taxes on business and ratepayers. No one wants to bring back the likes of Derek Hatton – no one, that is, except Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, which recently readmitted Hatton to membership. We must make absolutely sure that councils can never behave like that again, and that we protect both businesses and council tax payers from that kind of depredation. But it is also true that in bringing the loony Left under control, the Conservative government of the Eighties went too far in centralising power in this country.

Britain is still by far the most centralised of all the major European economies. Consider how much tax is raised by local government, according to the OECD. In Sweden local government raises 37 per cent; in Germany 30 per cent; in Spain 24 per cent; in Italy 17 per cent; in France it is 13 per cent. In the UK we trust local government to raise just 5 per cent of our taxes.

Of course, we must realise that not all areas of the UK have anything like the same tax base and there will always be a need for substantial redistribution from the centre. But there is scope to do much more by way of fiscal devolution: not just business rates, but stamp duty land tax as well.

Stamp duty is now choking parts of the UK property market. Give local government the power to cut it and you will not only help people find the house they need, you will also probably raise more tax into the bargain.

If you give local politicians the right powers and incentives they will go for the policies that promote growth, and more housing; and voters would reward the party that delivered the best results with the minimum tax take. Nine times out of ten that would be the Conservatives.