People power

The rebuilt town hall of the ancient Borough of Henley still stands brave over its market place. This was Henley’s forum and seat of government, a one-stop shop of civic welfare. From here Henley’s streets were lit, paved and policed, Henley’s traders regulated, Henley’s children educated and its poor relieved, all under the aegis of Henley people.

Anywhere abroad this would still be the case. In France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and throughout America municipalities the size of Henley continue to exercise such power. Town halls and mairies remain centres of local politics and administration and their people like it that way. Yet in England such buildings are empty shells, as if hit by a neutron bomb denuding them of people and power. Henley is administered by a district council randomly located upstream in Wallingford, plus a county council in Oxford, a region in Guildford and mostly a ministry in London. Suggest to local citizens that Henley might regain its old privileges and they would equate it with feudal scottage and the ducking stool.