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.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think tax is a kick back

But that's not quite my point it's almost the other way round - local governments are unable to do things that would drive growth because they don't have the power to raise their own revenue, and without that power they also don't really see any benefits from it. There's a virtuous cycle there. Marseille raises local taxes including a cut of payroll tax - it builds three metros and multiple trams, publicly owned airport, all of which drive growth and productivity increasing their local tax take.

They just get the costs - more roads to maintain, bins to collect etc and the control from central government. I mean take property tax - unreformed because central government needs to do it so stuck to 1991 valuatiaons, but also capped (by central government) with a requirement (imposed by central government) that if you want to raise it more than a certain amount you need to do a local referendum (similar story on business rates). That should be in the democratic control of local authorities - plus some degree of control over income and payroll taxes too. As I say - the one region converging significantly is Scotland. A nation with significant devolution, including over tax.

Again we're already spending more on regional transfers - and have since 1990 than Germany did on reunification. And every single East German region has overtaken the North of England. I don't see any reason to assume that would change if we just keep going or actually redistribute more. In my view because it's not just money - spent on alleviating inquality - but democratic control of revenue raising and spending powers that allowed East German states to make decisions that have boosted their economy. If they want a tram system they can pay for it themselves from their own tax base.

As I say my guess is Manchester - which now has a tram and an integrated bus system - and is doing "well" (ish) wll now basicaly get fuck all from government because it's doing too well. If Manchester had control over its own policies and finances, it'd get the rewards of those good decisions and be able to re-invest in more trams, better connections - maybe work with West Yorkshire on a better connection between two urban hubs that are less than 50 miles away but take two hours to get to.

I'd add that I don't fully mind London dictating what needs to be spent on - I don't really disagree with any of the statutory duties (social care, homelessness etc) or that London funds them. To me that makes sense. Westminster has decided those services are to be delivered by local authorities, it seems appropriate to me that Westminster should fund them. It's the rest.

Edit: I wonder if part of the difference is that you think if there's local control over tax the only way they'd compete is through cutting taxes. Whereas I think higher taxes, for public investment (particularly in transport) would actually be more effective - like cities around the world including all of those French ones that are richer and more productive than similar sized British cities. It's not because they've slashed taxes.

I also think without local ability to raise revenue it will basically always boil down to everyone in the country fighting over small change from Whitehall. Inevitably, having followed the best practice (recommended by a London consultancy), with review by independent experts (who live in London and the South East), the civil service (based in London) will not fund many projects in the North. (This ties to my other suspicion that fundamentally even people in Paris fundamentally like the rest of France if only as a place to holiday, while I really do think a lot of Londoners/South-East genuinely don't really give a fuck/like much of the rest of the country - especially after the Brexit vote.)