Book Review: Explaining Local Government: Local Government in Britain Since 1800
| Date | 01 September 2007 |
| Author | Howard Elcock |
| DOI | 10.1177/014473940702700204 |
| Published date | 01 September 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Teaching Public Administration, Autumn 2007, Vol.27, No.2, pp.37-38
Book Review
EXPLAINING LOCAL GOVERNMENT: LOCAL GOVERNMENT
IN
BRITAIN
SINCE 1800
JAChandler
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007, xvi +356pp, £55.)
This is a major work
of
scholarship and the first history
of
local government
written for many years past. It is evidently a book its author wanted to write. As
the purpose
of
local government is once more being debated, not least within
the Government, there is an urgent need for a book that sets local government in
its social, economic and constitutional contexts.
The earlier chapters trace several trends in 19th century local government
development. The most fundamental
of
these was the displacement
of
the major
country landowners from their pre-eminence in the government of local
communities by industrialists and business people whose power bases were
located within the growing industrial cities, even
if
they lived outside them. A
second trend was the development
of
single purpose local government agencies,
notably the Poor Law Unions and then their replacement by multi-functional
local authorities after the three great reforming Acts
of
1835, 1888 and 1894.
Then as the franchise was progressively widened came the rise
of
the working
classes and the trades unions as political forces, locally as well as nationally. By
the 1920s the working class and its Labour Party were substantial forces in local
government, leading to major clashes with the mainly Conservative central
governments
of
the period, notably "Poplarism".
Later chapters chronicle the effects
of
the Second World War and the
post-war Labour Government when local authorities lost most
of
their energy
and infrastructure responsibilities to nationalised public corporations but gained
increasing roles in education, social services and public health. Local authorities
were major actors in the development
of
the social democratic consensus of the
years between 1945 and 1979 but quickly clashed with Mrs. Thatcher's "New
Right" regime which displaced the consensus in the 1980s. This was perhaps
inevitable since most local authorities fell to Labour control after 1981 and
often became dominated by the radical Socialist policies
of
the "New Urban
Left". The change was personified by Mrs Thatcher's most famous enemy,
Greater London Council Leader Ken Livingstone. Another feature
of
the 1970s
and onwards has been repeated structural reorganisation
of
all or parts of the
37
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