Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

This article has a point, why does a journo needs to publish such a list why isn't the Labour Party busy pushing these into people's faces:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/22/labour-2025-apprenticeships-workers-wages-price-rises-children

Their comms are shit. FWIW they do often do the big list of achievements (I think as in everything else they're mimicking what Blair and Brown did at the dispatch box). I think you can also caveat or question a lot of Toynbee's list - and I would on many points. But her role in Guardian commentary (previously seen under Blair and Brown) is to be filled with hope about Labour and then gradually disillusioned.

On their comms I've mentioned before but they announced ID cards as their big policy idea and have since never mentioned it again. You need to build an argument. You need to do it before announcements (Cameron called it "rolling the pitch", Blair "framing the argument"). Then you need to mke your argument. You then need to keep the pressure. But also it's just very, very old school. I don't want to push this too far because I'm not sure on cause/symptom - but Number 10 is full of people recommended by Blair who previously worked for him (to an unprecedented degree - it'd be like if Cameron's Downing Street was full of Major hands, or Blair's first team had Bernard Donoughue and Marcia Williams back in situ). To nick Cameron's line - they were the future once. They were fantastic at comms and strategy in the late 90s early 2000s. For example, Alastair Campbell came from tabloid journalism (owned by Robert Maxwell, father of Ghislaine, incidentally - mad to think there'd be a more disreputable member of that family than Robert). The people around Starmer either come from that background still or are trying to cosplay it.

On that modernity you posted about Reform having a studio that was being covered - that's just 21st century comms. They have used some of their space in Westminster to build an instant reaction studio - it can be used for events but more often it's used to do really short clips for YouTube and TikTok on reaction. Zack Polanski has a podcast where he does long interviews with people (Farage has noted that's a really good idea they should have got their first). I think Starmer launching a Substack is a step in the right direction - but the last TikTok by Number 10 was when Boris Johnson was PM. Again on ID cards within the first day Tories and Reform (possibly Lib Dems and Greens too) had already done social media videos, opposed groups had launched a joint social media campaign - Labour did one Instagram post. They've recently hired someone from the Sun whose line is that we're no longer in a 24 hour news cycle but a 24 second one - but I've not yet seen a shift.

I think part of it is also the lack of analysis and strategy because the comms are downstream of that in my view - and I think this might be the bigger issue. They don't have a narrative to tell because they don't have an analysis of where we are, or a strategy of where they want us to go. It is a list of things - disconnected, isolated from each other, piled up and presented to voters "will this do?" And I think that ultimately comes from the top.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, local authority to make both spending decisions, and to raise the revenue required is key.  A good case study for how well this can work is the transformation of Canadian airports from being run by the Federal government to local airport authorities. It transformed Vancouver Airport from a dumpy little airport that could barely keep up with local demand into an international passenger and cargo hub.

But also important is that the federal funding be maintained to some degree, its just that the local authority maintains control.

Exactly. As I see I'm being accused of rightist anti-party deviancy, I think some context is helpful. This is an ugly, ugly chart (but I can't find the more attractive one I've seen in the past). The UK is the most fiscally centralised country in the OECD this is basically the make up of local government revenue across OECD members - local governments raise only a small share of their total revenue through their own taxes:


I'd add that in a particularly toxic combo, a lot of local governments are also spending about 85-90% of their revenue on their statutory duties such as social care, addressing homelessness etc.

Relatedly in no country in the OECD does local government spend much on economic development (in part because it needs to focus on those statutory duties).

Totally agree with your example - same applies to Leeds. If Leeds wants a public transit system - which makes perfect sense - they should be able to raise the taxes, issue the bonds etc to do it. Go to the public on a platform of building a tram system - as the Mayor did and be able to deliver on it, rather than have to depend on decision making in Whitehall. Similarly if a local authority wants to take an airport into public ownership they should be able to. We hear so much about the UK's tech centres like Cambridge, Oxford and Milton Keynes and the need for the national government to invest there. It's true there's tech companies there but Stoke has a bigger tech sector than any of them (not least because it's four times bigger) but there's zero interest - and nothing Stoke can do to develop it on their own.

I'd also add that UK local government revenue is also very unusual in that the taxes are 100% property taxes. Exactly the problematic property taxes we've talked about in this thread before. I think again this means local government does not capture any benefit from encouraging growth. So in France there's a local surcharge on payroll tax explicitly for transport. That makes it worth local government's time to boost payrolls (both numbers and wages). It doesn't really matter for UK local government. I also think this has an impact on planning because I think local government basically have to deal with all the negatives but get none of the benefits.

But another Tom Forth chart on the impact of this - the UK and France both have seven cities with over 1,000,000 - ours are vastly poorer and less productive (and I'd add London is rich enough that it can self-finance a lot of projects):


And personally I think London/Whitehall is very very happy with everyone dependent and in a position of learned helplessness. I think it's why, whenever the civil service decides to open regional offices (like the ONS in Newport or Treasury 2 in Darlington) they put them in small centres that are not going to really challenge. France puts them in Lyon or Toulouse - big serious cities, able to see agglomeration benefits etc.

Edit: And I'd add that I think the less local authorities are able to make decisions like bringing airports under democratic control, or to build a transit system, the more the distance will grow and the more dependent they'll become on redistribution - which will be ever more focused on alleviating poverty rather than developing the local economy. As I say, especially with Burnham as a threat to Starmer I really wouldn't be surprised to see Whitehall try to knock Manchester down a peg - which'll be done in the name of needing to prioritise other, more deserving, less disruptive regions/cities.

[Josquius]

Maybe that's the thing there.
I just don't believe that local governments are uninterested in growth because they don't get straight tax kick backs from this.

By the same logic, since property taxes are where they do make their money, they should be building housing like crazy.... But they aren't.

Local governments in cities do care about growth. They want what is best for their people - both idealistically and because this is what will get them reelected.

As I say I'm very much down with local governments getting more power over spending. But we need to keep funding the poorer areas of the country from the richer areas.
We need to do this more in fact so we can actually close the gap as Germany did.

On civil service.... There are big centres in Newcastle and Leeds I know. I assume other large cities too.
There's definitely a bit of a problem though in lower ranking work tending to be heavier outside London with it basically been a unwritten rule career climbers have to be in London. This is a big problem.