[The Weeping Angel]

I hadn't heard of this bill, but it's a fairly big deal and likely positive.

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-brexit-bill-n ... ing-about/

Joël Reland unpacks the significant Brexit bill no-one’s talking about – the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which would give UK ministers the power to unilaterally align with EU regulations related to the environmental impact of products. He highlights that there is still much that’s not clear about the Bill at this stage, and that parliamentary scrutiny will be crucial.

"Environmental impact" is pretty wide, and will likely cover lots of stuff from product safety to regulating supply chains, possibly even regulating online marketplaces (if I've understood that correctly).

Unfortunately, there's a ridiculous debate whereby anything short of joining the Single Market and Customs Union is basically written off as nothing. Continuity Remainers are some of the most tedious people in politics. There's a lot of overlap between people accusing Rachel Reeves of being cakeist this week and who think the UK just waltzes back in on easily sellable terms.

Not to mention a complete inability to consider their approach hasn't worked at all and has often made the problem worse.

[The Weeping Angel]

The economy shrank by 0.1 percent and naturally its all Rachel reeves fault because her budget was an attack on business and anyway she's not a real economist. Guido Fawkes said so.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep.

Chaminda Jayanetti
‪@cjayanetti.bsky.social‬
In the space of six months, Angela Rayner has made substantive progress on:

- workers' rights
- planning reform
- renters' rights
- local government reorganisation
December 14, 2024

Local government reorganization reported by the FT, and it would be certainly be substantial. Abolition of district councils- some of these are very small- replaced by unitaries of about 500,000 people.

People still moan about Ted Heath's reorganization of local government, so this is brave but ought to save a fair bit in running costs.

[The Weeping Angel]

Of course the BBC would far rather report on rows instead. Case in point

https://bsky.app/profile/gabrielmilland ... 5arcogzk2o

[Andy McDandy]

Probably the best, most effective cost saving measure available. Downside being lots of pissed off former district councillors moaning to the local media.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah. And hyperlocalism that'll make David Brent's hump with Swindon look reasonable.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I was thinking about merging police forces. I'm surprised to see that Labour published proposals to do that in 2006, but nothing happened- presumably the next Home Secretary didn't want to do it. Some of these look too big, some fairly sensible. We hear a lot about county lines crime, Bigger forces would presumably be able to put together stronger teams to target that.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... cy.ukcrime

[Tubby Isaacs]

From 2 days ago.

James Ball
‪@jamesrball.com‬
“Six months in, Keir Starmer appears to be running his government on the Fawlty Towers principle: instead of not mentioning the war, ministers seem forbidden from mentioning Breit or anything related to it.”

I get that Brexit Brexit Brexit is the base of the New European readership, but this was 3 days after Rachel Reeves... talked about Brexit, in a speech to Eurozone finance ministers.

[The Weeping Angel]

I like James Ball but stuff like this is really irritating me.

[davidjay]

Government by grown-ups is all very well, but annoyingly it's being reported on by chidren.

[Tubby Isaacs]

In another example of Labour not having any policies, Angela Rayner has announced the devolution/ local government stuff.

[Andy McDandy]

According to Facebook's political experts, it's all pointless because there's no money available, and besides, the caahncil will just waste the money anyway.

Seriously, just drop the fucking bomb.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's like the Vicky Coren's Amanda Platell guessing game.

Will the Facebook Brains Trust say

a) Waste of time, the council will waste it anyway?
b) Brilliant, fewer politicians and councils the better?

Except it's even more reliably the more cynical option than with Amanda.

[Youngian]

The hot online take is that abolishing district councils will mean they're won't be elections for district councils in May. Because Keir Stalin hates democracy.

[NevTheSweeper]

In another example of Labour not having any policies, Angela Rayner has announced the devolution/ local government stuff.

The government's proposals will not deliver any real benefits. These will send shockwaves across already hardpressed councils in England. They will inevitably lead to significant job cuts, reduced democracy and the continuation of centralisation of local services TOWARDS Whitehall. They also will not address the continued underfunding for local services.

As it stands, local councils are already too remote from citizens, and such changes will make an already bad situation even worse. A simpler solution would be to create regional assemblies outside London, which would deliver services currently managed by central government, for example, the NHS and social security. They would be able to work with the existing network of councils without the neeed for more mass reorganisation. The electoral system could be changed from FPTP to PR.

(For the record, I live in London, so we may not be affected so much, but I fear for most of the rest of England that this change is being considered at the expense of more urgent priorities.)

[Abernathy]

Traitors . We should be so fucking lucky.

[Andy McDandy]

Nev, I have worked in local government for the best part of the last 25 years.

You are talking bollocks.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They will inevitably lead to significant job cuts, reduced democracy and the continuation of centralisation of local services TOWARDS Whitehall.

There are loads of unitary councils already, some being literally counties. Is there a big groundswell in Buckinghamshire to bring back Aylesbury Vale District Council? If it's good enough for North Yorkshire, which was the largest post 1974 county, with a population of 623,000, hard to see where it isn't good good enough for.

Employing people in local government isn't an end in itself, and one of the points is to rationalize away duplication. You can also concentrate expertise better. You might have some excellent planners working for the county and some for the district council. Have both lots in the same organisation and quality improves. The greater the expertise, the more people it can cope with devolution. And nowadays with home working, it's not a case that everybody will need to be in an office in Taunton or Northallerton or Aylesbury. People can work from home and be close to the areas they're covering. Given that lots of local government is outsourced nowadays, surely the payback in better contract management alone should be considerable.

I agree that it'll be a distraction and might need some extra funding, but local government has had two reasonably OK funding settlements. So it should be possible to do, with the prospect of long term savings.

I look forward to the Opposition (who did a lot of unitaries themselves) telling us why the new unitaries are all different. Doubtless we'll hear a lot about out of touch elites in cities ruling over the down to earth country folk. Elites in the likes of Gloucester or Luton, perhaps.

[Andy McDandy]

It's remarkably easy to get in touch with your local council. Community fora, online discussion, councillor surgeries etc. It's just easy for people to blame bureaucracy for their own apathy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Traitors . We should be so fucking lucky.

This would of course be completely different to the teams of negotiators put together by the Tories to negotiate trade deals.

The number of people who don't want an improved trading relationship with the EU isn't very large. Unlike BTL on the Guardian, I think that there might be a problem with bringing back free movement and fairly large sounding payments into the EU budget. But short of that, I can't see who thinks "Outrageous that we're not passing a load of special regs".