Jonathan Swift is turning in his grave….
I have a modest  proposal to make. Councillors should go on strike. For a week in the  run-up to next year's general election, they should put down their  clipboards, store their leaflets back in their cupboards and stay at  home rather than campaigning for their local PPC.
 
 Just look at  the facts: there is a cross-party consensus for cutting local government  budgets and no politician is yet offering councillors the tools they  need to put their organisations on a sustainable footing. If this were  education, the London Underground or the fire service, we would have  seen industrial action and protests on a massive scale.
Councillors may not be able to disrupt the public's day-to-day existence as effectively as Bob Crow, but they can make life very difficult for their national colleagues.
Local politicians are their parties' foot soldiers, delivering  leaflets and knocking on doors to support their PPCs into power. Sitting  councillors can also be a significant source of funding – Labour's  local politicians, for example, pay 2% of their allowances into the  party's coffers.
 
 All of this means that councillors are a sleeping giant – a huge  political force which seldom makes its voice heard in the corridors of  national party politics. If they went on a campaign strike, then  canvassing would slow to a crawl, street stalls would run with a  skeleton crew and voter data would go uncrunched.  Local politicians  should make their terms very clear: no devolution and no sustainable  funding settlement means no campaign.
 
 Of course the idea is pure fantasy. Councillors are generally too loyal  and too sensible to hold their national colleagues to ransom. But the  very idea of going on strike highlights the critical role that local  politicians play in propping up the tottering edifice of English  centralism. What would happen if they decided to stop?
 
                    
