ABSTRACT
We saw in the last chapter that representational theories of the state see elections as crucial means whereby political elites are obliged to address their policies to popular demands. In order to stay in power, it is argued, political leaders cannot afford to ignore majority preferences on major issues. Applied to the analysis of local government in Britain, this argument appears absurd, for not only do very few people bother to vote in local elections, but those who do generally cast their votes, not according to the records and programmes of the local candidates, but according to their assessment of the record of the national government at the time. Even the most 'optimistic' estimate suggests that a maximum of 25 per cent of the local vote can be explained in terms of local issues and personalities (Green 1972), and this seems something of an overestimate as regards most local elections. Most of us, it seems, know little and care even less about the identity and activities of our representatives in the town hall, and most councillors seem fully aware of this. The result, as Budge and his co-authors suggest, is that, 'Activists, both individually and as a body, are as a general rule freed from the danger of popular sanctions against their actions, since not only is the population ignorant of what they do, but activists are likely to be aware of this popular ignorance' (1972, p. 18). It is hardly surprising, therefore, that local politicians rarely feel the need to follow popular opinion. In Croydon, for example, nearly 70 per cent of all councillors interviewed (and over 80 per cent of leading members such as committee chairmen) described themselves as 'trustees' (Newton 1976), free to make up their own minds on different issues independently of the perceived or anticipated wishes of the majority of the electorate. As one local pressure group leader rather sourly put it, 'They see themselves as the city fathers.'
