as usual the talk around the budget includes promises of 'cutting back on government waste' and 'slashing bureaucracy' from all sides and to a point i agree - most of the current bureaucracy is a waste, but that's because there isn't enough of it.
The problem is the level it rests at - a nation of 60 million or borough of 100,000 with very little power means that any administration is either totally separated from the needs of real people or totally without influence. what people need is a bureaucracy they can see working and really be involved in that takes real decisions. Then people won't mind how big it is, because it'll be working for them and nobody minds working to make their own life / community better. If 'government' was done at this level (no more than a few thousand people and with real power equivalent to those currently held at the level of the state) then everyone would constantly be arguing and discussing 'politics' and 'governance' and 'budgets' only we probably wouldn't call them that - we'd probably just call it 'life' and 'community', and all the things that are part of that.
