Tourist tax may be introduced via English Devolution Bill, says The Times: www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

I was tagged and asked to take a look at this claim - cos, well just look at it!🙄 Does it seem plausible that THE Trocadero is going to be turned into a Mosque? It was pretty easy to debunk but I decided to do a deep dive into the reality AND the appalling press coverage 🧵 1/26

BREAKING Home Office is about to announce that police and crime commissioners are to be scrapped.. Established in 2012 by Theresa May, Labour has never been a fan of the PCC system…they’ll be replaced in 2028 by policing mayors & local policing boards ..

I would like to put on record my thanks to the late Professor John Stewart, who encouraged me to write something in this space several years ago. Only just found the time and the excuse: the English Devolution Bill is making some changes to these matters commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

When do UK councils and parliaments need a two-thirds majority, or another proportion that isn't a 'simple' majority, to do something? New House of Commons Library publication on supermajorities commonslibrary.parliament.uk/supermajorit... #devolution #mayors

So how exactly do you go about changing #counciltax in order to obtain more money from valuable properties?

It's also very bizarre constitutionally to permit MPs any form of say over local spending decisions, although it might sound intuitive. MPs have never had decision-making rights of this sort. The only precedent is the predecessors of this funding programme under the Johnson/Sunak administrations.

Council tax raid? www.ft.com/content/8fce... Is it possible to raise taxes on 'expensive homes' through the council tax system without a revaluation? Many 'expensive homes' will have been below bands G and H 35 years ago...

Sub-national experimentation hailed by Dani Rodrik: "in advanced and developing economies alike, there are many subnational experiments in which partnerships between government agencies and the private sector or civic groups are delivering meaningful economic transformations."

Woking to have £500m of debt repaid as part of reorganisation questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat... That is a lot bigger commitment than I expected, raises prospect of moral hazard, but likely unavoidable in the circumstances

Exactly this. One could also look at the 50% turnout - up from 43% *at the last all-out Assembly election* - and conclude that greater party competitiveness is revitalising political participation!

The Government has published the 2024-25 Devolution Annual Report earlier this week: www.gov.uk/government/p... This is much speedier than usual: normally the annual report appears about 11-12 months after the financial year in question!

These words from a Tory activist in Kruger's seat deserve some attention.

This is vile. Local guy speaks to Sky News about the impact of asylum seekers protests. Watch what happens and share widely

What do English mayors do, and how do they get things done? Looked into this with colleagues from University of Bristol and the result is here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... Tl:dr;

I'm not big on returning multiple times to specific Substacks and blogs and so on but I have always found 'Stumbling and Mumbling' very thought-provoking and erudite - and most importantly, not predictable in its outlook. So will definitely be checking this one out chrisdillow.substack.com

English devolution will be moving onwards via the English Devolution Bill, in the House of Commons on 2 September. Find out more in the House of Commons Library briefing at commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

Not sure this is a deal breaker. In Sweden, every region bar Stockholm is a net recipient. Local taxes and redistribution still co-exist (relatively) peacefully, as they do in Germany, Italy, Denmark etcetera

There is v little evidence of appetite for any national wave of protests, despite efforts online + in media to promote it Rather there are larger local protests (Epping, Newcastle, Nuneaton) related to specific local incidents, with patchy, mostly floundering efforts to generate a wave of protest

The map of England it generated isn’t much better.

I have been simultaneously al reading Radical Help by Hilary Cottam and The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk. Is that swotting or just odd?

Agreed - the findings of identifiable change in economic performance in this piece are probably the most striking I have ever seen

@lgiu-local-gov.bsky.social have been kind enough to publish a piece on the government's Fair Funding Review for local government in England, from me and @muldoonsmith.bsky.social. Key thoughts (tl:dr;)

Some more fleshed out thoughts on how Local Public Accounts Committees could be implemented in www.ippr.org/articles/acc.... This issue is a work in progress and my sense is that Government is listening to ideas.

What is going to happen to council funding next April? A few headlines here: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-fair-fun... Main takeaways:

Okay then, folks. If you are into drawing boundaries, where does Surrey 'go with'? www.themj.co.uk/strategic-au... Mayor of Surrey and Sussex? Include Kent (and Hampshire?) under a Mayor of the South-East Counties? #regions #England

This from Geoff Mulgan is well worth reading geoffmulgan.substack.com/p/in-praise-... I can definitely relate to the accusation of words over actions. But I have also long been struck by political science and public policy’s lack of interest in understanding the details of how govt works.

