One of the assumptions of political campaigning is that voters are not interested in political machinery.  Schools, hospitals, trains and buses, yes: Councils, regional authorities, elected mayors and voting systems, no.  But have we now reached a point where this has changed, where it might even help us to include in this year’s local election campaigning arguments for stronger local authorities and less dictation from Westminster?

In the much-delayed Levelling-Up White Paper Michael Gove has promised ‘devolution’: by which he means imposing elected mayors, with limited local scrutiny, on most urban areas that haven’t yet accepted them, and ‘governors’ on rural counties.  Governors are what empires send out to keep distant districts under control, while money and power remain at the centre.  Ministerial treatment of almost all elected mayors except Ben Houchem (Teeside’s Tory mayor) has been patronising – expected to do Whitehall’s bidding and be grateful for the Packages of money they are offered.  Michael Gove treats even Andy Street and Andy Burnham with disdain; Grant Shapps has attacked Tracey Brabin and Dan Jarvis (West and South Yorkshire mayors) as ‘irrational’ for their criticisms of the Integrated Rail Strategy.

This Tory government is irrationally against public service (and public servants) in general, and autonomous local authorities running local services close to ordinary people in particular.  One of the many scandals of the past 3 years is Johnson’s instinctive preference for outsourcing companies to run Test and Trace when the pandemic erupted, ignoring the public health officers with their established local knowledge and contacts across the country – who would have organised a better scheme at a fraction of the vast among of money paid out to these multinational firms.  Education is micro-managed from Whitehall, in partnership with academy chains, with intermittent attention to what local parents want.  ‘Levelling Up’ is packaged as hand-outs from the centre, with competitive bids and ministerial discretion to favour places with Conservative MPs.

Repeated re-organizations have reduced the numbers of local councils and councillors.  Creation of a single North Yorkshire Authority has reduced that county’s councillors from 280 to 92, in single wards across a vast area.  Few voters now know their local councillors, and councillors in turn have influence over few of the issues that voters care about.  No wonder that MPs now spend so much of their time on constituency issues, to the detriment of challenging the government on national issues.

The Levelling Up White Paper will offer sham devolution, with central government still controlling priorities and purse-strings. It will also be a sham in its financial promises. Johnson promised to replace in full the regional funds that previously flowed through the EU budget; current predictions suggest that the ‘new’ funding will amount to less than 2/3rds of this.  The packages of funding for towns and other local schemes is also much less than the Treasury has cut from local authority funding since 2015.  Tories are keener on tax cuts than on investing in their country’s less prosperous regions; any serious commitment to long-term regeneration requires an increase in overall spending.

Liberal Democrats believe in government as close to local communities as possible.  Previous generation of Conservatives used to think the same, but have given way to a centralised party machine.  So let’s campaign to ‘take back control’ for our cities, towns and rural communities.  Tell the voters that it was a betrayal for Johnson and his friends to take back power from Brussels only to concentrate it in London.  Local control of public transport, of health provision, education – perhaps even of water supply, returned to regional (or shared local) control and accountability from the private utilities which have extracted excess profits while investing too little.  Not just mayors, answering to London as much as to voters, but councillors who voters can recognise and put their concerns to.  Local democracy has been undermined for far too long.  Let’s champion the case for revival.

* William Wallace is Liberal Democrat spokesman on constitutional issues in the Lords.