ABSTRACT
Both the Conservative and Labour parties have repeatedly declared their devotion to local autonomy. In its 1970 White Paper, Reform of Local Government in England, the then Labour Government pledged its determination to reverse 'the present trends towards centralization' and to restore the place of 'local democracy' in 'our democratic system'. The significance of the increasing shift of powers by central government to local government, and of the increasing ability of local government to spend money unchecked by Parliament, was not lost on socialists. Even by the end of the nineteenth century, the Webbs and other socialists saw local government as a vehicle for socialism. Municipal socialism was not a matter merely of the takeover of local councils or the promotion of union power; in its most extreme forms, it came to mean using the authority and spending power delegated to local government as a basis for quasi-revolutionary activity.
