Kensington and Chelsea has a better credit rating than France

Not a lot of people know this but it would be cheaper for the French government to let the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea borrow money on its behalf as the latter has a triple A credit rating while France's was downgraded to AA+ in January. The same applies to Spain and Portugal whose ratings are even worse at A and BB respectively. Woking BC has a better rating than either od those countries at AA-. The UK government, currently at triple A, is terrified it might lose iots rating which of course then affects the cost of its borrowing.
The idea that UK local authorities have a better rating than many national governments, possibly in time even their own, is entertaining but does also underline a serious point. The Localism Act in theory could mean more councils borrowing from banks or bonds rather than simply relying on the Public Works Loan Board which recently has been prone to interference from the Treasury. A recent report by ratings agency Standard and Poor's (which rates Kensington and Chelsea and Woking) says that local government will continue to have good creditworthiness despite cuts and other changes such as taking on housing debt from the Housing Revenue Account.
Yesterday I chaired a panel session at a conference on local government funding with treasurers from various major UK local authorities. All of them complained at the way the government keeps moving the goalposts on PWLB borrowing costs and at the lack of direction from the Treasury about whether it really does want to give councils more powers to go to the money markets for funding or is just keeping Eric Pickles and the DCLG sweet over localism. Judging by the current creditworthiness of councils they would have no trouble getting the cash - and maybe lending some of it back to HM Treasury!