By coincidence, read this today. It’s a great study with lots of relevance to making the more ambitious devolution framework work. (The associated book has even more detail)

Giles Wilkes@gilesyb.bsky.social · 23h ago

Quotes: "during our period of study (1993-2024), mechanisms designed to regulate spending tended towards input control and short-term decision-making, struggled to support strategic investment and often failed to deliver sustained improvements in outcomes."

England’s sporting, cultural and political elites have long been imbued with the Anglo-centrism fostered under empire. (Belief that Britain’s and England’s interest can be conflated and require no distinct recognition)🧵

This is important - much more radical than local tax raising powers. If substantial it will also gain a momentum of its own as localities explore and exercise their new powers.

Andy Burnham to give regional mayors share of income tax

The prime minister says the move will give power to "every postcode" but critics say the plans lack detail.

bbc.co.uk

Thanks for reposting. I’ve also written about England, the UK and the need for Labour to understand the politics of nationhood open.substack.com/pub/nationst...

Andy, Labour, and the politics of nationhood

Can Labour find a nation politics?

open.substack.com

David Higham@oldtrotter.bsky.social · 2w ago

Someone who’s thought a lot about this is @jydenham.bsky.social Here’s something he wrote a few years ago and he also has a substack www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/blog/reformi...

Very good 👇

Giles Wilkes@gilesyb.bsky.social · 3w ago

There's gonna be a new PM. What he needs is an op-ed telling him what to do, of which there's no doubt a lamentable absence. Here's the time-hallowed method for creating one: 1. Set out the problem cleanly, as if the PM had literally no idea that growth, the cost of living and deficit matter. 1/

Burnham’s team will surely know that dropping the focus on Net Zero would be a ‘winter fuel allowance’ moment for key sections of the electorate.

Steve Akehurst@steveakehurst.bsky.social · 3w ago

Weird thing is most testing will show you that one of the most vote losing positions Labour could adopt is explicit anti-Net Zero signalling. This is because climate still disproportionately matters to Lab/Green voters while Lab/Reform voters don’t care either way...

Not going to lie, I think this is a bad idea. UK Government has not properly adjusted to devolution. We have a series of ministers who seem to largely man mark devolved nations/regions- we don't need more. Which creates even more clutter/duplication. We have to push power down *and* de-dupe.

PoliticsHome@politicshome.bsky.social · 3w ago

Labour MPs in the capital have urged Andy Burnham to bring back the minister for London role when he forms his first cabinet Florence Eshalomi, MP for Vauxhall & Camberwell Green, told PolHome's Harriet Symonds that doing so would help London "work with all the regions to support economic growth"

A successful Labour government needs to align its story of the nation(s), the organisation of the state, and its political aims and support.

Andy, Labour, and the politics of nationhood

Can Labour find a nation politics?

open.substack.com

A successful Labour government needs to align its story of the nation(s), the organisation of the state, and its political aims and support.

Andy, Labour, and the politics of nationhood

Can Labour find a nation politics?

open.substack.com

open.substack.com/pub/nationst...

Which England is on the pitch?

....as the World Cup campaign begins

open.substack.com

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Andy Burnham is simply parroting the failed sports utopianism of Sunder Katwala" Influence?!? (according to the anglofuturist & ethnonat influencers anyway)

Enjoyed this discussion with Tom McTague, Pippa Catterall and Ros Wynne-Jones

Political Quarterly@politicalquarterly.bsky.social · 4w ago

Read insights from the debate 'Englishness, Britishness, and the Populist Challenge' presented by The Political Quarterly and the Orwell Foundation, written by @orwellprize.bsky.social's Sam Taylor Hill politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/english...

Collaboration between nations is essential. But it must be rooted in national democracy and support from voters.https://buff.ly/yJGURth

Collaboration between nations is essential. But it must be rooted in national democracy and support from voters.https://buff.ly/yJGURth

Collaboration between nations is essential. But it must be rooted in national democracy and support from voters.https://buff.ly/yJGURth

👇

David Higham@oldtrotter.bsky.social · last mo.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the House of Commons Library is a fantastic resource and there's no excuse for the ignorance that many MPs display on multiple topics, most recently on fiscal devolution commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

Voters want nation states to protect their interests from external threats. But what if this requires collaboration between nations? Navigating the politics of collaboration is tricky but essential.

