David Cameron’s Watford Playground Problem

Brother Liddle is right to despair at the latest local government absurdity: banning parents from children’s playgrounds unless they’ve undergone a criminal background check to prove that they’re not paedophiles. There would appear to be no limit to local government lunacy. O tempora, O mores indeed.

This sort of thing, however, also poses a problem for David Cameron. The Tories’ “localism agenda” is by some way their most interesting and, at least potentially, important idea. But there’s one obvious drawback: it means giving more power to local councils. And, as we are reminded on a daily basis, local councils are more than amply-stocked with fools.

Decentralisation is an admirable and, I would argue, necessary idea. But simply giving local communities greater power isn’t enough unless you also help foster a culture in which people take local government much more seriously than they do now.