The two 'Ds' spread the smokescreen

The op-ed piece in today's Daily Telegraph comes from Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, headlined "Cameron must hand power to the people before it's too late", in which they claim that the communities and local government select committee state "Localism" is being held back by the civil service and that it is neither understood nor supported by Whitehall. (Common Purpose, anyone?)

In this op-ed they write:

"Greg Clark, over at the Department of Communities and Local Government, has brought forward a Localism Bill, which will give a dozen major cities votes on directly elected mayors, and give residents the right to hold their town hall bureaucrats directly to account with referendums."

Later comes:

"The Coalition is not the first centre-Right government to enter office promising to give power away. Back in the early 1970s, Ted Heath was elected offering to disperse control over the economy."

While having great support for what "The Plan", authored by these two politicians, wishes to accomplish I take exception when they fail to write factually. For example, as I have posted many, many times the Localism Bill hands squat-diddly to local people where referenda are concerned as local authorities are empowered to ignore the results where they so wish. To term the Coalition and Ted Heath as 'right-of-centre' is incorrect as Heath was about as right-of-centre (not) as is David Cameron (not). Cameron may well have stated in May 2009 that "We need a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power. From the state to citizens; from the government to parliament; from Whitehall to communities; from the EU to Britain… we must take power from the elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street.", yet they fail to acknowledge Cameron was electioneering then - and just who believes a politician when they are electionee.......... Oh, wait.............

The two Ds may well blame 'vested interests', namely Whitehall, for resistance to localism, but it is fair to say that some resistance, unseen, comes from politicians wedded to the subservience of this country to the European Union - because any attempt to grant real localism would be to undermine the 'centralism' that is the European Union.

If we are unable to get correct, factual and honest statements from two politicians who are believed to be on 'our side', what chance for correct, factual and honest statements from their political colleagues?