A cure for lunacy

THE antics in the early 1980s of a small number of so-called “loony left” councils, such as Lambeth, Hackney, Brent and Liverpool, triggered a drive by the government to make local authorities more efficient. Their budgets were capped, they were forced to put some services out to competitive tender and, more recently, tables of “performance indicators” com paring their efficiency were devised. The third such set of indicators, published on March 6th, shows that the worst councils are making most progress.