Nations and Collaboration

The nation state and the politics of collaboration

nationstateandpolitics.substack.com

Voters want nation states to protect their interests from external threats. But what if this requires collaboration between nations? Navigating the politics of collaboration is tricky but essential.

Nations and Collaboration

The nation state and the politics of collaboration

nationstateandpolitics.substack.com

Voters want nation states to protect their interests from external threats. But what if this requires collaboration between nations? Navigating the politics of collaboration is tricky but essential.

Nations and Collaboration

The nation state and the politics of collaboration

nationstateandpolitics.substack.com

Voters want nation states to protect their interests from external threats. But what if this requires collaboration between nations? Navigating the politics of collaboration is tricky but essential.

Nations and Collaboration

The nation state and the politics of collaboration

nationstateandpolitics.substack.com

Re @jydenham.bsky.social - Exactly. The people of Cambridge did not create this governance structure. Ministers created the 'Greater Cambridge Partnership' (an infrastructure fund with convoluted decision-making processes) in 2014, the Combined Authority in 2017. Why?!?

John Denham@jydenham.bsky.social · last mo.

Whitehall decisions are entirely responsible for the messy structures we now have. The idea that a Whitehall initiated reorganisation would help is laughable. Better to press ahead with devolving powers, resources and accountability to what we have and then sort out the problems

A few years old but this study of nested deprivation provides some context to poverty in the south.

Place-based Politics and Nested Deprivation in the U.K.: Beyond Cities-towns, ‘Two Englands’ and the ‘Left Behind’

‘Place-based explanations’ of politics in the U.K. tell sweeping narratives about ‘Two Englands’, or of sizeable regions of the country that have been ‘Left Behind’, reinforcing popular accounts of...

tandfonline.com

Luke Raikes@lukeraikes.bsky.social · last mo.

Given everyone is talking about how there is poverty in the south as well as the north We looked at this comprehensively with an England-wide commission @thefabians.bsky.social We called the report 'A Good Life in all Regions' - because that's the goal. Including London and the south.

Funny thing about these London-centric Devo discussions is that those of us not in London - even in London adjacent places like Hampshire - can think of so many things we could do better if we were allowed to.

I take a different view. James Silverwood and I wrote this about missions as the missing element of industrial policy. open.substack.com/pub/nationst...

Mission, State, and the Common Good

Labour and industrial policy

open.substack.com

A thousand times this. The BBC would also benefit from not giving a shit what the Daily Mail has to say about anything.

Robert Saunders@robertsaunders.bsky.social · last mo.

One of the lessons of the last two years is that Labour urgently needs to stop being afraid of its own shadow. Burnham should appoint whoever he thinks would be the best Chancellor and throw his authority behind them. The Daily Mail will try to kill them anyway. So just govern.

I continue to enjoy the English political class's steadfast belief that fiscal devolution is unnatural and wrong when every other OECD country does it very successfully.

It needs both fiscal transfers and local autonomy, which in practice our Northern European peers are able to achieve. So can we. And the prize for getting it right actually is a reduction in regional disparities, at least if the OECD is to be believed.

Of course unions look out for their members but it defies belief that they chose *this week* to lobby for more North Sea oil drilling. They should be lobbying for super-generous retraining terms.

👍

David Higham@oldtrotter.bsky.social · last mo.

As you were saying @jydenham.bsky.social

++BREAKING++ Leading climate scientists in the UK have written to senior editors in broadcast media - and OFCOM and IPSO: "To express our concern about recent media coverage of extreme weather, climate change and net-zero and to urge you…to inform public audiences of the scientific links"

open.substack.com/pub/nationst...

National Populism’s appeal to the nation

How national populism shapes its appeal to each nation.

open.substack.com

David Henig@davidheniguk.bsky.social · last mo.

Once again for the slow class, the rise of populism including in the UK is not primarily an economic but a social one because it is happening across Europe regardless of different national circumstances. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...