IF THE Tories did not trust local government when they were in charge at Westminster, does the New Labour government love it any better as it stands - even though the party has such a grip on the town halls?

Hardly - going off Tony Blair's radical proposals to shake them up.

Some have been trailered already - directly-elected American-style mayors, weekend municipal elections, local referendums and polling stations in shopping centres.

But today comes a firm warning that councils must change or face having their powers taken away and given to business or the voluntary sector. For, says the Prime Minister, those which will not or cannot "work to the modern agenda" could have "other partners" found by the government to take on their role.

Tough stuff. But why such an assault on what is, in effect, largely Labour's own domain?

Clearly, Mr Blair is rightly concerned that local government is too complacent and unaccountable in its present form. Not nearly enough people feel they have got a say in the way councils are run and in the way services are provided for them, he says.

It is the same sentiment as that expressed recently by Blackburn's Mayor, Councillor Peter Greenwood, when he complained of the restricted democracy of power being concentrated in the hands of a few councillors and officers while the rest of the ruling party, in effect, remained compliant voting fodder.

How do such situations come about? Evidently, Mr Blair believes they are rooted in prolonged control of councils by a single party and that this is itself a product of the voter-apathy endemic in local government elections - hence his proposals to encourage more people to vote and to make it easier for them to do so. And, clearly, he is also out to empower taxpayers still more - with more-frequent elections and even referendums and citizens' juries.

But while he is right to seek greater accountability by local government, as a politician he ought to know that the power many councillors enjoy is something they will instinctively be reluctant to give up or have watered down.

Thus while he can only reap assent for what are eminently sensible and refreshing proposals for reform, when it comes to putting them into practice, he stands to run into a wall of opposition.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.