you couldn't make it up dept. no.110: Rutland lives

[fpb]

The Italian government's threatened abolition of 36 Provinces (roughly the equivalent of counties) and of all local authorities of less than 1000 inhabitants, as part of the recent emergency expenditure-cutting budget, has predictably caused an uproar. Filettino, a village in the mountains east of Rome, has actually declared independence as the "Principality of Filettino" and is already printing its own money. It also threatens to slap a tax on the water from its reservoir, which feeds most of the city of Rome.

Comments

BRITISH SECESSIONISTS?

[joetexx.livejournal.com]

The Rutland reference goes over my provincial Texas head...

Re: BRITISH SECESSIONISTS?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

In 1973, the Heath government indulged in one of the frequent rewritings of local authority borders - whenever British governments are bored, they change the powers, borders and names of local authorities. Only this time they went too far. They presumed that, just because Rutland was the tiniest county in England, there would be no objection to attaching it to the decent-sized county of Leicestershire. Was there ever! Nothing would make the Rutlanders submit to the dreadful fate of becoming Leicester men; and in the end central government had to swallow hard, forget about equalization and efficiency and all the bureaucratic nonsense that goes with it, and bring back Rutland to legal life. Well done the Rutlanders, and I wish that more English had as much local patriotism.