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Introduction In Britain central government decides the shape, population, responsibilities, powers and functions of councils in England. It is central government which can, and does, abolish councils, or entire layers of local government which lacks even the most basic constitutional protection, including the right to continued existence. While
5 Restructuring local government Few across the British political spectrum were satisfied with the evolution of the local government system following the 1832 Reform Act. While municipal government could lead the way to reform, the system could not evolve in rural areas because of the lack of any workable consensus in Parliament that could establish multi-purpose local government structures. The legislative compromises and resultant ad hoc developments were creating as complex a pattern of local government in rural areas and small towns as existed in the
, murders, family jars, weddings, and banquets to esteemed fellow citizens, and a languid drooping interest in the rest of the spacious land. Was this inward-looking journalistic vision of the world not very provincial, asked Dewey, to which he responded, ‘No, not at all. Just local, just human, just at home, just where they live.’ 1 Dewey was convinced after the First World War and the growing movement in the United States for ‘Americanization’ that ‘We are discovering that the locality is the only universal. Even the suns and stars have their
1 Local government before 1832 There is little left of the Roman administrative legacy for the provinces of Britain. Towns were established under Roman practice as coloniae and municipium for retired soldiers who were granted citizenship of the Empire.1 Other townships, civitates, established by Britons were recognised as following local tribal laws:2 ‘A large measure of local government was conducted by the British themselves with official supervision and encouragement.’3 All that remains of the Roman legacy are some of the towns themselves, including London
Chapter 4 . Sources for local history I t is a characteristic of early local historians that they were not willing to sacrifice substance in favour of style. They preferred to overburden their readers with evidence rather than to omit sources from their works. Habington justified transcribing four deeds into his account of one Worcestershire manor on the grounds that they were short and ‘cannot bee tedyous to any but suche whose tast cannot relyshe nor stomacke digest antiquityes’. Similarly, Lambarde included the Saxon will of Byrhtric of Mepham, ‘though
local government policies and measures in Wiltshire and it focuses on the county’s local political approach to immigration, integration and diversity since the turn of the twenty-first century. It traces changes and continuities as Wiltshire’s local administration once again balanced national-level directive and mandate with local circumstances and particularism. As was the case during previous decades, local authorities were once again counted on to play an important role in delivering national-level policy. The 2001 Cantle Report requested that they ‘prepare a local
The Race Relations Act 1976 can be seen to have been something of a turning point in the politics of migration and race in post-war Britain. Rooted in a perception that local authorities were not sufficiently active in this area, the act placed the responsibility of promoting positive race relations and tackling racial disadvantage firmly in their hands. Whilst the precise impact of the act is unclear and the notion that it yielded immediate results is disputed, with some arguing that action was also spurred on by the 1981 riots rather than by the act alone
Local societies were not independent of their surroundings in most parts of western Europe in the early Middle Ages, perhaps with the exception of some very localised regions in northern Iberia. Most ‘small worlds’ belonged to regional or supra-regional networks and structures. Office holders and agents – ranging from mayors and priests to bishops, counts, viscounts and centenarii (hundredmen) – intervened in local affairs for landowners, kings and other lords they represented. Since kings, powerful lay aristocrats and religious institutions had large
tackle discrimination and promote integration. Whether they were genuine well-meaning attempts to counter racial discrimination, or simply seen as a means to combat the social problems that black immigration was often linked to, they were central to Britain’s distinct race relations framework that prevailed well into the 1980s. 2 This chapter discusses local government policy in Wiltshire between the early 1960s and the implementation of the Race Relations Act 1976, which marked a key turning point in the county’s immigrant, integration and diversity policies and
7 Local antiquities in Spain: from Tarragona to Córdoba Fernando Marías Local history, rather than chorography (the textual or visual description of a local place), was a basic instrument in the construction of the collective consciousness, or ‘urban imagination’ in the words of Adeline Rucquoi, that stood at the heart of early modern communities in Spain. It was more an expression of local sentiment than a historical narrative, centralised and controlled by the court’s royal chronicler, an office (as is well known) instituted by King John II of Castile around