Because it is impossible to explain easily to voters. Can you imagine the conversation on the door about recycling. "Yes we do the collecting, you'll need to speak to your county Councillor about the local recycling scandal"
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Most people have limited bandwidth to work out which set of local councillors they are electing this time, exactly what their responsibilities are and whether they are doing well at them.
Net effect is they give up and local elections become a proxy vote on whether they like the government!
I’d like to see some evidence that this is the case. London voters seem to have a good understanding of Mayor vs borough responsibilities. Scottish voters have Parliament, Westminster and local government. So you do think English voters are uniquely stupid?
What I *think* voters are responding to in local elections in the fact that in the UK local govt has little power. It is rational to treat them as proxies for national elections because that is the only real way for voters to affect the services they receive.
I agree with your second point (little power) but that doesn't negate the first point (that it is confusing).
BTW unlike you, I don't think that makes English voters stupid. It just means most rational people don't spend their spare time understanding byzantine local government before voting!
Except i don’t think English voters are stupid. My point is that two tier local government is hardly complex and I don’t see any evidence that voters struggle to understand it. Indeed in London, voters are clearly able to understand the difference in powers and functions of the different tiers.
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Net effect is they give up and local elections become a proxy vote on whether they like the government!
BTW unlike you, I don't think that makes English voters stupid. It just means most rational people don't spend their spare time understanding byzantine local government before voting!