In the revolving door that was the secretary of state's office responsible for local government under Labour (Prescott, Byers, Prescott again, Miliband, Kelly, Blears, Denham) each new incumbent tended to regard having their own white paper as a badge of office.
The coalition in contrast appears to have decided that one local government Bill is quite enough for one Parliament. Considering that it is both unravelling 13 years of Labour policy (and in the case of scrapping the Audit Commission previous Tory policy as well) along with setting out its own stall for local government until 2015 it is hardly surprising the Localism Bill is due to run to 200 clauses. Indeed the diminutive local government minister Bob Neill joked last week at a conference that although he had a copy of the Bill on his desk he could still see over the top of it.
