With the election out of the way, local government must lobby the new administration to redress the balance of funding by allowing more local taxation, say George Jones and John Stewart.

In our article ‘Are these lessons too foreign for us?' (The MJ, 15 April), the most important question we posed for the political parties was, should the balance between local taxation and grant be changed to give local authorities an additional local tax, in place of part of grant to enhance local accountability?