Read this if you are not already aware of local authorities' SEND provision deficit: www.theguardian.com/education/20... One issue not clarified by this article: even if the statutory override is retained, councils still have to find extra money in the short term....

One point that doesn't come up often is that most other states have lower rates of VAT for the tourism sector, whereas UK doesn't. So a tourist tax is presented as an unfair burden in the UK context. I don't think this is a deal breaker but it is a real issue.

Very informative discussion at TRUUD’s Creating Healthy Places Using Systems Thinking event on Tue 3 Jun. I participated in a breakout session examining what metro-mayors need in order to contribute better to the population health agenda. Some takeaways for me:

EXCLUSIVE: I've been told by multiple sources that Chancellor Rachel Reeves will tomorrow announce mayoral combined authorities will now be getting the billions in transport funding promised by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak back in 2023. A short thread...

Another interesting factoid: Margaret Thatcher introduced that bill in her maiden speech in the House of Commons. That is a very unusual use of a maiden speech: if there are other examples I'm not aware of them

Great to join ministers from across the world at the @oecd-ocde.bsky.social Ministerial on Regional Development in Warsaw 🇵🇱. We had thoughtful discussions on how local approaches are vital to tackling the big challenges we face — from climate to growth.

I do think it gets entirely overlooked - perhaps because journalists in London aren’t hearing the same messages I am - the extent to which the north of England, and especially the north east, has placed its economic bets on green energy.

Read this: a good example of the genre of revealing what is wrong with the "bleeding obvious"

This chart is from @britishelectionstudy.com @jamesdgriffiths.bsky.social, me and Ed Fieldhouse. You can see that 2024 Reform voters mainly came from the Conservatives or UKIP in 2015. This has been a story on the right for *ten years* now, unless something very different happened last week.

We need a more devolved approach to health Greater Manchester is ready to demonstrate that it can work, writes @andyburnham.bsky.social

Hear about our new report, co-authored by @michaelkenny.bsky.social @alwalker.bsky.social & Dewi Knight, launching tomorrow in a free webinar on UK Intergovernmental Relations and the Council of the Nations and Regions. Tuesday 13 May 13:00-14:00 Register: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/e9af39...

Party splintering reiterates the importance of developing solid institutions through which this 'working together' takes place. Ad hoc, occasional meetings are not likely to cut it. There's a big role for the Mayoral Council here - but awareness of this issue in central & local govt seems low atm.

Powerful mayors need watchdogs with bite 🐶 Today we're calling for new for new local Mayoral Authority Accountability Committees to hold leaders to account 🔍 Read the think piece by @zoebillingham.bsky.social & @marksandford.bsky.social, here ⤵️ www.ippr.org/articles/accountability-matters

This sneaked out in the midst of last week's elections: www.woking.gov.uk/news/governm... Direct support for a local authority with unmanageable debt is a new departure for UK government

Of all the four metro-mayor contests, most intrigued by this poll. I didn't expect the strength of Bristol's Green Party to have this much impact

Really interesting report conveying the most recent findings of @theunionsurvey.bsky.social's Future of England Study, detailing an English politics increasingly marked by 'anger' and 'fear':

After some time I have got around to updating the Commons Library's briefing paper on local audit commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri... Very dry even by my standards but worth reading to understand what has gone wrong in recent years and Government proposals to fix it

Read this thread through to the end - it’s a great summary of how disinformation operates, together with some tools for self defence

Really interesting from @stephenkb.bsky.social I’ve said it many times, but just picking up the GM model and plonking it somewhere else is harder than it sounds, as this week’s TVCA best value notice shows (the third CA to be given one) on.ft.com/3G8ahru

There's something interesting here about the way that CAs were set up, and the expectation at the time that they would be very different sorts of organisations to what they are currently (1/)

Also appears to forget about the London Assembly, which is probably better placed democratically to take on this kind of role

Excl: Ministers to serve best value notice on Ben Houchen’s Tees Valley Combined Authority due to continued governance concerns on.ft.com/3G2Ht3E