Letter: Soon Enough We Will Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Published on: 10 Oct, 2026
Updated on: 10 Oct, 2026

From Bernard Quoroll

former local authority CEO

In response to: The Dragon Says: We Are All Set To Pay Off Woking’s Debts – But We Will Do Nothing But Grumble

There was a time when local politicians fought for local interests – a distant memory in Surrey. All we see now is political parties tripping over themselves to feed on the scraps of our democracy, by doing the bidding of the government of the day.

It will not be long before we all wake up and really smell the coffee, once the bills start dropping onto our doormats. To add injury to insult, the so-called “mansion tax”, will be collected locally but be paid into central coffers. Devolution it is not.

Whatever happened to the new West Surrey Council leader’s claim that we would all see plans for the most locality based unitary council ever seen in England “within weeks”? Better perhaps to underpromise and overperform, but that is not what politicians do.

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