Cat at Brits at their Best relates the following:For a thousand years the shires were the basis of local government and were answerable to local people. Sanitation and roads and lighting were handled locally; schools were locally organized. Everything was handled by local county people responsible to each other. If something went wrong, it was easy to see why, decide accountability and fix it. Sports clubs, businesses, societies, regiments, and farmers' unions were all based on the shires. They were and they are part of Britain's cultural inheritance.
No surprise, then, that the government has tried to destroy them, and take decision-making out of local hands and into its own centralizing talons. Tolkien was afraid of this. In a terrifying vision in the Lord of the Rings he called it the 'Scouring of the Shire'.
Efficiency and reasonable taxes, democracy and and freedom flourish when local government is run locally according to the principles of justice and equity. That is why we support the mission of the shires and their human scale. That is why we ask, are we going to be forever at the mercy of a national government that does not remember or respect the fundamental principles of freedom, local rule and competence?
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