Repeated efforts at central control turn out to be exercises in compressing jelly….the Penrose Effect of less and less management control as the scope of responsiblity expands….next step is to pledge to delegate, to empower, to localise….but the withered branches of localism have no green shoots and the competence of those who stayed is so low.

It is a trap - the centre cannot exercise power to produce effect and has no traction at local level because it has uprooted and destroyed the organic nature of community government. England had a strong local government tradition going back at least to Elizabethan times and institutionalised in the 1840s onwards with new Chartered Boroughs….nationalisation of assets and cenralisation of functions has made it impossible for politics to delegate power back because the civic relationship was built in urban centres on the businessmen running the councils; then the shopkeepers; and latterly the national parties; and now it is simply a cipher for the Ministry.

There are few places with a sustainable diversified economic base to make localism work and most would be so dependent upon central funds that ocalism would be a fig-leaf, The Conservatives destroyed local government when Heath implemented Redcliffe-Maud and nationalised water…..and then with rate-capping and nationalisation of business rates. Now the boom is in charity shops which pay no business rates, no wages, and get free stock from the public…..the only way to run a modern urban business.

Anyway the point is simply this - so much power is exercised in Whitehall and the quality of personnel available is mediocre. It is more and more akin to the Gleichschaltung introduced in Germany in 1933 with local government being simply a conveyor-belt from the centre with national agencies to override localism for key objectives. I think after 30+ years of emasculation local government is an historical artefact; but increasingly national government is creaking and failing to fulfil the requisites of even a minimalist state in terms of internal and external security…..we are watching the implosion of government

Well Labour have already brought back Harriet Harmen who was sacked for incompetence back in 1998. Nick Brown who was sacked for incompetence in 2001 will probably also return. Some newspapers have even speculated that Beverley Hughes who was sacked for incompetence in 2004 might make the cabinet.