Free From Non-Financial Fripperies

A liberalising devolution of democracy has always been an intrinsic thingummy in the Government's war on red tape, and the freedomisation of local councils has now been progressed with a diktat from on high about the perils of trying to be the greenest government ever. Councils will face "severe penalties" if they attempt anything so seventies-Stalinist as refusing to throw money at an apartheid state; and any hint of interfering with the profits of fossil fuel corporations would not only be morally anti-semitic but could risk actual compliance with the country's obligations under international law. Additionally, the Bullingdons have decided that, for the purposes of local government pension funds, such trivialities as "the environment, social issues or corporate governance" should be considered "non-financial factors", since there is clearly no monetary value in regulation of the private sector, keeping the population healthy or indulging in planetary habitability. Nevertheless, the bad old ways still persist, not least in the matter of good old-fashioned democratic forelock-tugging. Despite the new, happy life which their lords and masters have granted them, it appears that local authorities are showing considerable reticence in expressing their natural gratitude.