POLITICS first meant something to me when as a parent of two children under five I, along with other mums, fought Oxfordshire County Council’s proposal in the late 1970s to close all its few nursery schools, writes Labour group leader Liz Brighouse. That battle was won.

It is ironic that the present round of local government cuts involves proposals to close most of Oxfordshire’s children’s centres – the jewel in the crown of Labour’s emphasis on the importance of early childhood development and we shall fight to keep them open until a new Labour government reinstates the grant which funded them.

Oxfordshire, like all local government, is between a rock and a hard place.

The rock is the requirement from the coalition government to save another £60m in addition to the £201m of cuts to Oxfordshire expenditure already made or in the pipeline.

The hard place is that there are just two main forms of income; national grant now cut by 43 per cent and council tax frozen by central government diktat, unless there is a referendum costing £500,000.

Despite the view at the public meetings, it seems unlikely that a referendum would support the 20 per cent increase in council tax necessary to spare us the cuts.

Any hike in council tax will disproportionately affect the poorest who face higher fuel bills at a time when wages have been frozen and benefits cut. No, the real villain in the piece is the Tory/LibDem government.

It won’t tell Oxfordshire the detail of its grant until a few days before Christmas and seeks to hide behind euphemisms such as ‘efficiency savings’ or ‘back office’ economies, all of which local government has already achieved, while at the same time selling off the Royal Mail at a knock-down price.

There is more not less pressure on local services.

There are more elderly people needing care, greater calls on children’s social services as a result of child sexual exploitation and a heightened public concern about the safety of children living with parents unable to protect them from harm.

Moreover, two conservative ministers, Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, are stealthily shaving the central financial cake before distributing the crumbs to local schools, hospitals and GPs.

It is just less obvious it is happening because these decisions are taken nationally but they impact on local government services without any local accountability and the bright light of ordinary local people discussing and agreeing what’s to be done.

Although local government is widely recognised by experts and polls both as the bedrock of democracy and as the most efficient and trusted part of the public sector, councils have been hardest hit by cuts.

The funding model is broken and urgently needs to be fixed. The rest of the UK – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have devolved government, with proper and innovative fundraising powers.

The people of England, however, have little say at local level as services and funding are increasingly dictated by Whitehall.

The Labour group will continue to fight for the vital local services our communities need.