TNAG-0201-FCO40-237-Local-government-reforms-1969 — Page 54

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G.F. 323

4. Gibraltar

CONFIDENTIAL

The Political Importance of the Urban Council

11. I think it is important to face a fact with which the

more thinking members of the two senior Councils are already pre-

occupied, namely that the gradual enlargement of the Urban Council,

its public meetings and the existence of elections have conferred

upon the Urban Council and its members a considerable measure of

political importance. Urban Council elections have attracted

politicians as candidates and some appointed members have made no

secret of the fact that they too see themselves in this light.

Councillors have made use of the wide freedom of debate which is

by usage allowed in the Urban Council and have deliberately fostered

the public concept that this body is a rival to "the Government"

for the public esteem. If the tendency to widen the functions and

increase the responsibilities of the Urban Council is pursued it

can only continue to develop as an increasing challenge to the

central government in general and the legislature in particular.

The Legislative Council could counter this by contriving livelier

proceedings, or perhaps by conducting its committee proceedings in

public as in the past, but this would only serve to foster the

illusion that there are two public bodies which function somehow

in parallel and that the outside student of public affairs should

support one or the other.

12.

Where can this lead? In Singapore, which followed precisely

this course as it moved towards independence, the rivalry between the

Municipal Council and Parliament became so tiresome that the Government

abolished the former as soon as this was politically feasible. I

believe we must be very clear where we are going if we continue now

to raise the status of the Urban Council here. If this policy is

pursued I am sure that it will be quite impossible to satisfy the

ambitions for which the Urban Council is now becoming a focus without

sooner or later accepting dangerous modifications of the broad

/political