You know it's an election year when...

Hull City Council plans to freeze charges for services

Far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth, but you can't help wondering if this headline would have happened if a) the council was still Labour controlled (and therefore didn't need to "bribe" people in reasonably safe Labour parliamentary seats) or b) the Lib Dems weren't throwing an enormous amount of resources at Hull North, one of their target seats. Still, a freeze in the growth of taxation has to be a good start, although of course we still have no idea whether fire and policing will also have a 0% change.

What I want to know is where are the plans to be able to announce a reduction in council tax next year? What about the year after? Where is Carl Minns announcing that he is going to reduce the burden of council tax by looking seriously at each and every department and asking them to justify their budget for the year? Where are the council chiefs coming up with ideas on how to encourage existing local businesses and attract new ones by reducing the burden of regulation and taxation on them?

I'm a localist, someone who believes that powers should be pushed downwards and outwards. Ultimately I want local councils to assume a number of the responsibilities that central government currently has while other powers should be pushed out to the individual to make their own decisions over. A council who can reduce the cost to local people is a council who might just be worthy of being trusted with new powers and they pass existing ones back to the electorate.