Is It April 1st?

Wednesday, 15th June 2011

There is a stramash over government bin policy! James writes:

The government is, rightly, receiving a monstering from the papers for its u-turns on weekly bin collections. But what is at stake here is more than just the issue of bins.

The government’s failure to honour its promise on this matter casts doubt on whether ministers are strong enough and tough enough to impose their will on their departments.

The two ministries dealing with the rubbish question are the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department of Communities and Local Government. Both are run by Conservative Secretaries of State. If this was not enough, both the Secretaries of State involved — Caroline Spelman and Eric Pickles — are personally associated with the Tory policy on bins. So, how on earth did the government’s waste review end up not endorsing weekly collections?

I'm sure James is right. He often is, after all. The bigger issue, however, is why there is a "Tory policy on bins" at all. I cannot for the life of me understand why this is a proper job for central government, far less something that deserves to become a matter of political or policy controversy. Or rather, the outrage - if outrage we must have - should be that there is a government bin policy, not whether it's a good policy or not!

Granted, this nonsense risks leading one towards the fusionist extreme embodied by Frank Meyer's famous reflections upon the Totalitarian Implications of the Federal School Lunch Program but even so the centralising control-freakery of all this leads one to fret about the Totalitarian Implications of the Government's Bin Policy...

Whatever next?

Filed under: Britain (738 more articles) , Caroline Spelman (15 more articles) , ConLib (132 more articles) , Eric Pickles (51 more articles) , Libertarians (143 more articles) , Local government (103 more articles) , O Tempora, O Mores (186 more articles)

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Simon Stephenson.

June 15th, 2011 5:55pm Report this comment

As you sow so shall you reap.

Politicians have for years sought to establish the idea that every good thing that happens is to the credit of the politician for the actions he has taken. It's not a giant leap of reasoning to understand why so many of the public have expanded this belief so that every bad thing that happens is also the responsibility of the politician, and why they are held in discredit for not having taken the appropriate action.

Basic dishonesty leads once more to an elephant trap.

REPay

June 15th, 2011 8:10pm Report this comment

This should not be an issue ofr central government. By making it so the Coalition has made it easy for every badly run council to blame the goverment. As we know our council taxes are intended mainly for the salaries and pensions of council employees so I suppose it is a relief they can even get to empty bins once a fortnight!

Yow Min Lye

June 15th, 2011 11:13pm Report this comment

The problem is not that we have a 'government' policy on bins. It's that we have a European Union policy on bins (or Directive 99/31/EC to be more precise).

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