Localism is dead - long live localism

摘要

So we have finally received the Localism Bill, one of the key bricks in the Coalition's attempt to build a different way of managing and governing society. There are useful things in this Bill and in other moves by the Government, where serious and sensible devolution is going on. Mayors are an important move too even if the decision to shy away from city region mayors (like London) and go for mayors for bits of metropolitan areas (like the City of Manchester) is strange. But there are many issues with the way the Government is using the term and as a long standing supporter of localism, if a rather unusual one coming from the centre-left, that worries me a lot.