Title

FINANCE

MHCLG's new lockdown hobby

Lockdown has prompted many of us to take up new hobbies – from painting to learning a language.

Lockdown has prompted many of us to take up new hobbies – from painting to learning a language.

And it seems that levels of boredom at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) have reached such levels that the press office has turned to blogging its way through the coronavirus crisis.

‘MHCLG in the Media' bills itself as a review of stories about the department in the news, including ‘rebuttal of inaccurate comment'.

In a move that has the remnants of Dominic Cummings' clammy fingerprints all over it, the blog has been busy laying into Guardian editorials - which apparently ignore ‘the fact councils' core spending power rose by over £2.9bn this financial year even before additional emergency funding was announced' – and tweets by Newsnight's policy editor.

The blustering bloggers also variously described suggestions in the Manchester Evening News about the future of rough sleeping support as ‘inaccurate, simply wrong, entirely wrong, entirely incorrect and misleading'.

Diary awaits the next installation of the blog, which might look to correct MHCLG's own press statement referring to ‘City of Lincolnshire Council'.

FINANCE

Rebuilding localism from the ashes of structural reform

By Colin Copus | 25 June 2026

Steve Leach and Colin Copus say that as reorganisation accelerates, leaders should consider how community identity, subsidiarity and local accountability can...

FINANCE

Leading through change

By Heather Jameson | 24 June 2026

Amid council political upheavals and an increasing equality, diversity and inclusion backlash, the PPMA’s new president Sandra Farquharson argues HR leadersh...

FINANCE

The net zero realist

By Paul Marinko | 11 June 2026

Housing remains one of the greatest strains on council finances and the Government’s public promises tend toward the unrealistic, but one housing director in...

FINANCE

What England can learn from Japan's approach to local government finance

By Naoki Fujiwara | 04 June 2026

Consideration of Japan’s approach to local government funding suggests possibilities for doing things differently in England and opens up space to think abou...