I recently finished reading Andrew Marr's entertaining history of post-war Britain, based on his TV series. Both ended on ahigh note in mid-2007, showing Britain as a global financial power, confident in its future, having emerged from decades of decline… What a difference two years makes. Marr could write another book based on the events since 2007 alone. We have undergone a financial revolution, the end of an era, the first recession in almost two decades, and a suspicion that maybe, after all, our lauded prosperity was just built on sand. And, with the financial crisis comes a political crisis. Just as the public have lost faith in banks, so they now have in Parliament and Government. But, is David Cameron, through his speech this week at the Open University, articulating that sense of sea change, or is he another politician jumping on the bandwagon? Is he genuine when he says more powers should pass to local government and that in turn, those of the centre must be reduced along with headcount? Or will he, as many suspect, simply change his tune if he is the Government? Cynics will say he needs his army of Conservative councillors during an election campaign, both the locals next week and the general next year, and keeps them on side with a few morsels of localism. Many of his references come from the recently-published Conservative local government Green Paper and are, therefore, not as a result of the recent political crisis. Some of his comments, on housing and schools, will not necessarily please his councillors, and attacks on Whitehall and inspectors are as old as the hills. But, it is always possible that he does reflect a genuine disenchantment with the organs of the state as well as the public's alienation from the political classes which serve/run them. If so, he has plenty of well-run councils, including his own, to show how more devolved services could be run locally even if as prime minister – and with the Whitehall machine on his case – he were reluctant to hand powers down to all in one move. Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ
