Further to Harry's report about Hammersmith & Fulham's fourth annual council tax cut, I think it's important we consider the full importance of what H&F are achieving.
For people in the Borough, of course, they have a council which is helping them to survive the recession. There are millions of people around the country who would give an eye for a council which does that, rather than slapping increasing bills, rising charges and draconian rules on them.
In a national setting, though, Hammersmith & Fulham are exposing the Emperor's New Clothes of local government. Without a sizeable council showing that it is possible to cut taxes and improve public satisfaction year on year, wasteful and inefficient councils would be able to claim it was impossible.
H&F's success removes that lazy excuse once and for all.
It's always interesting to see the attempts to dismiss the success of Stephen Greenhalgh's administration every year. Originally it was "Well, it's easy to do that if you take over from a wasteful administration." Four years later, with the 3% cut being delivered yet again, that one seems to have been dropped.
Then it was allegations that Hammersmith and Fulham is an unusually wealthy or untroubled area, which can be swiftly rebutted by the bare facts.
The latest excuse is that H&F get an unusually generous deal from central Government, which again does not seem to be the case compared to the funding of many other councils. Indeed, given the Government's record of jealously holding down funding to politically inconvenient councils, it is hard to see why Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown or John Denham should be giving a leg up to the H&F revolution.
Eventually, those excuses will run out. Just as with Wandsworth, which continues to embarass neighbouring boroughs with consistently low taxes and good services, other councils may eventually have to accept that there's nothing magical or unworldly about Cllr Greenhalgh et al - they're just good at running a council. If only other councillors would follow their example rather than attempt to rubbish it.
