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?
Comments