Nevertheless, the incident exposes a horrible problem for the Government. It has forced large cuts on councils, but has done nothing to ensure they cut the right things – extravagant salaries, junkets and pointless bureaucracy – while protecting the services taxpayers value. Indeed, there is much evidence that the opposite is happening.  It's not just this week's headlines about the cutting of public lavatories in Manchester and regeneration programmes in Liverpool: the problem is universal. In south Gloucestershire, Miss Vincent could have set Mumsnet on the council over the £185,590 salary of its chief executive, Amanda Deeks, or its new £31 million office in Yate. But it was Cameron's jugular she went for.  In many people's minds, these are already the "Coalition cuts", so there is probably no need for councils to wage a propaganda war. But the London borough of Newham has launched one none the less. Besides spitting vitriol in its in-house magazine (£547,000 a year to produce), the borough's £81,000-a-year elected mayor (who rules in tandem with a £241,000-a-year chief executive) has made a video moaning about the unfairness and holding forth about the council's great achievements – omitting, for some reason, to mention the £111 million spent on its vastly luxurious new waterside HQ.  It is the same all over Britain: old people and disabled children are getting it in the neck while council flunkeys carry on living the high life. Renfrewshire is closing community halls, but spent £15,000 hiring an X Factor singer to switch on its Christmas lights. While chopping transport for special-needs children, Cambridgeshire has splurged £181 million on a guided busway that has yet to carry a passenger, two years after it was due to open. Barnet is thinking of doing away with school-crossing patrols – but last year increased its leader's allowance by 55 per cent.  In other words, in preaching localism, the Government has made a similar miscalculation to Mrs Thatcher's over the poll tax. It was supposed to increase local accountability: if residents received high bills, they would vote their councils out of office. Instead, the populace took it out on the Government.  Earlier, Mrs Thatcher had taken a different approach, intervening directly over council overspending by capping the rates. She positioned herself, in effect, as the defender of the people against town hall extravagance. Mr Cameron needs to do something similar: rather than talk about localism, he needs to lay down the law and stop front-line services being cut. It turns out that even the £800 million he pledged for carers of disabled children is not ring-fenced: it could end up kitting out a councillor's office with plasma screens, and the Government couldn't do a thing.  So rather than moaning about councils' behaviour, why not a slip a clause into the Localism Bill that gives the Government powers to cap salaries at the same level as a Cabinet minister (currently £134,565)? It would hardly be a vote-loser, even if it doesn't fit in with the theme of devolving power. Town hall chiefs may be earning more than Mr Cameron, but that is no reason to fall at their feet. On the contrary: their inflated salaries show where the worst waste and extravagance really lie.  This is an edited version of a piece that appears in the current issue of 'The Spectator'
Nothing is being done to guarantee that power devolved locally is used    responsibly, writes Ross Clark.